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.Impact
of Globalisation on daily working life |
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By Frank
Brüggemann, MBA; Dipl.-Ing., Consultant |
1
Introduction
1.1 Background
A lot of companies expand their business into
international markets. In most cases, the motive is a search for
improved cost efficiency or looking for the chance to expand and
achieve growth. Today, companies are able to respond rapidly to
many foreign sales opportunities; this is made easier by technological,
governmental, and institutional developments. They can shift production
quickly among countries because of their experience in foreign markets
and because goods can be transported efficiently from most places.
Companies can also distribute component and/or product manufacturing
among countries to take advantage of cost differences.
Once a few companies respond to foreign market and production opportunities,
others may see that there are foreign opportunities for them as
well. All this is a part of the so called globalisation.
In operating globally, a company has to consider what the company
will seek to do and become over the long term (mission), its specific
performance targets to fulfil its mission (objectives), and the
means to reach its targets (strategy). There are many factors that
may influence companies to succeed in doing global business and
remaining competitive in the global arena.
Many companies are riding on the wave of globalisation; some of
their employees might get tangled up in the flow of the wave with
more and more personal involvement as the borders between the working
day and the private life become grey. They are challenged
with a multi-lingual working environment, exposure to different
cultures, an increase of pace and stress, they must adapt in order
to succeed.
The job profiles and working conditions of an international company
are nowadays aligned to totally different factors as possibly to
a decade ago. The markets are not limited anymore to the exclusive
region in which the company is based, but to the whole world. Additionally,
technological developments have promoted a flood of communications
on every level of economy which helped to ease the way of globalisation.
7 Conclusion - Part 4
Is the daily work life affected by the process
of globalisation, which is influencing the attitudes of the company
or the employers? Generally yes, it is.
We have seen that this company and the whole economy changed their
orientation on the market and thus their attitudes and policies
to their employees. Tremendous revolutions took place in the plot
of the working life of an employee in contrast to decades before
globalisation made pace.
The examined company moves in a global environment. The requirements
to do so for this company no longer exclusively refer to their core
competencies and activities, e.g. within the production goods range
from purely a technological view. But include far more interdisciplinary
entwinements (labour unions; wage policies; etc.), which the company
and the employee must go around.
Having observed items the employee depends on, tendencies in the
answers such as the sorrows and insecurities the employees have
because of changed work conditions, we can conclude there are several
interactions between the economy, the society, the enterprises and
the single employee, but there is only a little focus on the impacts
on this little cog-wheel the employee and his
private life.
Even in literature there are only a few scientists who researched
in this environment. Scientists on the subject of globalisation
like GOSHAL, BARTLETT and YIP are mainly focused on the economy
and the enterprises not on the humans behind all this.
So, there is a wide field for investigation on how our society,
and the individuals in it, are going to change in the coming years
with regard to ongoing globalisation.
The major difficulty during globalisation is, like in material existing
communism, the human being. It is not foreseeable how an employee
is acting in a company that is going global. Because of this each
person may think egoistically first, and also company heads provide
first for their company and their profit. And furthermore each state
puts first its own interests at expense of the other. A good example
of this is the European Union, in which only important resolutions
come to tough negotiations.
No technical invention, no political development, and no social
change - automatically leads exclusively to change for the better
or worse for everyone. No well intended ideology or policy will
bring eternal peace. Wealth for all is not realisable, neither by
economic systems, nor by globalisation. Every employee in a global
company is affected by globalisation - even though everyone is not
yet fully aware of how it currently functions.
So, he must try to understand what is happening and why and he must
regard globalisation as a personal challenge and take personal action.
Finally in such a work situation he will and has to pay attention
more than ever to his job and his personal life, in order to be
able to exist in a global job market.
In fact, the Impact of globalisation on daily working life
is there. The company passes on the pressure of globalisation to
each and everyone of the workforce it has to.
But first of all globalisation is neutral. It holds risks and even
chances for a nation state, a corporation and finally also for the
single employee even in his daily job situation.
Globalisation is furthermore not a natural phenomenon. It is sought
and made by people. That is why every single employee can also change,
shape and guide it in the right direction.
What counts is what the single employee makes out of the new possibilities.
As far as the company is globalised, or better spoken, as far as
the company is determined by the characteristics of globalisation,
e.g. entering into new cultures, as far are the employees forced
to adapt to those habits, just as being highly flexible also goes
with it.
Deficits in qualifications and flexibility of the workforce could
destabilise the position of the company in a global arena.
