Throughout history, commerce and business have been limited by certain geographic constraints. In its earliest days, trade happened between neighboring tribes and city-states. As humans domesticated the horse and other animals, the distances they could travel to trade increased. These distances increased further with the development of seafaring capabilities.
Although humans have been using ships for centuries to transport goods, cargo, people, and ideas around the world, it wasn’t until the development of the airplane that the blueprint of a “globalized economy” was laid. This was for a simple reason: You can travel greater distances faster than ever before.
The development of the internet accelerated this process even more, making it easier to communicate and collaborate with others. Today, your international co-worker, business partner, customer, or friend is only a few taps or clicks away.
Globalization has had numerous effects—both positive and negative—on business and society at large. Here’s an overview of the pros and cons of globalization in business.
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Globalization is the increased flow of goods, services, capital, people, and ideas across international boundaries according to the online course Global Business, taught by Harvard Business School Professor Forest Reinhardt.
“We live in an age of globalization,” Reinhardt says in Global Business. “That is, national economies are even more tightly connected with one another than ever before.”
Globalization has had a significant impact on various aspects of daily life.
For example, it’s changed the way consumers shop for products and services. Today, 70 percent of Americans shop online. In 2022, there were 268 million digital buyers in the US and by 2025, this number is predicted to reach 285 million.
In addition, the globalized economy has opened up new job markets by making it more feasible to hire overseas workers. This has created a wide range of career opportunities for both job seekers and employers.
The emergence of remote work post-pandemic was also made possible by globalization. According to a survey from WFH Research, only seven percent of paid workdays in the US were remote in 2019. However, this number climbed to 29 percent by January 2024.
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It’s widely believed that one of the benefits of globalization is greater economic growth for all parties. There are several reasons why this might be the case, including:
For a globalized economy to exist, nations must be willing to put their differences aside and work together. Therefore, increased globalization has been linked to a reduction—though not an elimination—of conflict.
“Of course, as long as there have been nations, they've been connected with each other through the exchange of lethal force—through war and conquest—and this threat has never gone away,” Reinhardt says in Global Business. “The conventional wisdom has been that the increased intensity of these other flows—goods, services, capital, people, and so on—have reduced the probability that the world's nations will fall back into the catastrophe of war.”
According to the course Global Business, globalization has led to an increase in cross-border investment. At the macroeconomic level, this international investment has been shown to enhance welfare on both sides of the equation.
The country that’s the source of the capital benefits because it can often earn a higher return abroad than domestically. The country that receives the inflow of capital benefits because that capital contributes to investment and, therefore, to productivity. Foreign investment also often comes with, or in the form of, technology, know-how, or access to distribution channels that can help the recipient nation.
When viewed as a whole, global free trade is beneficial to the entire system. Individual companies, organizations, and workers can be disadvantaged, however, by global competition. This is similar to how these parties might be disadvantaged by domestic competition: The pool has simply widened.
With this in mind, some firms, industries, and citizens may elect governments to pursue protectionist policies designed to buffer domestic firms or workers from foreign competition. Protectionism often takes the form of tariffs, quotas, or non-tariff barriers, such as quality or sanitation requirements that make it more difficult for a competing nation or business to justify doing business in the country. These efforts can often be detrimental to the overall economic performance of both parties.
“Although we live in an age of globalization, we also seem to be living in an age of anti-globalization,” Reinhardt says in Global Business. “Dissatisfaction with the results of freer trade, concern about foreign investment, and polarized views about immigration all seem to be playing important roles in rich-country politics in the United States and Europe. The threats in Western democracy to the post-war globalist consensus have never been stronger.”
Another issue of globalization is that it can introduce disproportionate growth both between and within nations. These effects must be carefully managed economically and morally.
Within countries, globalization often has the effect of increasing immigration. Macroeconomically, immigration increases gross domestic product (GDP), which can be an economic boon to the recipient nation. Immigration may, however, reduce GDP per capita in the short run if immigrants’ income is lower than the average income of those already living in the country.
Additionally, as with competition, immigration can benefit the country as a whole while imposing costs on people who may want their government to restrict immigration to protect them from those costs. These sentiments are often tied to and motivated—at least in part—by racism and xenophobia.
“Meanwhile, outside the rich world, hundreds of millions of people remain mired in poverty,” Reinhardt says in Global Business. “We don't seem to be able to agree about whether this is because of too much globalization or not enough.”
Increased globalization has been linked to various environmental challenges, many of which are serious, including:
While such issues are governed by existing or proposed laws and regulations, businesses have made climate change concerns and sustainability a priority by, for example, embracing the tenets of the triple bottom line and the idea of corporate social responsibility.
The world is never going to abandon globalization. While it’s true that individual countries and regions put policies and practices in place that limit globalization, such as tariffs, it’s here to stay. The good news is that businesses and professionals willing to prepare for globalization’s challenges by developing strong social impact skills have the potential to benefit immensely.
Whether you’re a business owner, member of executive leadership, or an employee, understanding the impacts of globalization and how to identify its opportunities and risks can help you become more effective in your role and drive value for your organization.
Taking a course like Global Business is one path toward developing international business skills and gaining an understanding of the macroeconomic, political, and social conditions that continue to impact globalization.
Are you interested in breaking into a global market? Sharpen your knowledge of the international business world with Global Business, one of our online business in society courses. If you aren't sure which course is the right fit, download our free course flowchart.
This post was updated on February 26, 2024. It was originally published on April 15, 2021.
