- The best course for our nation is not to curse globalization but to shape it, to make it work for America.
Madeleine Albright (b.1937) U.S. stateswoman and diplomat. Quoted in Financial Times (London) (September 19, 1997)
- Staff should reflect the diversity of the company’s user base.
Fabiola Arrendondo (b.1966) Spanish Internet executive. Fortune (October 2000)
- Bosses tend to attract clusters of people from their own nationality around them.
Percy Barnevik (b.1941) Swedish former C.E.O. of ABB. Financial Times (London) (October 1997)
- Globalisation is a long-lasting competitive advantage…building a global company is not so easy to copy.
Percy Barnevik (b.1941) Swedish former C.E.O. of ABB. Financial Times (London) (October 1997)
- Global managers have exceptionally open minds. They respect how different countries do things.
Percy Barnevik (b.1941) Swedish former C.E.O. of ABB. Harvard Business Review (march/April 1991)
- Multidomestic competition.
Percy Barnevik (b.1941) Swedish former C.E.O. of ABB. Referring to his company’s policy of establishing strong local companies around the world. Quoted in Liberation Management (Tom Peters; 1992)
- At school we learned abour going abroad to get experience and prove that we are able to move from one place to another.
Olivier Barre (b.1970) French business executive. Referring to multinational locations such as Dublin. New York Times (October 2000)
- When Sony’s founder and chief executive, Akio Morita, relocated to New York to build the company’s U.S. operations, he sent the most convincing message about Sony’s commitment to its overseas subsidiaries.
Christopher Bartlett (b.1945) Australian business writer. Managing Across Borders (co-written with Sumantra Ghoshal; 1989)
- Transnationals.
Christopher Bartlett (b.1945) Australian business writer. The term created by the authors to describe a new type of international organization.Managing Across Borders (co-written with Sumantra Ghoshal; 1989)
- As international companies begin to compete with each other in the global marketplace, the role of cross-cultural training becomes increasingly important.
Rabi S. Bhagat (b. 1950) Indian business author. “Cross-cultural Training in Organisational Contexts,” Handbook of Intercultural Training (coedited with Dan Landis, co-written with Kristin O. Prien; 1996)
- Globalization requires that organizations adopt a cross-cultural perspective to be successful in accomplishing their goals in the context of a global economy.
Rabi S. Bhagat (b. 1950) Indian business author. “Cross-cultural Training in Organisational Contexts,” Handbook of Intercultural Training (coedited with Dan Landis, co-written with Kristin O. Prien; 1996)
- One cannot separate the strategy involved in the multinational misson from the human resource strategy involved in placing the international assignee.
Rabi S. Bhagat (b. 1950) Indian business author. “Cross-cultural Training in Organisational Contexts,” Handbook of Intercultural Training (coedited with Dan Landis, co-written with Kristin O. Prien; 1996)
- Globalization such as it is today profits only countries that have a material, technological and technical basis. The globalization toward which we want to go is the globalization that excludes nobody.
Abdul Aziz Bouteflika (b.1937) Algerian president. Speaking in his role as Chairman of the Organization of African Unity for 2000. Speech, UN Conference on trade and Development (UNCTAD) summit, Bangkok, Thailand (February 19, 2000)
- Investing is a business that never tires. You have to work with every known thing in the world- the weather in Asia, or politics in East Europe, or the scandal of an America president.
Charles Brady (b.1935) U.S. investor. Sunday Times (London) (May 2000)
- When we speak of the commerce with our colonies, fiction lags after truth, invention is unfruitful and imagination cold and barren.
Edmund Burke (1729-97) British philosopher and politician. On Conciliation with America (March 22, 1775)
- More and more of our imports are coming from overseas.
George W. Bush (b.1946) U.S. president. Speech (September 29, 2000)
- The Death of Distance
Frances Cairncross, British journalist and author. Book title. Referring to the effects of increasing globalization. The Death of Distance (1997)
- Provided that the city of London remains as it is at present, the clearing house of the world.
Joseph Chamberlain (1836-1914) British prime minister. Speech (January 1904)
- We no longer live in a world of nations and ideologies, Mr. Beale. The World is a collage of corporations inexorably determined by the immutable by-laws of business. The world is a business, Mr. Beale.
Paddy Chayefsky (1923-81) U.S. playwright and screenwriter. Network (1976)
- Lancashire merchants whenever they like Can water the beer of a man in Klondike Or poison the meat of a man in Bombay And That is the meaning of Empire Day.
