Global Themes and Local Variations in Organization and Management

Book excerpt: Global Themes and Local Variations in Organization and Management: Perspectives on Glocalization offers a broad exposition of the relations between the global and the local with regard to organizational and managerial ideas, practices, and forms. This edited volume forges ahead to capture the complexity of modern management and organization that results from the processes of glocalization. Universality is among the core underlying principles of the management of organizations, as well as of organization and management science itself. Yet, reality reveals enormous variation across social and cultural contexts. For instance, multinational corporations must adjust their management practices to adhere to national regulation and local standards; manufacturers and service providers routinely tailor their products to suit the local preferences of consumers; and non-profit organizations amend their advocacy agenda to appeal to local sentiments. The work assembled here goes beyond merely describing such patterns of variation and adaptation in organization and management; research and commentary engage directly with the tensions between homogeneity and heterogeneity, convergence and divergence, global and local. With contributions from leading scholars in the field of comparative organization studies, this collection offers a substantive contribution to the investigation of organization and management, as well as providing a valuable resource for students of organization studies, international business, and sociology.