Consequently the company cannot make use of the workforce in a way
it would like to do, to fulfil the requirements in global markets.
The needs of workers themselves have changed. There is more and
more talk about the need to balance work and family or personal
responsibilities. The labour force has become increasingly diversified,
and this means that ongoing training has become a necessity. Moreover,
workers want a greater say in workplace organisation.
Despite this movement toward globalisation, there remain significant
environmental differences between countries and regions. Managers
in an international business must be sensitive to these differences
and also must adapt to the appropriate policies and strategies for
dealing with them (YIP, 1995).
Significant aspects of globalisation with regard to influences and
altering processes in the daily job are e.g. the trend to shift
toward more highly skilled jobs, as it is shown in Table 2 and the
trend that production and jobs have progressively shifted from the
goods sector to the service sector, so that knowledge-based industries
have grown. That means more and more occupations take place in the
office and not as much in a workshop as before.
But all the evidence is that these changes would be taking place
- not necessarily at the same pace - with or without globalisation.
In fact, globalisation is currently making this process easier and
maybe less costly to the economy as a whole by bringing the benefits
of capital flows, technological innovations, and lower import prices.
Thus, all the challenges and changes an employee has, could not
have been avoided.
Economic growth, employment and living standards are all higher
than they would be in a closed economy, so the economy as a whole
will of course flourish from policies that embrace globalisation
by generally promoting an open economy [8], and coincidently by
undertaking of the industry and the government to focus on education
and vocational training, to make sure that workers and employees
have the opportunity to acquire the right skills in dynamic changing
work environments.
The philosophy of world companies such as Sony, Coca Cola or McDonalds
to produce and sell theirs products on the whole world
became generally accepted more and more: Today liberty is defined
as boundless consumption. The problem of this variant from free-market
economy is however:
If there is only the market, everything and everyone becomes the
commodity. Companies with ten thousand employees are sold back and
forth several times in one year. The individuals fate apparently
of no interest, as long as the dividend is good.
Are there any possibilities to defend oneself against this?
Numerous other socio-economic factors currently affect the workplace
and the people in it.
The rapid pace of technological change is transforming the workplace
and the job experience.
It is facilitating the growth of various non-standard forms of work,
especially home work, telework and part-time work.
[...]
The full report can be
read
here
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.Energy
LAB |
LAB
on Old and New ENERGY
An immersed experience of a Do-Tank
April 17 & 18, 2007
Location:
Girona
near Barcelona, Spain
Max. 20 Delegates
Please
use our
Energy LAB Registration at
http://www.clubofamsterdam.com/contentevents/lab_registration_001energy.htm
Moderated by
Humberto Schwab,
Director, Club of Amsterdam, Innovation
Philosopher
and the Thought Leaders
Nathalie Horbach,
Centre for Energy, Petroleum and Mineral Law and Policy, University
of Dundee
Nuclear
policies specialist
Simon
Taylor, Director
and Co-Founder,
Global Witness
Environmental
issues
Christof
van Agt, International Energy Agency
Sustainable
energy specialist
Paul
Holister, Nanotechnology & Energy
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.News
about the future of the Global Workplace |
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Predictions
for the sourcing market in 2007
by David Skinner, John F. Delaney,
Nigel Colin Harris Stamp
- A continued trend
towards smaller, shorter deals as clients focus on individual
processes instead of large, complex institutional transactions;
- Increased reliance
on global service delivery models;
- Data privacy and
data security issues will become ever more important to outsourcing
customers;
- Increased offshoring
to Asia as clients become more confident about doing business
in China;
- The outcome of the
2006 U.S. midterm elections may lead to a revival of anti-outsourcing
sentiment in the United States; and,
- Large Japanese companies
will begin to adopt recognizable elements of IT outsourcing and
BPO models into their traditional contract partnering modes of
operation.
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GLOBAL
WORKPLACE
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Trade
and Employment
This
study is the outcome of collaborative research between
the Secretariat of the World Trade Organization (WTO) and the
International Labour Office (ILO). It addresses an issue that is
of concern to both organizations: the relationship between
trade and employment.
