![]() ![]() Given the distinction between the global and the multinational, it is possible to claim that there has been a semantic shift from multinational to transnational and global studies in the late 1980s (James and Steger 2014). In other words, a global corporation operates as if the world is a single place moving beyond the national, regional, and local differences in economic and social terms. What distinguishes a global corporation or market from a multinational one is the former's conception of the world as interconnected rather than divided into separate, territorially bound communities. The article puts forward the idea that there is an emerging “new reality” based on the advancements in technology – in particular, in the sectors of communication and transport – and a global trend of standardization, which induces multinational economic actors to transform into global ones. ![]() The term “globalization” is believed to have been published in its current meaning for the first time in 1983 by an economist, in an article entitled “The Globalization of Markets” that appeared in Harvard Business Review (Levitt 1983). The circulation of the first pictures of the Earth by NASA, youth movements, and religious movements contributed to the popularization of thinking about the world as a single place. Meyer's world polity approach, and Immanuel Wallerstein's world-systems analysis. Studies that seek to analyze “the world-as-a-whole” gained popularity after World War II – particularly in the 1960s and the 1970s – leading to the development of several system theories in social sciences, such as (to name but a few) Niklas Luhmann's theory of autopoietic social systems, modernization theory, the Dependency School, John W. Skeptics, however, claim that globalization is no more than the latest “fad.” Conflicts over territory, natural resources, culture and identity, power imbalances, and all other social, economic, and political inequalities ensue without much change, which renders it difficult to conclude that there is a new empirical reality that can be called “globalization.” A well-known work that popularized the term “globalization” was entitled The Lexus and the Olive Tree ( 1999) and was authored by a journalist, Thomas Friedman, who defined globalization as the establishment and intensification of – in particular, economic – interdependencies among different nations, which, in his opinion, would contribute to the prevention of violent conflicts. The end of the bipolar system that was based on an ideological competition between the liberal Western bloc and the Soviet communist bloc encouraged many scholars to claim that the world was entering a “new era” led by globalization. Although research on global phenomena dates back to as early as the fifteenth century, the concept of globalization has particularly become an integral part of the work of those who study the post-Cold War era from different disciplinary perspectives, including economics, sociology, political science, and international relations, among others.
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