The Meaning of Globalisation

Here is an extract from Globalisation: The Key Concepts. (2007)

In academic circles, there are many definitions of and approaches to globalisation simply because it is not a field of study that is restricted to any one discipline. Globalisation scholars belong to fields as diverse as cultural studies, sociology, economics, international relations, political theory, art and linguistics. This cross-disciplinary nature of globalisation is perhaps one of its defining features. Hence, it is a field that borrow a significant number of terms and concepts from existing lexicons. The result is that what globalisation means is always in dispute. In the end, globalisation concerns a field of inquiry defined more by the questions it asks and its object of study: the world as a whole and parts of it in relation to this whole.

Among nonacademics, however, recent research indicated something of a consensus as to the meaning of globalisation (Garrett, Evens and Williams, forthcoming.) When asked what ‘globalisation’ made them think of, respondents tended to focus on economic issues including capitalism, money, big business, and the expansion of large corporations. The prominence of multinational corporations as increasingly present and powerful players in contemporary society was often noted.

This piece of text was brought to my attention by the way in which it defines ‘globalisation’. The text talks of people linking it more to capitalism, money, big business, and the expansion of large corporations, thus mentioning large businesses a lot. Although globalisation has helped large companies grow even larger, it has also helped a lot of small businesses start up and all of the businesses we know today as being ‘multinational corporations’ had to start somewhere along the line. The extract notes how the larger corporations are increasingly present in contemporary society, but I think that smaller companies also play a huge part in our society, whether people see it or not, and without them we would definitely notice a difference. I would like to look further into how globalisation has helped businesses grow, in particular smaller businesses who don’t necessarily have any intentions to become huge, but to expand enough to make a decent living.