Glocalisation
Encyclopedia
Glocalisation is a portmanteau word
of globalization
and localization
. By definition, the term “glocal” refers to the individual, group, division, unit, organisation, and community which is willing and able to “think globally and act locally.”
On a broad scale, Roudometof explains that the emerging reality of social life under the conditions of glocalization provides the preconditions necessary for transnational social spaces, and that this process of glocalization may lead ultimately to a cosmopolitan society. While stressing that cosmopolitanism and transnationalism are indeed unique concepts, Roudometof presents the insight that the two conditions often have a very close correlation to one another, a source of confusion repeatedly uncovered during many attempts to describe interconnected global processes. Based upon his completion of extensive research, Roudometof offers an understanding of transnationalism as the connectivity and motion of everything from immigrants to the practices of capitalism, religion, or activism across state borders. Indeed, one could consider globalization an economic form of transnationalism, as the social movement described by transnationalism entails a reduction in the significance of boundaries to all forms of activity globally, from political to cultural or economic processes. While the relationship is not linear or automatic, many forms of transnationalism may nonetheless serve as indicators of developing cosmopolitanism within a state. Cosmopolitanism, which signals a preexisting blending of global and local considerations in real life through glocalization, can be defined as a moral and ethical standpoint or quality of openness manifested in people’s attitudes and orientations toward others. As Roudometof notes, cosmopolitans living in a transnational world are known to adopt a more open, encompassing attitude toward peoples and regions distinct from their own. Thus, as boundaries fade in importance due to transnational motion, the integration of global and local forces defined by glocalization make transnational social spaces, in which those people and processes that have crossed borders interact, a reality; ultimately, this process of glocalization may provide societal encouragement for the more culturally open mindset of cosmopolitanism.
ese business practices. It comes from the Japanese word dochakuka, which means global localization. Originally referring to a way of adapting farming techniques to local conditions, dochakuka evolved into a marketing strategy when Japanese businessmen adopted it in the 1980s.
Independently the need arouse in the late 1980 to bridge local-regional-national-global in environmental research and management. To show this overlapping and interaction along and across scales in an exhibition object for the "Global Change - Challenges to Science and Politics" exhibition. http://benking.de/Global-Change/global-change-english-context.html A term for this spacial-spectrum was created to denote the depth of that exhibit-cube build by Heiner Benking by Manfred Lange, the director of the touring exhibit development team at that time, head of the German National Global Change Secretariat. The Cube was called "Rubik's Cube of Ecology", later also called Eco-Cube. It is designed - as a "pointer to possibilities" http://weturn.org/pointers-to-possibilities.html across scales - local-to-global - as a spectrum to allow pointers to possibilities in knowledge organisation or ecological awareness, open for the system dimensions. See Cognitive Build Spaces, like Cognitive Models http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Cognitive_space to portray and make concrete relevant but intangible issues http://benking.de/systems/encyclopedia/newterms/#_Toc87362165
The term was popularized in the English
-speaking world by the British
sociologist
Roland Robertson
in the 1990s, the Canadian sociologists Keith Hampton
and Barry Wellman
in the late 1990s, and Zygmunt Bauman
. Hampton and Wellman have frequently used the term to refer to people who are actively involved in both local and wider-ranging activities of friendship, kinship and commerce. Oxford professor Erik Swyngedouw is also credited for being one of the first individuals to use the term in his studies.
Despite the fact the glocalization of business suggests an emphasis on local conditions, in reality, glocalized goods typically have very little local relevance. Such top-down innovation overlooks the true inventiveness and specialized understanding possessed by local individuals in favor of a model that has worked in an entirely different region and for a unique population. The local grasp of market needs and consumer attitudes is unwisely excluded from considerations, and while there may be an initial surge in sales for newly adapted products, with time, the authors report findings that locals lose interest in these goods due to poor adaptation decisions overall as well as a dissatisfaction with their cheapened foreign sources. Although they recognize that glocalization is likely to continue as a common business practice, the authors also recommend reverse innovation as a more beneficial alternative. In this way, rather than using a top-down approach to develop and sell products, businesses are able to start at the base and design for their consumers with a more specialized understanding of surrounding conditions.
