PREFACE

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Int. Studies of Mgt. & Org., vol. 36, no. 4, Winter 2006–7, pp. 3–8. © 2007 M.E. Sharpe, Inc. All rights reserved. ISSN 0020–8825 / 2007 $9.50 + 0.00. DOI 10.2753/IMO0020-8825360400

Preface
Globalization and Its Effects on International Strategy and Cross-Cultural Management
Globalization is one of today’s most controversial buzzwords, though the spread of this term worldwide since the early 1990s may be testimony to its own significance. Skeptics argue that the entire discussion about globalization is unjustified, as all its essential facets—foreign trade, cultural exchange, technological progress and cross-national cooperation—are not new but are phenomena that can be traced back to our earliest civilizations. So, is globalization just a myth or a euphemism for the deregulation mantra under the supremacy of Anglo-American capitalism and for an economization of areas previously unrelated to the pressure of competitiveness, the market principle, and the price mechanism? Are the current trade patterns truly global, when 80 percent of trade is conducted within the “triad” of western Europe, North America, and the Pacific Rim, which together make up only 20 percent of the world’s population? Contrary to these arguments, we believe that globalization is as new a phenomenon as the term itself and that it does merit the attention it now receives in scholarly, political, and managerial debates. It is less a question of some new occurrences but is more so one that transgresses thresholds
Markus Pudelko is a senior lecturer in international business at the University of Edinburgh Management School, 50 George Square, Edinburgh EH8 9JY, UK (tel.: +44 (0) 131 651 1491; fax: + 44 (0) 131 668 3053; e-mail: markus.pudelko@ed.ac.uk). He is currently a visiting scholar at the University of Melbourne, Australia. Chris Carr is professor of corporate strategy at the