Paragraph describing 'Globalisation'. - Emma

Globalization is a term that is not easily defined, but is loosely described as the process by which the world is becoming increasingly interconnected as a result of massively increased trade and cultural exchange. It has gradually increased the production of goods and services and the biggest companies are no longer national firms but ‘multinational corporations’ with subsidiaries in many countries.
       
Globalization has been taking place for hundreds of years, but has speeded up enormously over the last half-century. It has resulted in aspects such as, increased international trade, a company operating in more than one country, greater dependence on the global economy, freer movement of capital, goods and services and recognition of companies such as McDonalds and Starbucks in LEDC’s (Less Economically Developed Countries).

Although Globalization is probably helping to create more wealth in developing countries – it is not helping to close the gap between the world’s poorest countries and the world’s richest. There are several factors, which have influenced the process of globalization: Improvements in transportation, Freedom of trade, Improvements of communications and Labour availability and skills.

              

Globalization has resulted in many businesses setting up or buying operations in other countries. When a foreign company invests in a country, perhaps by building a factory or a shop, this is called inward investment. Companies that operate in several countries are called multinational corporations. The US fast-food chain McDonald’s is a large MNC. 

Globalization is having a dramatic effect – for good and bad – on world economies and on people’s lives. Some of the positive impacts are things such as, TNC's providing jobs and skills for local people, the sharing of ideas, experiences and lifestyles of people and cultures and increasing awareness of events in far-away parts of the world. Some of the negative impacts are things such as globalization being viewed as a threat to the world’s cultural diversity, transnational companies with their massive economies of scale driving other smaller companies out of business, and there being no guarentee that the wealth from inward investment will benefit the local community and that industry may begin to thrive in LEDCs at the expense of jobs in manufacturing in the UK and other MEDCs, especially in textiles.

  

Anti-globalization campaigners sometimes try to draw people’s attention to these points by demonstrating against the World Trade Organisation. This is an inter-government organization that promotes the free flow of trade around the world.