Offering rationale for this glocalization of education, the authors explain that despite common feelings that globalization is too abstract an idea to connect to everyday activities within schools, many educators nonetheless acknowledge that issues connected to globalization influence their local practices. They hypothesize that reasons for this disconnect between these two responses likely exist in part due to a fixation within schools on more immediate and local imperatives for operation. Ultimately, studies conducted by Spring on globalization and education reveal intertwined worldwide discourses, processes, and institutions affecting local educational practices and policies, and therefore demanding a consideration of glocalization.< Highlighting the present absence of discourse on glocalization in connection to educational leadership, the authors argue that this suggests an unpreparedness of educational leaders to confront the realities of performing their duties within a global society. Such a reality presents detrimental implications for at least two reasons. Examined by Gaudily, one such implication is that educational leaders may not be taking advantage of instructional resources that could enhance the relevance and quality of educational experiences for their students as well as the professional practices of the educators they lead. Additionally, Kapur and McHale suggest that present education focused only on geographically local perspectives will not serve students well as they endeavor entry into an increasingly interconnected world, in which they must compete and work on an international scale.
After offering reasoning behind their main argument in favor of glocalization of educational leadership, the authors proceed to explain the specific approaches to developing glocal literacy for each of the nine domains they have named. Achieving glocal political literacy, for instance, would entail familiarity with the various formal and informal processes by which people engage in political issues at different levels of governance as well as an understanding of the how to act as empowered participants in the processes that influence international on down to local decisions and policies. Glocal information literacy, on the other hand, would involve possessing a thorough understanding of the use of the immense variety of tools available for accessing information today, and the ability to think critically about the information they provide. In particular, this domain is concerned with digital literacy, involving such components as computer literacy and media literacy. While individuals interested in the specifics of each literacy domain would do best to consult the original work of the authors, their resounding message is truly on the importance that educational leaders develop literacy in these powerful, interconnected examples of the place of education in local communities and the world as a whole to best prepare students for a place in local society appropriately in-tune with an increasingly globalized future.
Thomas L. Friedman in The World is Flat
talks about how the Internet encourages glocalisation, such as encouraging people to make websites in their native languages. '"Glocal" also pops up as a plot motivator in the 2010 film Up in the Air
when the career-ending counselors switch from in-person to videoconferencing terminations.
Historically, social science knowledge has been locally focused and pragmatic, yet in practice, it has acted for quite some time as though society existed only at the nation-state level. Given the transformations influenced by globalization, there is a growing necessity to expand beyond this rather limited view of social work to better suit the needs of modern society. Pressured by globalization, generous welfare states have found themselves incapable of competing with those that provide only minimal support to their citizens, making very low social support the norm. Through glocalization, however, the potential exists to create new social actors and structures that are essentially “local in spirit but global in character,” capable of responding to local social problems brought on by neglect of the welfare state in a format that is backed by global insight and power. To oppose global trends of slashed accountability and social welfare programs, therefore, Hong and Song suggest the development of a globalized social policy, assisted by international organizations, that together can establish and advocate a common set of solutions to increasing global pressures. Such a system would be able to create opportunities for all by investing more in such things as education, employment, and vital public services. Through this top-down approach of global forces acting at local levels, the authors argue that glocalization of social work might offer a means for advancing local welfare and contribute the strength needed to confront increasingly complex global social problems as they become more pronounced into the future.
Word
In language, a word is the smallest free form that may be uttered in isolation with semantic or pragmatic content . This contrasts with a morpheme, which is the smallest unit of meaning but will not necessarily stand on its own...
of globalization
Globalization
Globalization refers to the increasingly global relationships of culture, people and economic activity. Most often, it refers to economics: the global distribution of the production of goods and services, through reduction of barriers to international trade such as tariffs, export fees, and import...
and localization
Internationalization and localization
In computing, internationalization and localization are means of adapting computer software to different languages, regional differences and technical requirements of a target market...
