Causes of globalization

15. There is a debate whether the power of international capital and multinational monopolies are good things or not. Read the following excerpts and say whether it is good or bad for the prosperity of the world:

1.Only organizations having resources and expertise to exploit the information on their networks on a worldwide scale will have a key competitive advantage in many industries. If a company can operate in and produce for not just one country, or even one continent, it will allow the company to reduce costs and benefit from economies of scale.

2. There is often resistance to ideas coming from the outside even in a company that operates within one country. With subsidiariesin many countries this becomes even more of a problem, because it is compounded by cross-cultural issuesand potential misunderstandings. Resistance to the way of doing things elsewhere may be even stronger if the subsidiary was previously a local company taken over by a multinational one. There is a threat of huge loss of jobs and loss of a sense of security among those that remain.

3. A brand like Coca-Cola has been around a long time, and dominates the fizzy drink market in almost every country, outselling local brands. But one of the exceptions is Scotland and marketing specialists are trying to find out why this is. Why the international market is not truly homogenous is inexplicable. In France they prefer top-loading washing machines when the rest of Europe prefers door-loaded ones, which could be related to the smallness of French apartments. But there are also cultural ‘traditions’ that are harder to explain. Consumer goods companies understand that management of brands internationally is partly a cross-cultural issue.

4.Lowering of shipping costs occurs because the shipping charge for a whole container of goods crossing the Pacific can be as little as $50. The transport costs for each ‘Japanese’ TV, probably made in Malaysia or elsewhere, sold in the US or Europe is negligible.

5.There is huge reduction in telecommunications and computing costs nowadays.The cost of a 3-minute phone call from New York to London in 1930, for example, was $300 in today’s money. There is more computing power in the average wrist watch today than there was in all the world’s computers in 1950.

16. Match a phrase with its Russian equivalent:

17. Match the sentence halves:

18. Check your partner’s knowledge of the vocabulary:

19. Fill in the gaps with phrases that can be used in the discussion of the following items: