Globalization & Development of economies Essay

Globalization has been perceived as a beneficial factor in the development of economies, technological advancements as well as sociological and political development. However, not everyone gains from these benefits. Instead, other nations particularly the developing states are subjected to the dangerous effects of globalization. The truth about globalization is while the benefits may be enjoyed by a few individual states, the negative impacts of globalization are felt by all the nations in the world. Globalization and the associated changes in the social work organization has led to a creation of economic systems where various corporations are increasingly moving around the world to find the cheapest labor possible. A good example is out the trend of outsourcing, which is quite common in the modern world of business. Cheap labor in this context is reproduced through political, social, technological and economic means which allows corporations to pay extremely low wages to the workers. Globalization has led to a number of technological innovations and technology has played a pivotal role in the reshaping of the social organization of work. The introduction of computers and information technologies has greatly changed the work setting. For instance, the shift from demands for physical work to mental, intellective operations and information handling has substituted the skills of all collar workers. This has reshaped the social organization of work. The overall effect of such changes is the reduction of employment and the eventual reduction in the wage levels among the workers performing physical work. The social organization changes of capitalism have intensified the effect of globalization and affected how employment and labor relationship is regulated. This has mainly been seen through the intensification of acquisition and cross-border mergers where companies value the importance of mergers and acquisitions in order to increase the strength of business. There has also been a pronounced trend of the global corporations of transforming themselves into organizers and coordinators of activities performed by suppliers, contractors and sub-contractors. This has had a significant effect to the regulation of employment and labor relationship leading to the production of cheap labor. Through globalization, employers can easily subcontract and outsource cheap labor from different states which further allows global corporate to externalize and reduce the costs that are incurred from employing directly. Outsourcing of labor makes the employers to pay low wages since they can choose to employ from states where cheap labor is readily available. The political instability, poor living standards and poorly developed economies in developing states have all contributed to the reproduction of cheap labor and global corporations are taking advantage of this. In order to avoid further tearing of the social fabric caused by globalization, consumers and /or producers of cheap labor should devise machineries to provide salient working conditions with improved wage levels. This can be achieved by setting the international wage minimums that will prevent the overexploitation of workers from the developing countries. All workers with similar qualifications should earn on the basis of a unified wage rate. The increased acquisition and merging of companies can be beneficial as it increases the strength of business in a synergistic manner. However, agreements should first be made to integrate the social values of each company and respect the rights of employees of each of the merged companies. Through this, the benefits of globalization can be reaped by both the developing and the developed states or the producers and consumers of labor. Reference: Amin, M. (2009). The effect of globalization, labor fexibilization and national industrial relations systems on human resource management. International Business Research. 2(4), 36-45. http://www. ccsenet. org/journal/index. php/ibr/article/viewFile/3910/3434