. By definition, the term “glocal” refers to the individual, group, division, unit, organisation, and community which is willing and able to “think globally and act locally.”
A variety of usages
- Individuals, households and organisations maintaining interpersonal social networks that combine extensive local and long-distance interactions.
- The declaration of specified locality - a town, city, or state - as world territory, with responsibilities and rights on a world scale: a process that started in France in 1950 and originally called MundialisationMundializationThe word mundialisation, is the English version of the French word "mondialisation", which today refers in French to what is referred to in English as "globalisation"...
.
Defining the concept
Glocalization serves as a means of combining the idea of globalization with that of local considerations. Thus, initially developing an understanding of globalization offers a great deal of assistance in beginning to understand the function and meaning of glocalization. As explained by Philip Hong and In Han Song, globalization corresponds to the integration of local markets into world capitalism. Manifested by global changes in structures of the economy, globalization entails a restructuring of the world economy and a spatial reorganization of production and consumption processes across political states. Once an understanding of globalization has been established, it becomes possible to advance to a fuller understanding of glocalization. In his piece for Current Sociology, Victor Roudometof offers especially notable discourse on the effort of defining glocalization. Favoring Beck’s interpretation of glocalization as “internalized globalization,” Roudometof further develops this definition primarily by solidifying its roles within and relationship to transnationalism and cosmopolitanism. Frequently conflated and confused ideas, transnationalism and cosmopolitanism are both terms also gaining increasing attention and importance with the advance of globalization. In his research, Roudometof argues the essential nature of clearly defining these terms to more fully understand glocalization, with which they are interrelated.On a broad scale, Roudometof explains that the emerging reality of social life under the conditions of glocalization provides the preconditions necessary for transnational social spaces, and that this process of glocalization may lead ultimately to a cosmopolitan society. While stressing that cosmopolitanism and transnationalism are indeed unique concepts, Roudometof presents the insight that the two conditions often have a very close correlation to one another, a source of confusion repeatedly uncovered during many attempts to describe interconnected global processes. Based upon his completion of extensive research, Roudometof offers an understanding of transnationalism as the connectivity and motion of everything from immigrants to the practices of capitalism, religion, or activism across state borders. Indeed, one could consider globalization an economic form of transnationalism, as the social movement described by transnationalism entails a reduction in the significance of boundaries to all forms of activity globally, from political to cultural or economic processes. While the relationship is not linear or automatic, many forms of transnationalism may nonetheless serve as indicators of developing cosmopolitanism within a state. Cosmopolitanism, which signals a preexisting blending of global and local considerations in real life through glocalization, can be defined as a moral and ethical standpoint or quality of openness manifested in people’s attitudes and orientations toward others. As Roudometof notes, cosmopolitans living in a transnational world are known to adopt a more open, encompassing attitude toward peoples and regions distinct from their own. Thus, as boundaries fade in importance due to transnational motion, the integration of global and local forces defined by glocalization make transnational social spaces, in which those people and processes that have crossed borders interact, a reality; ultimately, this process of glocalization may provide societal encouragement for the more culturally open mindset of cosmopolitanism.
Development of the concept
Among the places the term glocalization independently developed is from JapanJapan
Japan is an island nation in East Asia. Located in the Pacific Ocean, it lies to the east of the Sea of Japan, China, North Korea, South Korea and Russia, stretching from the Sea of Okhotsk in the north to the East China Sea and Taiwan in the south...
ese business practices. It comes from the Japanese word dochakuka, which means global localization. Originally referring to a way of adapting farming techniques to local conditions, dochakuka evolved into a marketing strategy when Japanese businessmen adopted it in the 1980s.