On the basis of an overview of the existing academic
literature, the study provides an impartial view of what can be
said, and with what degree of confidence, on the relationship
between trade and employment, an often contentious issue
of public debate. Its focus is on the connections between
trade policies, and labour and social policies and it will
be useful for all those who are interested in this debate:
academics and policy-makers, workers and employers, trade
and labour specialists.
download
the report
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.Club
of Amsterdam blog |
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Club
of Amsterdam blog
http://clubofamsterdam.blogspot.com
Subscribe
in a reader
March
20:
The
Future of the Web
March 13:
"We Media"
March 05:
Climate
and Energy Provision
February
27:
The
future of Nuclear Energy
February 21:
Nanotechnology
& Energy
February 12:
Innovation
- a hybrid connection between old practices?
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.News
about the Future |
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Biologically
Based Quantum Computers? DNA, Proteins, And Peptides Could Help
Construct New Nanoscale Electronics
by Science Daily
The U.S. Department of Defense is awarding a team of nine professors
from six universities $6 million over five years to exploit precise
biological assembly for the study of quantum physics in nanoparticle
arrays. This research will help to produce a fundamental understanding
of quantum electronic systems, which could impact the way future
electronics are created.
"By exploiting biology to precisely control size, spacing,
composition, and coupling in the arrays, we will be able to examine
the effects of electronic, magnetic, and optical interactions at
much smaller dimensions than in the past. This will open a wide
range of unbroken ground for exploring new physics," said electrical
and computer engineering professor Richard A. Kiehl of the University
of Minnesota, who is leading the effort.
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2006
European Innovation Scoreboard
The study concludes that innovation performance in the EU varies considerably
between Member States. There are a number of "innovation leaders"
in Europe, including Sweden, Denmark, Germany and Finland, as well
as many "innovation followers" where innovation performance
is generally satisfactory. However, more than half the Member States
are found to be lagging behind. This includes many new Member States,
most of which are in the process of catching up with the leading countries.
However, there are also some trailing countries where more improvements
are needed, including two two of the largest Member States.
The report furthermore
suggests that there is a process of convergence in the innovation
performance of Member States. This means that catching-up countries
are closing the gap with the EU average and both country groups of
innovation leaders and followers are experiencing a relative decline
in their innovation lead.
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."We
Media" |
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Q&A with Rudy
de Waele, Founder, M-trends.org
Rudy is a Thought Leader in the
LAB
on MEDIA and Human Experience
An immersed experience of a Do-Tank
May 29 & 30, 2007
Location: Girona near Barcelona, Spain
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Club of Amsterdam:
Rudy, you are a leading consultant to the
wireless industry. This industry is developing very fast. In most
cases I get the impression that products once reaching the customers
are already outdated. How does the mobile industry relate their
product development to "quality of life"?
This is indeed an industry
where products have an average 'lifecycle' of approximately 2 years.
Device manufacturers are designing products to different target
customers, with the flashy, shiny, trendy products as to be used
by the opinion leaders, early birds/first movers and trendsetters
first, and while learning from their experience, the manufactures
designs new and improved products that will fit the mass market
demand in 1 or 2 years.
"Quality of life"
is very important in mobile and wireless since every new generation
of phones adds something new to satisfy the demands of the consumer
and meet the expectations set by the marketing of the products.
Don't forget that the mobile phone is the most sold 'aspirational
gadget' of all times.
For example the new
data services, all multimedia (camera, images, video, mp3player,
webbrowser, etc.) integrated now in nearly any standard phone, was
just unimaginable only a couple of years ago. Note that a typical
high-end smartphone can match the performance of a mid-range laptop
computer only five years ago! Nokia don't call them phones any longer
but multimedia computers... But these new gadgets might bring also
new addictions, away from TV or PC to smaller screens such as mobile
devices.
Club of Amsterdam: New
technologies are getting more hybrid. Virtual worlds merge with
the "real" world and in this context the user experience
is also changing. How does the future consumer create his "personal"
media experience?
The youth of today
wants to stay connected all the time with their network of friends,
news, entertainment and events around through the PC or the mobile...
the universal sense of belonging has translated itself in the need
to 'stay connected' or 'always on'.
In 5 years time, my
'wearable media' (MyMedia) device will be able to do a lot more
things then what is currently possible, it will have the capacity
to store entire movies in good quality, my whole music catalogue,
photo album, design- and project works just on my mobile device,
to take that with me wherever I'll be, to connect it to other devices
and (bigger) screens and enjoy that media together with friends.
There will be a lot more possibilities for the user to be 'always
on' connected to the internet, the news, entertainment and stay
connected to my social networks connected with my friends and exchange
more content. So, pretty soon, anyone will have the tools and the
possibility to create his own media channel, through audio or video.
