Globalization Case

Assignment #2

The debate on the economic term of globalization and the world being "flat" has been argued slightly differently from the three authors, Friedman, Ghemawat, Floridia. Friedman argues his stance on globalization and states the world is "flat" in the sense that technology has now taken over so drastically to the extent that any country with access to computers and the internet can now effectively be as productive as the developed countries like the US. He argues that his key source the CEO for Infosys located in India has shown that many of the United States corporations are outsourcing their technological jobs to India (Infosys). This is allowing for India to catch up and advance with study and training on a consistent basis with internet access now and begin to take the reins from a technological standpoint form the developed world.

Friedman continues to go on about how the 10 flatteners are proving to the world that now any country can have the skills and knowledge needed to start the next and new technological phenomenon. Friedman gives his very opinionated view of how Y2K is considered one of the main turning points in his theory as the US companies outsourced their work to India to fix the computer bugs throughout the world. Friedman's views drastically differ from Ghemawat's view and slightly differ from Floridia's view on the world as a whole.

Ghemawat has a much different view about the "flattening" debate that is the topic of discussion. He describes in detail how Friedman's assertion of the "flat" world is inaccurate on multiple accounts and the reason that many of these countries are even in existence and currently up and running operationally is due to the developed countries economic and monetary contributions. Ghemawat explains how the world is "wired" but not as truly globally "connected" as one would think.

Ghemawat explains to us that, companies like Infosys are currently operational mostly due to foreign direct investments being made to these companies due to their low costs compared to the US. When education in technology becomes abundant in the US and the salary demand begins to decrease due to huge demand of labor into the sector some of these companies globally may no longer be as "connected" as they are. Over 90% of investment and funding for these foreign operations like Infosys are due to shareholders and private investors from developed areas and only 10% from the FDI. Much of the business decisions for companies come due to the fact that certain countries fit the right formula for the supply chain as he mentions as well. Although anyone can research and learn what is needed, if the working capital were to be pulled and moved elsewhere the skills would not be as useful and the worker would need to migrate to another area or new field of study in these non-developed areas.

Floridia's views appear to me to be slightly more towards Ghemawat's article with a fair lean also toward Friedman to a small extent. Floridia argues that although non-developed countries such as, India, are getting more technological skills, the majority of economic activity still resides in the US and Europe via the Map B shown in the article. Floridia goes on to show the different spikes on his maps and explains that majority of the patents are also from the US and Japan with a fair amount from European countries