Independently the need arouse in the late 1980 to bridge local-regional-national-global in environmental research and management. To show this overlapping and interaction along and across scales in an exhibition object for the "Global Change - Challenges to Science and Politics" exhibition. http://benking.de/Global-Change/global-change-english-context.html A term for this spacial-spectrum was created to denote the depth of that exhibit-cube build by Heiner Benking by Manfred Lange, the director of the touring exhibit development team at that time, head of the German National Global Change Secretariat. The Cube was called "Rubik's Cube of Ecology", later also called Eco-Cube. It is designed - as a "pointer to possibilities" http://weturn.org/pointers-to-possibilities.html across scales - local-to-global - as a spectrum to allow pointers to possibilities in knowledge organisation or ecological awareness, open for the system dimensions. See Cognitive Build Spaces, like Cognitive Models http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Cognitive_space to portray and make concrete relevant but intangible issues http://benking.de/systems/encyclopedia/newterms/#_Toc87362165
The term was popularized in the English
English language
English is a West Germanic language that arose in the Anglo-Saxon kingdoms of England and spread into what was to become south-east Scotland under the influence of the Anglian medieval kingdom of Northumbria...
-speaking world by the British
United Kingdom
The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern IrelandIn the United Kingdom and Dependencies, other languages have been officially recognised as legitimate autochthonous languages under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages...
sociologist
Sociology
Sociology is the study of society. It is a social science—a term with which it is sometimes synonymous—which uses various methods of empirical investigation and critical analysis to develop a body of knowledge about human social activity...
Roland Robertson
Roland Robertson
Roland Robertson is a sociologist and theorist of globalization, who lectures at the University of Aberdeen in Scotland, United Kingdom.Robertson's theories have focused significantly on a more phenomenological and psycho-social approach than that of more materialist oriented theorists such as...
in the 1990s, the Canadian sociologists Keith Hampton
Keith Hampton
Keith HamptonKeith N. Hampton is an Assistant Professor of Communication at the Annenberg School for Communication at the University of Pennsylvania...
and Barry Wellman
Barry Wellman
Barry Wellman, FRSC directs NetLab as the S.D. Clark Professor of Sociology at the University of Toronto. His areas of research are community sociology, the Internet, human-computer interaction and social structure, as manifested in social networks in communities and organizations...
in the late 1990s, and Zygmunt Bauman
Zygmunt Bauman
Zygmunt Bauman is a Polish sociologist who, since 1971, has resided in England after being driven out of Poland by an anti-Semitic campaign, engineered by the Communist government which he had previously supported...
. Hampton and Wellman have frequently used the term to refer to people who are actively involved in both local and wider-ranging activities of friendship, kinship and commerce. Oxford professor Erik Swyngedouw is also credited for being one of the first individuals to use the term in his studies.
Glocalization in business
In line with the economic roots of globalization to which the process is closely related, glocalization is an important expression used within the business world. Proceeding from its Japanese roots, the concept is now also a popular approach for Western businesses today. Even with its common use, this approach is criticized for its long term ineffectiveness by authors including Vijay Govindarajan and Lew McCreary. In an article for Bloomberg Businessweek, the two highlight the drawbacks of a system that allows for the flow of innovation in only one direction: from the headquarters of multinational corporations out into the world. Especially in the developing world, this results in the modification of the same basic products made for the developed world to prepare them for poor-world consumption through de-featuring and substitution. As an Indian businessman explains, this is a poor model to follow in that individuals in the developing world no longer want such modified products of the rich world, but rather desire “rich world quality in their own products."Despite the fact the glocalization of business suggests an emphasis on local conditions, in reality, glocalized goods typically have very little local relevance. Such top-down innovation overlooks the true inventiveness and specialized understanding possessed by local individuals in favor of a model that has worked in an entirely different region and for a unique population. The local grasp of market needs and consumer attitudes is unwisely excluded from considerations, and while there may be an initial surge in sales for newly adapted products, with time, the authors report findings that locals lose interest in these goods due to poor adaptation decisions overall as well as a dissatisfaction with their cheapened foreign sources. Although they recognize that glocalization is likely to continue as a common business practice, the authors also recommend reverse innovation as a more beneficial alternative. In this way, rather than using a top-down approach to develop and sell products, businesses are able to start at the base and design for their consumers with a more specialized understanding of surrounding conditions.
