Clear Message of Globalization

We are living in an exciting time. Fast changes are occurring everywhere in our global world. I am an especially lucky person, because I have the opportunity to have a first hand personal experience of these changes.

Last December I went to China to teach MBA in Peking University. Can you imagine any better place to discuss the phenomenon of globalization with managers than Beijing? These days I enjoy being in Moscow. So my life has been arranged in a really special way! I am able to see the disruptive development of our civilization called globalization from different angles and on my own eyes. And I am also able to think about it.

I remember Moscow from my young days 20 years ago, when I was on a student exchange in the time of Gorbatchew. Now, the city is very different, although interestingly enough, the speed of changes is substantially slower than in China.

Our world is changing itself in a rapid pace. It is a direct consequence of information technologies that help people to reorganize the way they interact. Formerly, communication between nations was limited to contacts between emperors or politicians only. Today, this has been replaced by direct contact between anybody who has the need to communicate. From a slow and centralistic method of communication (or, should we rather say, “isolative method of communication”?) we are moving to a free flow of news, ideas, and cooperation. We are living in a world where communication is more and more limited only by the will of the participants.

This development has a direct consequence: the role of states decreases and with it, state regulations goes off, too. In some parts of the world this process is faster, in other parts it is slower. But the message is here and is very clear. The process is global and the changes are inevitable.

Well, we all are lucky to live in an exciting, opening world. In the world where barriers are being removed for the benefits of most of us.