An explosion of user-media is yet still to come.
The virtual will more
easily connect with the physical world through taggable objects,
once tagged with a phone through image recognition, qr-codes or
2D codes, will bring you directly to some added-value or complementary
content or information on the subject tagged.
Club of Amsterdam: What
do you expect from a dialogue about media and human experience?
Raise a set of questions
that are essential to create a good human experience in relation
to the rapid technology developments of today. To think and discuss
about those questions and to put forward some essential issues towards
the industry. What is the influence of all this media to our children,
society in general? What can be done to improve this? How can we
improve our learning systems using media annd technology to make
sure our children can rapidly change/adapt to deal with the future
changes? Who will control global digital access in the future? What
about universal access? Multilingualism? Mobile learning systems?
Media conglomerations? Is this really we media or their media? How
to organize the overflow of information coming to us? Wikipedia
example? Who owns what kind of information and who can manipulate
what?
Thank you Rudy! |
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.Next
Season Event |
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the
future of the
Gobal Workplace
Thursday,
March 29, 2007
Registration: 18:30-19:00, Conference: 19:00-21:15
Where: PricewaterhouseCoopers, Thomas R. Malthusstraat 5, 1066 JR
Amsterdam
Tickets
for € 30, € 20 [discount] or € 10 [students]
With
Mandar Apte,
Business
Strategy - Competitive Intelligence Analyst, Shell Global Solutions
International B.V.
Workplace of the future - scenarios and trends - Views of a global
citizen
Andrew Kruseman Aretz,
Partner, Human Resource Services,
PricewaterhouseCoopers Belastingadviseurs N.V.
Changing demographics of people flows around
the World
Jean-Claude Knebeler,
Director of Foreign Trade, Ministry of the Economy and Foreign Trade,
Luxembourg
Does off-shoring
hold the key to success, especially for SME's?
Moderated by Hedda Pahlson-Moller, Managing
Director, Omnisource International,
Benelux Client Executive for Evalueserve
Supporters
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.Recommended
Book |
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Intercultural
Communication in the Global Workplace
by Iris Varner, Linda Beamer
Intercultural Communication in the Global Workplace continues
to be a vital reference for global business professionals. This new
edition features updated discussions on the impact of globalization
and technology in business communication, expanded treatment of ethics
issues, increased discussion of world religions (particularly the
role of Islam), and more short cases for improved ease of reading
and comprehension. |
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.So,
how is life in 2020? The future of Europe |
|
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.Media
LAB |
LAB
on MEDIA and Human Experience
An immersed experience of a Do-Tank
May
29 & 30, 2007
Location:
Girona,
Spain
Max. 20 Delegates
Early
Bird registration till
March 16, 2007
Please use our
Media
LAB Registration at
http://www.clubofamsterdam.com/contentevents/lab_registration_002media.htm
Moderated by Humberto
Schwab, Director, Club of Amsterdam,
Innovation
Philosopher.
With the Thought Leaders
Laurence
Desarzens, urban
communicator, beatmap.com, Paul
F.M.J. Verschure, ICREA research
professor, Technology Department, University Pompeu Fabra,
Ricardo Baeza-Yates,
Director, Yahoo! Research, Rudy
de Waele, Founder,
M-trends.org
www.clubofamsterdam.com
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.The
Future of the Web |
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Q&A with Ricardo
Baeza-Yates, Director and Roelof Van Zwol, Senior Researcher,
Yahoo! Research Barcelona
Ricardo is a Thought Leader in the
LAB
on MEDIA and Human Experience
An immersed experience of a Do-Tank
May 29 & 30, 2007
Location: Girona near Barcelona, Spain
|
Club of Amsterdam: Ricardo and Roelof - the Internet is constantly
changing and offering new possibilities like Web 2.0. Social networks
will benefit from these new features. Can you give us an idea how
human interaction will improve?
Social networks will
allows for direct communication with users with similar backgrounds,
or interests, or with experts in a certain area.For example, inside
Yahoo! we use a social network tool that is the perfect example,
where given a few keywords, the experts in any topic like "social
media" can instantly be found. It uses not only the self-descriptive
tags provided by a user, but also the tags that other people used
to tag fellow colleagues. We are using it on a regular basis, and
it is especially useful for checking one's background, or for finding
the person with the right expertise within the Yahoo! company, within
seconds. Thus at a professional level it already improves the efficiency.
