Impact of Technological Factors on Global Business.

Innovations in technology, most especially in information and communications technology but in transportation and supply chain management as well, have represented some of the fundamental driving forces driving globalization in recent years and it is reasonable to expect the impact of this force to continue to accelerate in the years to come, but the jury is still out on the precise level of importance this area will have in the future. On the one hand, Law (2008) emphasizes that, "The membrane of the nation-state is becoming increasingly permeable: not only are governments lowering the barriers to transnational exchange, but their capacity to enforce those barriers is continually undermined by advances in transportation, communication, miniaturization, and digitization technology" (p. 1278). On the other hand, though, Rodriguez-Pose (1999) points out that, "The persistence of long-term growth trends might be due to the fact that the role of technological change and the effects of world economic integration on growth have been overstated, and thus traditional factors producing growth still play the significant part they used to play before" (p. 23).

Impact of Financing and Trade Issues on Different Economic Systems.

Not surprisingly, the impact of financing and trade issues on different economic systems will likely relate to how responsive national economies have been to the driving forces of globalization in the past. For instance, according to El-Said and Harrigan (2006), "An important route through which aspects of globalization have been introduced throughout the developing world over the past two decades is the provision of international finance with attached economic reform and liberalization conditionalities" (p. 444). In state-controlled economies, though, financing and trade issues will ultimately be primary affected by the need for increased diversification and privatization of economies as well as further global integration of the national economies (Henry & Springborg, 2001). As Henry and Springborg point out, "Having formerly been sustained by global rents resulting from geo-political considerations or hydrocarbon extraction, regimes are now having to make dramatic adjustments to capture new sources of revenue, most of which are private, hence less susceptible than global rents to political pressures and calculations" (p. 233). By contrast, financing and trade issues in free market economies will likely remains...

As Insulza (2009) recently emphasized, "In this era of globalization, the strongest members of the international system must not limit themselves to imposing order unilaterally in their own economy; they must also support solutions for a region that has become increasingly interdependent" (p. 5).
Conclusion

Strictly speaking, although globalization has been taking place since two countries first traded with each other millennia ago, these processes have become increasingly pronounced in recent years due in large part to innovations in telecommunications and transportation. In response to these trends, the research showed that there have already been substantive impacts on a wide range of political, economic and legal issues for the countries involved, and technological innovations continue to accelerate the pace and intensity of these impacts today. Free-market and state-controlled economies will undoubtedly experience these trends in different ways, but the research was consistent in demonstrating that increased trade opportunities represent the foundation of economic growth and these factors will inevitably play an important role in how different countries react to the pressures in the future.