Glocalization in academia
Glocalization has also appeared in academic dialogue concerned with the response of education to a rapidly evolving global environment. In their piece focused on educational leadership and globalization, Jeffrey Brooks and Anthony Normore argue a need for incorporating a glocal perspective within the technique of academic leaders. As globalization has gained increasing significance in the everyday lives of common people, it is critical that academic leaders recognize and respond to this evolution (Brooks & Normore 52). They propose that this occur as “meaningful integration of local and global forces,” or glocalization, of educational leadership through achievement of glocal literacy in nine specific domains: political literacy, economic literacy, cultural literacy, moral literacy, pedagogical literacy, information literacy, organizational literacy, spiritual and religious literacy, and temporal literacy. In presenting these nine domains, they argue also that they are dynamic and interconnected, each with the capacity to be influenced by the individual power of educational leaders.Offering rationale for this glocalization of education, the authors explain that despite common feelings that globalization is too abstract an idea to connect to everyday activities within schools, many educators nonetheless acknowledge that issues connected to globalization influence their local practices. They hypothesize that reasons for this disconnect between these two responses likely exist in part due to a fixation within schools on more immediate and local imperatives for operation. Ultimately, studies conducted by Spring on globalization and education reveal intertwined worldwide discourses, processes, and institutions affecting local educational practices and policies, and therefore demanding a consideration of glocalization.< Highlighting the present absence of discourse on glocalization in connection to educational leadership, the authors argue that this suggests an unpreparedness of educational leaders to confront the realities of performing their duties within a global society. Such a reality presents detrimental implications for at least two reasons. Examined by Gaudily, one such implication is that educational leaders may not be taking advantage of instructional resources that could enhance the relevance and quality of educational experiences for their students as well as the professional practices of the educators they lead. Additionally, Kapur and McHale suggest that present education focused only on geographically local perspectives will not serve students well as they endeavor entry into an increasingly interconnected world, in which they must compete and work on an international scale.
After offering reasoning behind their main argument in favor of glocalization of educational leadership, the authors proceed to explain the specific approaches to developing glocal literacy for each of the nine domains they have named. Achieving glocal political literacy, for instance, would entail familiarity with the various formal and informal processes by which people engage in political issues at different levels of governance as well as an understanding of the how to act as empowered participants in the processes that influence international on down to local decisions and policies. Glocal information literacy, on the other hand, would involve possessing a thorough understanding of the use of the immense variety of tools available for accessing information today, and the ability to think critically about the information they provide. In particular, this domain is concerned with digital literacy, involving such components as computer literacy and media literacy. While individuals interested in the specifics of each literacy domain would do best to consult the original work of the authors, their resounding message is truly on the importance that educational leaders develop literacy in these powerful, interconnected examples of the place of education in local communities and the world as a whole to best prepare students for a place in local society appropriately in-tune with an increasingly globalized future.
Glocalization in the media
The media presents another important realm in which glocalization is made apparent. A powerful means if making connections on an international scale, the media is nonetheless a tool also capable of having an impact on a more local stage. Keith Hampton offers a meaningful example of this reality through his study of Internet use by local communities of urban underclass citizens. Developing a naturalistic experiment that examined use of the Internet for communication at the neighborhood level, Hampton was able to identify the role of the media in encouraging local social cohesion and community engagement. Examining a topic of interest in which studies are presently quite limited, Hampton was able to determine that connection across distance may not be the only affordance of Internet-based communication. Rather, according to his studies, when a critical mass of individuals within a shared local environment adopts the Internet for communication, they cultivate an increased awareness that this tool affords communication locally as much as it does across distant space; in this light, use of the Internet for communication at the local level offers a strong example of the phenomenon of glocalization. Allowing for removal or reduction of barriers such as fear or embarrassment to communicate, timing, spatial obstacles, urban disorder, and victimization, communication by Internet thus presents a means for even local, disadvantaged communities to scale something down to a defined level appropriate for their purposes. Encouraging social interaction and allowing for collective communication within a small space faced still with challenges to communication, such a tool ultimately allows for contextual constraints hindering collective action and dialogue within a community to be reduced.Thomas L. Friedman in The World is Flat
The World Is Flat
The World Is Flat: A Brief History of the Twenty-First Century is an international bestselling book by Thomas Friedman that analyzes globalization, primarily in the early 21st century. The title is a metaphor for viewing the world as a level playing field in terms of commerce, where all competitors...
