Managing Globalization in Developing Countries and Transition Economies

Book excerpt: Globalization is everyone's business, asserts Kiggundu in this comprehensive examination of globalization's influences on transition economies. Globalization presents challenges to developed and developing countries alike, and these challenges can and must be managed. Countries making the move from state-run to market-driven economies were faced with formidable obstacles even before globalization's effects were fully felt. Kiggundu argues that we, the incipient global society comprised of governments, corporations, NGOs, and individuals, must take a strategic approach to managing globalization. He explores strategies in the fields of public sector reform, governmental use of technology, foreign direct investment and international trade policy, the evolving World Trade Organization, cultures of entrepreneurship, labor standards, and environmental protection. Strategies for managing globalization are not merely to achieve and maintain dominance or competitiveness, but also to integrate the concerns voiced by globalization's harshest critics and most disenfranchised victims: ethics, equity, inclusion, physical and psychological human security, sustainability, and development. Kiggundu contends that these values, summarized in a 1999 United Nations Development report, should go hand in hand with the mantras we hear from the management literature: profitability and maximizing shareholder value, among other traditional corporate goals. Providing a broad variety of examples, from Chile's management of financial crisis to the vision statements of Botswana and Malaysia, Kiggundu delineates the many ways in which developing countries are successfully managing the vagaries of globalization.