Conclusion — Capturing the Complexity of Transnational Business

Abstract

In his recent book The End of Globalization (2001), Alan Rugman argues from a business-school oriented perspective that the academic debate on globalization has been largely simplistic and misguided. He criticized academic theorists of globalization for misunderstanding the nature of TNCs’ activities in the contemporary global economy and equating them with the emergence of integrated global markets and business practices. Rugman argues that there is no evidence for true (economic) globalization: the global economy, along with the world’s largest TNCs, is becoming more oriented towards the three main regional trading blocs — North America (NAFTA), Europe (EU) and Asia-Pacific (ASEAN). Very few truly global corporations exist, corresponding only to a small number of the very largest manufacturing TNCs who sell homogenous products across the globe. Rugman regards the social scientific discussion of globalization as having ignored the complexity of business activity in today’s global economy, in favour of a general theoretical story about globalization as a far-reaching and pervasive phenomenon.

The literature advocating globalization is far too simplistic. While there are some economic drivers of globalization there are extremely strong cultural and political barriers preventing the development of a single world market … For most manufacturing sectors, and all service sectors, regionalization is more relevant than globalization.

(Rugman 2001: 18)