Lesson 1:Globalization

Globalization and Global Competence

Globalization has become a dominating factor in world relations. It affects how people interact with one another in personal and professional settings. It affects what and how we buy, where we live and how we act and interact with other people. This phenomena of globalization requires individuals to learn and develop a new set of skills that allows them to interact with globally and culturally diverse people on an individual basis. As the world becomes more connected through virtual communication technologies such as Facebook, Skype, and Google applications, one needs to develop the attitudes, knowledge and skills to be globally competent. In engineering this global competence will enable engineers to partner with other experts and clients throughout the world to successfully design functional, culturally sensitive products.

Goals and Objectives

The purpose of this lesson is to provide a rational for developing global competence. It will provide several examples of how globalization currently works within the world and engineering communities. In doing so the lesson will provide a definition of what it means to be globally competent. It will explain what ethnocentrism is and how it affects globalization. Finally it will define cultural intelligence and how it affects globalization.

Globalization

So what is globalization and what advantages does it have? Globalization treats the entire world as a single entity (Ferraro, 2006). In this way it examines when, where and how things may be done to accomplish goals and objectives. It allows one to access expertise throughout the world. In this way a business may learn of cultural differences or influences that hinder how a product is received in a new location. The local expert may also help the company or organization navigate government or cultural pathways to facilitate a product or activity entering into a country.

It opens up markets by placing part of a company´s workforce in a nation where they hope to gain a significant market share. An example would be a car company locating an assembly factory in a country where they wish to establish a strong presence. In this way local people are employed and the company is able to move into the market.

Globalization is not without its problems and concerns. For example, moving production from one country to another will cause unemployment in the original country. Such a move may be to a country with weaker labor and environmental laws and social structures. Another consideration is that globalization requires individuals to be able to look beyond the way they do things in their culture and learn how things are done in other cultures. Often products and procedures need to be adapted to the needs, values and customs of local people. Even something as simple as a refrigerator varies dramatically from one culture to another because of how the product is used. As illustrated in the diagram below globalization becomes a meshing of technology, culure and business (engineering) to achieve a wide variety of goals and to produce products that work given within given cultural boundaries.