- K. Chesterton (1874-1936) British novelist, poet and critic. Songs of Education (1922)
- Environmental forces transcend borders and oceans to threaten directly the health, prosperity and jobs of American citizens.
Warren Christopher (b.1925) U.S. politician. Quoted in natural Capitalism (Paul Hawken, Amory B. Lovins, and L. Hunter Lovins; 1999)
- If you are organized globally and understand your business well enough…you can follow the property cycle around the world.
Jill Ker Conway (b.1934) Australian historian. Financial Times (London) (October 2000)
- They have a great thing nationally that they are trying to replicate abroad. In that replication is the challenge.
Carlos Criado-Perez (b.1952) Argentinian business executive. Sunday Times (London) (July 2000)
- If global connectivity is the technological breakthrough of our decade, then the outburst of innovation is just beginning.
Mary J. Cronin (b.1947) U.S. business author. Doing More Business on the Internet (1995)
- Transnational corporations are powerful entities subject to regulation by Third World countries.
Rajani X. Desai, Indian political economist. Arms of an Octopus: Siemens in India (1990)
- The Indian market has such long-term potential that no international company can take a narrow, short-term view.
Rajiv Desai, Indian journalist and public relations executive. Indian Business Culture (1999)
- The BJP and its doctrine of swadeshi notwithstanding, multinational companies will continue to play an important role…the flow of international investment into India is likely to continue unabated.
Rajiv Desai, Indian journalist and public relations executive. The BJP is a Hindu nationalist political party in India. Swadeshi is a policy of protecting Indian business interests. Indian Business Culture (1999)
- If the U.S. and Japan cannot become partners, then there is a possibility that crrent trends could eventually make them enemies.
Richard Drobnick (b.1945) U.S. academic. “Economic Integration in the Pacific Rim,” Corporate Strategies in the Pacific Rim (Denis Fred Simon, ed.; 1995)
- The economic integration of the Pacific region-which includes the United States, Canada, and Mexico-is occurring…the result of intra-regional capital flows, increased trade liberalization, and privatization trends.
Richard Drobnick (b.1945) U.S. academic. “Economic Integration in the Pacific Rim,” Corporate Strategies in the Pacific Rim (Denis Fred Simon, ed.; 1995)
- Nationalism is an infantile sickness. It is the measles of the human race.
Albert Einstein (1879-1955) U.S. physicist. Quoted in The Human Side (Helen Dukas and Banesh Hoffmann; 1979)
- You should never underestimate the challenge of operating a multicultural business…As businesses are being intimately linked in the global economy, and as the partner with competitors…we become more and more reliant on each other.
William T. Esrey (b.1940) U.S. telecommunications entrepreneur, chairman and C.E.O. of Sprint. Referring to Sprint’s global alliance with Deutsche Telekom and France Telecom to form Global One. “Leadership in the Next Century,” The Conference Board Challenge to Business: Industry Leaders Speak Their Minds (peter Krass and Richard E. Cavanagh, eds.; 2000)
- No nation was ever ruined by trade.
Benjamin Franklin (1706-90) U.S. politician, inventor, and journalist. Essays (1730s)
- Think globally, not locally.
FRIENDS OF THE EARTH, environmental campaign organization. Slogan of the international environmental campaigning organization Friends of the Earth. Slogan (1985)
- The large corporation is here to stay. Those who would break it up and confine its operations within national boundaries are at war with history and circumstance. People want large tasks performed…Large tasks require large organizations.
- K. Galbraith (b.1908) U.S. economist and diplomat. The Age of Uncertainty (1977), ch. 9
- There is certainly nothing competitive about a capitalism that today exports factories as well as merchandise and capital…this is a global industrial conglomeration by capitalism in the age of the multinational corporation.
Eduardo Galeano (b.1940) Uruguayan writer and journalist. Open Veins of Latin America (1971), pt. 2, ch. 2
- Globalization can…be defined as the intensification of worldwide social relations which link distant realities in such a way that local happenings are shaped by events occurring many miles away and vice versa.
Anthony Giddens (b.1938) British sociologist and author. The Third Way: The Renewal of Social Democracy (1998)
- We are part of the community of Europe and we must do our duty as such.
William Ewart Gladstone (1809-98) British prime minister. Speech (April 1888)
- A truly global economy is being created by the worldwide spread of new technologies, not by the spread of free markets…the result is not a universal free market but an anarchy of sovereign states, rival capitalisms and stateless zones.
