Integration vs. Fragmentation

Globalisation creates new global, regional and transnational communities that unite people across territorial boundaries. However it can also potentially divide and fragment communities, for example labour can become divided along sectoral, local, national and ethnic lines.

These insights into the opposing reactions that accompany increasing globalisation indicate some of the areas of difficulty that may be faced by national firms and those increasing their international involvement. Personnel issues are becoming ever more commonplace with many western companies now reducing the amount of home grown executives working away in foreign countries for extended periods. Due to failures highlighted in the performance of these employees they are fast being replaced by local, third and returning national alternatives. The actual process of HRM in these countries can be much more stressful and difficult than at home with managers often suffering from social problems such as cultural isolation and a lack of support for the family’s involved. Costs are also a big factor with local nationals being cheaper to hire and more often efficient at the job in hand.

While many leading multinational companies are attempting to standardise their business systems across the globe they often find difficulty in efficiently coping with the differences presented by culture and national identity. The relationship between globalisation effects and national business systems is one of continual each way reaction evolution, while leading multinationals both set the standards in technology and have high influ ence over many countries, reactions are always occurring on the other side to both adapt and gain from the changes where possible. Some say globalisation has been occurring for as long as civilization has been documented however the relatively recent magnitude of change is presenting ever increasing issues for national and multinational firms and for many change will be needed in the...