When it comes to social networks on the Web, it also allows for
the formation of large online communities that share common interests,
and allow a user to share, and acquire knowledge. One recent development
in the area of social networks, called second life, allows users
and companies to start a new and perhaps more exciting life on the
Internet.
Club of Amsterdam: Knowledge is essential for further development
and innovation. Collaborative media will give us a world of new
opportunities. Can you describe a future scenario?
The second life example
already gives you a hint of where the "Future of the Web"
will go. Last year, Yahoo! Research has organized a workshop under
this title in Barcelona focused in Web Search, when the lab was
opened. One future scenario will be that you are commuting to work,
and would like to know which route to take, in order to avoid traffic
jams, or that it might be better to work form home, due to expected
traffic in the evening. You ask this question, and instantaneously
receive audiovisual information from either validated sources, like
traffic cameras, or from other commuters that have found themselves
stuck in a traffic jam.
Club of Amsterdam: What are new developments in social media?
We already see that
the dialog between users and media allows for new forms of interaction
between users and their computers. Flickr, the Yahoo! photo sharing
site, allows users to upload, and tag their photos online for sharing
with their friends or to directly show them to a large community.
When another user is exploring the Flickr photo database, he or
she can provide additional tags, a photo rating, or give comments
on the image. This allows for the retrieval of high quality and
interesting photos at a scale that was not envisioned possible before.
Currently, the Flickr site contains hundreds of millions of photos
that are hand tagged by users, while the current state of the art
in content-based image retrieval (CBIR) is not yet ready to handle
this scale. This does not mean that existing research in this area
has become obsolete. On the contrary, the combination ofCBIR with
social media should allow for even better sharing and retrieval
services in the future.
New forms of media
are appearing on a daily basis, and it is next to impossible to
track all the new developments in this area. It is however sure
that the online presence of users will increase and that the role
of media in this perspective is significant. It will allow for direct
interactive communication through rich media channels in a fast
changing world.
Thank you Ricardo and Roelof!
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.Shop
of the Future |
Adidas "mi Innovation
Center"
As the number one sports brand in Europe and the leading brand in
football, tennis and all sports apparel categories, athletes will
find what they need for their training needs and everything in between.
Designed as more than a sports store, the adidas Sport Performance
store will further demonstrate adidas rich tradition in innovation
by launching the first Mi Innovation Center, featuring a high-tech
customization process that gives consumers the same treatment as elite
level athletes, providing them foot scanning analysis, an "experienced
personal partner" recommendation based on their fit and performance
needs and customization options allowing them to design and personalize
their footwear based on their personal style. The center will feature
industry leading technologies, which adidas helped create, including
a gesture navigated design and virtual mirror. The brand expects to
welcome more than 150,000 visitors before the end of the year, including
70% tourists. This new Parisian space will regularly feature the French
and international athletes who are adidas ambassadors.
"The brands
approach to wholly owned stores is complementary to the usual distribution
network (specialised stores). The exhaustive offer at this adidas
Store will allow consumers to discover the breadth of our ranges
and share a real brand experience." Adds André Maestrini
Chief Executive adidas France.
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.Agenda |
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Tickets
for Seasons Events:
€ 30,
€
20
[discount] or
€
10
[students]
Our Season Events for 2006/2007 are on Thursdays:
|
the
future of Global Workplace
March
29, 2007, 18:30 - 21:15
the
future of Success
April 26,
2007, 18:30 - 21:15
the future of Tourism
May 31,
2007, 18:30 - 21:15
Taste
of Diversity
June 28, 2007, 18:30 - 21:15
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|
|
LABs in Girona
near Barcelona, Spain, moderated by Humberto
Schwab:
LAB
on Old and New ENERGY
April 17 & 18, 2007
Please
use the
Energy LAB Registration
LAB
on MEDIA and Human Experience
May
29 & 30, 2007
Please
use the
Media
LAB Registration
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...
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.Club
of Amsterdam Open Business Club |
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Club
of Amsterdam Open Business Club
Are you interested in networking, sharing visions,
ideas about your future, the future of your industry, society, discussing
issues, which are relevant for yourself as well as for the 'global'
community? The future starts now - join our
online platform
...:
http://www.openbc.com/go/invuid/Felix_Bopp2
CIWI
- Creative Minds Worldwide
CIWI
Club of Amsterdam Forum
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.Contact |
Your
comments, ideas, articles are welcome!
Please write to Felix Bopp, Editor-in-Chief:
editor@clubofamsterdam.com
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