Globalization and stakeholder conflicts: A corporate perspective

International Affairs

Volumn 73, Issue 3, 1997, Pages 453-468

  Julius, Deanne ^a  

^a NONE

Author keywords

[No Author keywords available]

Indexed keywords

EID: 0041195053     PISSN: 00205850     EISSN: None     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.2307/2624267     Document Type: Article

References (27)

1. Richard Falk describes globalization as a situation where 'the aggregation of states, what has been called "a states system", is no longer in control of the global policy process. Territorial sovereignty is being diminished on a spectrum of issues in such a serious manner as to subvert the capacity of states to control and protect the internal life of society, and non-state actors hold an increasing proportion of power and influence in the shaping of world order'. See 'State of siege: will globalization win out?', International Affairs 73: 1, January 1997.
2. Kenichi Ohmae, The borderless world (London: Collins, 1990).
3. Susan Stranges work makes this point very clearly. See The retreat of the state: the diffusion of power in the world economy (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1996), and reviewed in this issue, p. 573.
4. Paul Hirst and Grahame Thompson claim that the core belief of globalization is that it leads to a world dominated by 'uncontrollable market forces' and the 'uncontrolled influence of transnational corporations'. See Globalisation in question: the international economy and the possibilities of governance (Cambridge: Polity, 1996). See also Hirst, 'The global economy - myths and realities', in this issue.
5. Paul Hirst and Grahame Thompson claim that the core belief of globalization is that it leads to a world dominated by 'uncontrollable market forces' and the 'uncontrolled influence of transnational corporations'. See Globalisation in question: the international economy and the possibilities of governance (Cambridge: Polity, 1996). See also Hirst, 'The global economy - myths and realities', in this issue.
6. There is a vast literature on environment, trade and development. For a recent collection of essays see Jacob Werksman, Greening international institutions (London: Earthscan, 1996). On global crime, see ch. 8 of Strange, op. cit.
7. Newsletter of the Centre for Tomorrow's Company, May 1997.
8. There is a debate over the significance of globalization with some economists claiming that there is little strikingly new or quantitatively different about the degree of market integration today compared with, for example, the 1900-1913 period. (Henderson, op. cit.; P. Hirst and G. Thompson, op. cit.).
9. Arie de Geus, The living company (Cambridge, MA: Harvard Business School Press, 1997).
10. The effect that this has made in different industries is detailed in Michael Dertouzos, Richard Lester and Robert Solow, Made in America: regaining the productive edge (Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 1989).
11. Intelliquest's World-Wide Internet Tracking Study (www.intelliquest.com), March 1997.
12. Interview with Claire Furneaux, 'Small business, big future', Business Life, April 1997.
13. An early and influential view was Francis Fukuyama's The end of history and the last man (New York: Free Press), 1992.
14. Richard Brown and I tackle these arguments in, 'Is manufacturing still special in the New World Order', in Richard O'Brien, ed., Finance and the international economy (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1993).
15. In the banking sector, for example, London's Big Bang followed Wall Street's deregulation by nearly a decade and Tokyo is only now following London after a lag of 12 years.
16. For a discussion of this point in the airline industry in Canada, see Tae Oum, The Ottawa Citizen, 2 Dec. 1996.
17. These figures are drawn from US and UK experience. Privatizations in some developing countries have achieved even greater efficiency gains. Cases where gains have been lower have generally involved limited competition in the marketplace (e.g. British Gas which was privatized as a single entity, although it is now in the process of breaking itself up), or where major investments needed to be made after years of underfunding by government (e.g. some of the water companies in the UK).
18. See the Greenborough and Cadbury codes of practice.
19. However, for a contrary view see Michael Novak's essay, The future of the corporation (Washington DC: AEI Press, 1996).
20. Will Hutton has argued the need for such a mechanism in The state we're in (London: Jonathan Cape, 1995).
21. Ford's recent attempt to produce a 'world car' is an example. Although the car could be mass produced and assembled with interchangeable components made on several continents, consumer tastes in Europe, Japan and North America were so different that customized versions eventually had to be produced which negated the cost advantages of globally sourced components.
22. The link between globalization and community stakeholders, as well as the literature on communitarianism, is explored in R. Barry Jones, 'Globalization versus community', New Political Economy 2: 1, 1997.
23. See Charles Handy, 'The citizen corporation', paper prepared for Seminar 3 of 'The sovereignty seminar', Birkbeck College, University of London, April 1997.
24. See the speech given in Amsterdam in October 1996 by C. A. J. Herkstroter, 'Dealing with contradictory expectations - the dilemmas facing multinationals' (London: Shell International, 1996).
25. Francis Fukuyama, Trust: the social virtues and the creation of prosperity (London: Hamish Hamilton, 1995).
26. Conversely, one of the main deterrents to investment in Russia is its weakly developed system of corporate law. The chief fear of investors in Hong Kong is the change in legal system after it joins the PRC.
27. The former Soviet system was able to defy the basic microeconomic relationships between prices, marginal costs and marginal productivity for such a long period only because it acted through political means to isolate its economy from the rest of the world. Once those political means collapsed, the inefficiencies and economic waste of the system, as well as the extreme environmental damage it had caused, were fully exposed.