John Gray (b.1948) British academic and writer. False Dawn (1998)
- The global market as it is presently organized does not allow the world’s peoples to coexist harmoniously. It impels them to become rivals for resources while instituting no methods for conserving.
John Gray (b.1948) British academic and writer. False Dawn (1998)
- If the whole world operates as one big market, every employee will compete with every person in the world who is capable of doing the same job.
Andrew S. Grove (b.1936) U.S. entrepreneur, author, and chairman of Intel Corporation. Fortune (September 1995)
- Globalisation is an opportunity. Well managed, it will help drive forward efforts to build prosperity and eliminate poverty. Badly managed it will increase the divide between rich and poor.
Peter Hain (b.1950) British politician. Speech, Challenges for Governance in Africa Conference, Wilton Park, England (September 13, 1999)
- All things start in California and spread to New Jersey, then to London and then Throughout Europe.
Stelios Haji-Ioannou (b.1967) Greek founder of EasyJet. Wall Street Journal (December 1996)
- In today’s multicultural world, the truly reliable path to co-existence, to peaceful co-existence and creative cooperation must start from what is at the root of all cultures.
Vaclav Havel (b.1936) Czech writer and president. Speech (1994)
- In a global economy the challenges and changes are universal.
Robert Heller (b.1932) British management writer. In Search of European Excellence (1997)
- Merchants have no country. The mere spot they sand on does not constitute so strong an attachment as that from which they draw their gains.
Thomas Jefferson (1743-1826) U.S. president. Letter to Horatio G. Spafford (March 17, 1814)
- Our key words now are globalization, new products and business, and speed.
Tsutomu Kanai (b.1929) Japanese chairman of Hitachi. Fortune (May 1996)
- You can always buy something in English, you can’t always sell something in English.
Rosabeth Moss Kanter (b.1943) U.S. management theorist, academic, and writer. World Class (1995)
- Most powerful women…are only sporadically earthbound.
Heather Killen (b.1959) Australian Internet executive. Referring to her frequent business travel by air. Fortune (October 2000)
- Borders are not sacred; indeed, the best border is an inconspicuous one…As the border erodes, people who belong together will come together.
Gyorgy Konrad (b.1933) Hungarian writer. The Melancholy of Rebirth (1995)
- Pan-Americanism is a grand sentiment over which to drink sweet champagne in Lima, Peru, or Santiago, anywhere, at the expense of the United States.
Stephen Leacock (1869-1944) Canadian humorist, essayist, economist, and historian. While There Is Time (1945)
- Predictability: does the flap of a butterfly’s wings in Brazil set off a tornado in Texas?
Edward N. Lorenz (b.1917) U.S. ethologist. Scientific paper (December 1979)
- September 11th was the dark side of this new age of global interdependence.
Bill Clinton (b.1946) U.S. former president. Speech (December 18, 2001)
- The time has now definitely come when every intelligent individual must learn to think globally, beyond the horizon of a narrow nationalist point of view.
Robert Maxwell (1923-91) British publisher, business executive and politician. Information USSR (September 1962), Preface
- If only 50 or more people were doing for the country what I have been doing, there would not be a pay freeze or a balance of payments problem.
Robert Maxwell (1923-91) British publisher, business executive and politician. Referring to his world trips to build an international scientific publishing business. Speech (December 1966)
- The new electronic interdependence recreates the world in the image of a global village.
Marshall McLuhan (1911-80) Canadian sociologist and author. The Gutenberg Galaxy (1962)
- These days Paris is a suburb of New York and vice-versa.
Jean-Marie Messier (b.1956) French media owner. Sunday Times (London) (September 2000)
- We have combined BT’s global expertise with a comprehensive local knowledge in this package.
Sunil Mittal (b.1948) Indian software entrepreneur. Referring to international joint ventures. Sunday Times (London) (May 2000)
- Sustainable business has to navigate by more than one parameter. The demands of economics, of the environment and of contributing to a just society are all important for a global commercial enterprise to flourish. To neglect any one of them is to threaten the whole.
Mark Moody-Stuart (b.1940) British chairman of Anglo American, and former chairman of Committee of Managing Directors Royal Dutch/Shell Group. Speech, St. Paul’s Cathedral, London. “The Values of Sustainable Business in the Next Century” (July 12, 1999)
- All you need is the best product in the world, the most efficient production in the world and global marketing.
