Technological globalization and its economic impacts

Technological Globalization Methodology

IT as it Links to Corporate Strategy

IT is essentially at the very heart of new and innovative business strategy. With such rapid advancements in technology continuing to unfold, it is crucial that IT be at the center of development and design for any organization, especially ones entering new global market environments as businesses continue to expand internationally. IT departments help keep organizations at the forefront of corporate strategy (Arora et al., 2004). As such, "information technology is playing its significant role in the betterment of organizations" (Ahmed et al., 2012). It is strengthening corporate strategy on a global scale. Technology is thus helping drive new and innovative strategies for expanding market environments. In their research, Ahmed et al. (2012) found that "global vision is positively correlated with IT" and "IT and global corporate strategy are positively correlated" as well. This ultimately suggests that innovative IT departments will facilitate the most successful corporate strategies to use in an expanding market environment.

Improving the Person-System-Organization Fit

One such way IT derived strategies can help an organization is through improving the Person-System-Organization Fit. When entering new markets, the people brought in may not immediately bond with the existing organizational culture. IT's investigations of technology can help increase the efficiency in finding more like-minded people for the organization, even in cultures across the world. Technology can help provide tools for new organizations to find the best new employees in new global markets, but also the best suppliers and other partners in the regions they are entering as well.

Minimizing the Effects of National Boundaries through IT Innovation

Today, national boundaries are not enough to deter international business growth. In fact, "over the past ten to fifteen years, there has been rapid growth in a variety of arrangements for the exchange of technologies or technological services, ranging from R&D joint ventures and partnerships, to licensing and cross licensing" (Arora et al., 2004). The continuing exchange of technology and market share are establishing new relationships between nations and tearing down former boundaries that hindered international growth. It is technology that has been crucial in helping this effort, as

"the diffusion of technology could play an important role in fostering" new relationships between countries that transcend traditional national boundaries (Arora et al., 2004).

Optimizing Social Interactions through IT

Part of destroying national boundaries is the creation of new, international communities. This can be facilitated by increasing use of technology to foster communications that increase a feeling of community despite distance or national identities. Social interactions are rapidly changing because of IT and the implementation of innovative communication measures. There is a critical link between technology and the quality of social interactions (Bijker et al., 2012). Businesses can even identify new consumer targets by effectively using social interaction as a tool within these new market environments. Thus, such organizations must pay "careful attention to the network in which the consumer is embedded necessitates that attention be paid to various social groups (and their interests) who might not have been otherwise considered (because of their apparent distance from the process)" (Bijker et al., 2012). It is crucial that businesses capitalize on stronger social networks with these new markets in order to augment their potential success within the region.

Incorporating Meta-Analysis in Business Development/Strategy

Meta-analysis is essentially the comparison of data from a cross section of studies in order to successfully identify and to pull out patterns from within that already previously observed data set from a multitude of sources. It is the comparison of a variety of research studies in order to pinpoint the commonalities between them so that assumptions can be made within business strategy based on those common findings from the research discourse (Cano et al., 2004). Within this type of methodology, a weighted average is often the primary measure to gauge the prevalence of certain patterns from within research done previously. This average is then compared to the individual studies themselves in order to help determine effect size from a variety of sample studies. It is thus essentially an overview of the existing discourse in order to pull out patterns that can then successfully help drive business strategies.

There have been a number of successful studies that have used this approach of meta-analysis in order to uncover patterns and assumptions about market orientation, both domestically and globally. Cano et al. (2004) used meta-analysis in their research and used data from studies across five entire continents in order to create assumptions about changing market data in a new, globalized environment. A total of 23 countries were examined in this research testing the importance of market orientation in business performance and development from a variety of industries. What the research found through the implementation of meta-analysis was that "the relationship between market orientation and business performance is positive and consistent world wide," essentially suggesting that better understanding of market orientation helps strengthen the direction of business development strategies worldwide (Cano et al., 2004). Both for and not-for-profit businesses showed positive correlations with business performance and market orientation, suggesting the crucial need for businesses to better get to know their markets, even if they are abroad.