talks about how the Internet encourages glocalisation, such as encouraging people to make websites in their native languages. '"Glocal" also pops up as a plot motivator in the 2010 film Up in the Air
Up in the Air (film)
Up in the Air is a 2009 American comedy-drama film directed by Jason Reitman and co-written by Reitman and Sheldon Turner. It is a film adaptation of the 2001 novel of the same name, written by Walter Kirn. The story is about a corporate downsizer Ryan Bingham and his travels...
when the career-ending counselors switch from in-person to videoconferencing terminations.
Glocalization and social welfare
Glocalization also presents a potential response meant to offer protection against the more negative effects of globalization. As Philip Hong and In Han Song explore, given the rapidly expanding harmful effects of globalization upon society as a whole, the glocalization of social work may present a powerful and necessary approach to containing or cutting down on these struggles. Explained by Midgley, globalization can be found to harm local economies, undermine the sovereignty of governments, and create instances of unemployment and poverty in various parts of the world. Topping the list of concerns that come with globalization, however, is the lack of accountability found in this newly emerging era, as immense economic forces and complex international relations make it difficult to identify the source of a problem and assign little responsibility to nation-states or companies for any harm they may inflict upon society as a whole. In recognition of these negative effects, the authors present a case in favor of the glocalization of social work to enhance the social welfare of citizens.Historically, social science knowledge has been locally focused and pragmatic, yet in practice, it has acted for quite some time as though society existed only at the nation-state level. Given the transformations influenced by globalization, there is a growing necessity to expand beyond this rather limited view of social work to better suit the needs of modern society. Pressured by globalization, generous welfare states have found themselves incapable of competing with those that provide only minimal support to their citizens, making very low social support the norm. Through glocalization, however, the potential exists to create new social actors and structures that are essentially “local in spirit but global in character,” capable of responding to local social problems brought on by neglect of the welfare state in a format that is backed by global insight and power. To oppose global trends of slashed accountability and social welfare programs, therefore, Hong and Song suggest the development of a globalized social policy, assisted by international organizations, that together can establish and advocate a common set of solutions to increasing global pressures. Such a system would be able to create opportunities for all by investing more in such things as education, employment, and vital public services. Through this top-down approach of global forces acting at local levels, the authors argue that glocalization of social work might offer a means for advancing local welfare and contribute the strength needed to confront increasingly complex global social problems as they become more pronounced into the future.
Further reading
- Sarroub, Loukia K. (2008) "Living 'Glocally' With Literacy Success in the Midwest." Theory Into Practice, Vol. 47 Issue 1, p59-67.
External links
- Global Change exhibition (May, 1990), and the poster on local and global change http://benking.de/Global-Change/system-earth-posters.html which a year later was the title for the "Local and Global Change" exhibition (1991) http://benking.de/Global-Change/local-global-change-1991.html
- http://www.almanac.fashion.bg/almanac2005/index1_en.htmlGlocalisation of Bulgarian fashion in 2005 by Lubomir StoykovLubomir StoykovLubomir Stoykov , is a famous Bulgarian fashion journalist. He was born on May 11, 1954 in the town of Stara Zagora, Bulgaria. He has graduated journalism at Sofia University "St. Kliment Ohridski". He is married to Vessela and has a son called Kalin....
] - Article on OECD report
- Wal-Mart: a Glocalized company
- The process of the internationalization of the firm: The glocal strategy of McDonald’s