Akio Morita (1921-99) Japanese business executive. Quoted in The Financial Times Handbook of Management (Stuart Crainer, ed.; 1995)
- In the eighteenth century, Volataire said that every man had two countries: his own and France. In the twentieth century, that has come to be true of the U.S.
Rupert Murdoch (b.1931) U.S. C.E.O. of News Corporation. Speech (November 1989)
- We’re not going global because we want to or because of any megalomania, but because it’s really necessary.
Rupert Murdoch (b.1931) U.S. C.E.O. of News Corporation. Worldbusiness (1994)
- India will become the country of choice…It’s already starting to happen.
Narayan Murthy (b.1946) Indian founder and C.E.O. of Infosys. Referring to software development. Forbes (October 2000)
- India missed the industrial revolution. Now for the first time, India has a clear competitive advantage in exports.
Narayan Murthy (b.1946) Indian founder and C.E.O. of Infosys. Wired Asia (June 2000)
- Worldwide, IT companies embarking on the non-organic growth mode have understood the wisdom of mergers and acquisitions on the threshold of the Digital Age.
Narayan Murthy (b.1946) Indian founder and C.E.O. of Infosys. “The Future Is Inorganic,” www.rediff.com (1998)
- The more the economics of the world integrate, the less important are the economies of countries and the more important are the economic contributions of individuals and individual economies.
John Naisbitt (b.1929?) U.S. business executive and author. Global Paradox (1994)
- The world’s trends point overwhelmingly toward political independence and self-rule on the one hand, and the formation of economic alliances on the other.
John Naisbitt (b.1929?) U.S. business executive and author. Global Paradox (1994)
- The bigger the world economy, the more powerful its smallest player.
John Naisbitt (b.1929?) U.S. business executive and author. Megatrends (1982)
- India Ceramics weds unique local skills and materials to advanced, foreign-origin production methods, and quality control.
Anat Napawan (b.1953) Taiwanese business executive. Forbes (September 1998)
- We cannot survive as a cheap labor platform for foreign-licensed products.
Anat Napawan (b.1953) Taiwanese business executive. Forbes (September 1998)
- We face neither East nor West; we face forward.
Kwame Nerumah (1909-72) Ghanaian president. Speech (April 1960)
- Region-states are economic units, not political ones, and they are anything but local…their primary linkage is with the global economy.
Kenichi Ohmae (b.1943) Japanese management consultant and theorist. Harvard Business Review (January-February 1995)
- The most successful Japanese consumer electronics companies send their product design engineers around the world for about six months each year to study the latest consumer needs and assess the competitive scene.
Kenichi Ohmae (b.1943) Japanese management consultant and theorist. Industry Week (July 1985)
- Today’s global economic dance is no Strauss waltz. It’z break dancing accompanied by street rap.
Tom Peters (b.1942) U.S. management consultant and author. Liberation Management (1992)
- Strategy, policies and standards are set globally…but you still need local engagement skills.
Raoul Pinnel (b.1951) British branding and marketing communications director of Shell International Petroleum. Marketing (June 2000)
- Sometimes, I’m more in the air than I am in a country.
Raoul Pinnel (b.1951) British branding and marketing communications director of Shell International Petroleum. Referring to the volume of business travel for a global marketing executive. Marketing (June 2000)
- National and economic prosperity is created, not inherited.
Michael Porter (b.1947) U.S. strategist. The Competitive Advantage of Nations (1990)
- We are always willing to be trade partners, but never trade patsies.
Ronald Reagan (b.1911) U.S. former president and actor. Speech (February 1987)
- High Wage Economies can no longer depend on standardized mass production. Big Ideas…can be shipped in blueprints of electronic symbols anywhere on the globe.
Robert Reich (b.1946) U.S. economist and politician. Tales of a New America (1987)
- There is coming to be no such thing as an American Corporation or an American industry. The American economy is but a region of the global economy.
Robert Reich (b.1946) U.S. economist and politician. The Work of Nations (1991)
- We all of us, rich and poor, have to live with the insecurity caused by an out of control global casino with a built-in bias towards instability. Because it is instability that makes money for the money-traders.
Anita Roddick (b.1942) British entrepreneur and founder of The Body Shop. Speech of the International Forum on Globalization Teach-In, Seattle, Washington. “Trading with Principles” (November 27, 1999)
- Europe is something happening; it’s something we are trying to make.
Marjorie Scardino (b.1947) U.S. C.E.O. of Pearson. Fortune (October 2000)
- The new model is global in scale, an interdependent network.
John Sculley (b.1939) U.S. partner of Sculley Brothers, former president of Pepsi, and C.E.O. of Apple Computers. Harvard Business Review (1991)
- One of the greatest challenges to international business today is how to manage business operations across cultural boundaries.
Jan Selmer (b.1942) Swedish academic and author. International Management in China: Cross-cultural Issues (Jan Selmer, ed.; 1998), Preface
- Globalisation has in effect made the citizen disappear, and it has reduced the state into being a mere instrument of global capital.
Vandana Shiva (b.1944) Indian academic. Globalisation: Gandhi and Swadeshi (2000)
- Globalisation is not inevitable. There is not one but many alternatives to globalization based on the rights of people rather than the rights of corporations, based on democracy rather than corporate rule.
Vandana Shiva (b.1944) Indian academic. Globalisation: Gandhi and Swadeshi (2000)
- Financial capital is better situated in the global system than industrial capital; once a plant has been built, moving it is difficult.
George Soros (b.1930) U.S. financier, entrepreneur and philanthropist. Atlantic Monthly (January 1998)
- All our clients want a common methodology in the marketplace. They want a common language to talk to one another.
Martin Sorrell (b.1945) British advertising executive. Financial Times (London) (March 1997)
- If we want a vibrant, inclusive global economy there is no alternative…to finding some way between these two extremes. There is no alternative to the pursuit of policies and institutions that will globalization work…for people.
Lawrence H. Summers (b.1954) U.S. president of Harvard University, economist and politician. Referring to the “false choice” between unfettered global capitalism and protectionism. Speech, School for Advanced International Studies, Washington, D.C. “Rising to the Challenge of Global Economic Integration” (September 20, 2000)
- Does it really make sense to operate on all continents?
Keiji Tachikawa (b.1939) Japanese IT executive. Forbes (May 2000)
- We must not fall into the mistake of thinking that it is America that trades with Taiwan or Europe that trades with Asia. The truth is that it is American companies that trade with Taiwanese companies.
Margaret Thatcher (b.1925) British former prime minister. Far Eastern Economic Review (September 2, 1993)
- This “going into Europe” will not turn out to be the thrilling mutual exchange supposed. It is more like nine middle-aged couple with failing marriages meeting in a Brussels hotel for a group grope.
- P. Thompson (1924-93) British historian. Sunday Times (London) (April 1975)
- Management in a global environment is increasingly affected by cultural differences.
Fons Trompenaars (b.1952) Dutch author and management consultant. Riding the Waves of Culture (1993)
- Without establishing the appropriate networks in China, it will be virtually impossible to penetrate a market that is significantly different from that in the Western world.
Rosalie L. Tung (b.1948) Canadian academic and business educator. International Management in China: Cross-cultural Issues (jan Selmer, ed.; 1998)
- Capital, technology, and ideas flow these days like quicksilver across national boundaries.
Robert H. Waterman, JR. (b.1936) U.S. consultant and author. The Frontiers of Excellence (1994)
- World peace through world trade.
Thomas J. Watson, SR. (1874-1956) U.S. founder and president of IBM. Quoted in Going International (Lennie Copeland; 1985)
- Gasoline is much more likely than wheat to be a cause of international conflict.
Simone Weil (1909-43) French philosopher and activist. The Need for Roots (1935)
- What a country calls its vital economic interests are not the things that enable its citizens to live, but the things that enable it to make war.
Simone Weil (1909-43) French philosopher and activist. The Need for Roots (1935)
- Ahead of us are Darwinian shakeouts in every major marketplace, with no losing prizes for the losing companies and nations.
Jack Welch (b.1935) U.S. former chairman and C.E.O. of General Electric. Speech (1989)
- If you find a way to get rid of the hierarchical nonsense and allow ideas to flourish, it doesn’t matter if you’re in Budapest or Beijing.
Jack Welch (b.1935) U.S. former chairman and C.E.O. of General Electric. Financial Times (London) (October 1, 1997)
- Most global corporations have three or four competitors, and you know who they are.
Jack Welch (b.1935) U.S. former chairman and C.E.O. of General Electric. Harvard Business Review (September-October 1989)
- The United States is just one part of a global marketplace today. There isn’t any offshore anymore; it’s all onshore.
Walter Wriston (b.1919) U.S. banker. U.S. News & World Report (1987)
- Sooner or later, we’ll be part of the EU. We have to start establishing ourselves as a regional brand now.
Peter Zwack (b.1928) Hungarian business executive. Forbes (April 2000)