Glocalization


Glocalization is the "simultaneous occurrence of both universalizing and particularizing tendencies in contemporary social, political, and economic systems." The notion of glocalization "represents a challenge to simplistic conceptions of globalization processes as linear expansions of territorial scales. Glocalization indicates that the growing importance of continental and global levels is occurring together with the increasing salience of local and regional levels."
Glocal, an adjective, by definition, is "reflecting or characterized by both local and global considerations." The term “glocal management” in a sense of “think globally, act locally” is used in the business strategies of companies, in particular, by Japanese companies that are expanding overseas.

Variety of uses

The concept comes from the Japanese word dochakuka, which means global localization. It had referred to the adaptation of farming techniques to local conditions. It became a buzzword when Japanese business adopted it in the 1980s. The word stems from Manfred Lange, head of the German National Global Change Secretariat, who used "glocal" in reference to Heiner Benking's exhibit Blackbox Nature: Rubik's Cube of Ecology at an international science and policy conference.
"Glocalization" first appeared in a late 1980s publication of the Harvard Business Review. At a 1997 conference on "Globalization and Indigenous Culture", sociologist Roland Robertson stated that glocalization "means the simultaneity – the co-presence – of both universalizing and particularizing tendencies."
The term entered use in the English-speaking world via Robertson in the 1990s, Canadian sociologists Keith Hampton and Barry Wellman in the late 1990s and Zygmunt Bauman. Erik Swyngedouw was another early adopter.
Since the 1990s, glocalization has been productively theorized by several sociologists and other social scientists, and may be understood as a process that combines the concerns of localism with the forces of globalization, or a local adaptation and interpretation of global forces. As a theoretical framework, it is compatible with many of the concerns of postcolonial theory, and its impact is particularly recognizable in the digitization of music and other forms of cultural heritage. The concept has since been used in the fields of geography, sociology, and anthropology. It is also a prominent concept in business studies, particularly in the area of marketing goods and services to a heterogenous set of consumers.

Sociology

The concept of glocalization is included in the discourse on social theory. This is first demonstrated in the way it challenges the notion that globalization overrides locality by describing how the concept of local is said to be constructed on a trans- or uper-local basis or is promoted from the outside. There is also the position that the association of temporal and spatial dimensions to human life, which emerge in globalization, exert little impact. Glocalization is also said to capture the emergence of unique new indigenous realities that result in the interpenetration of the global and local spheres. The term ‘glocklization’, combining the glocal concept with a Glock pistol, was coined in 2018 to indicate forms of glocalization that are perceived as unbalanced and destructive to local cultural heritage.

Business

Challenges

Glocalization works best for companies which have decentralized authority. The cost to the companies increases as they cannot standardise products and projects, different cultures have different needs and wants which is highlighted in this challenge. An example of a company succeeding in creating new products for their emerging market is McDonald's new rice meals in India and China. This shows that McDonald's has done research on and understands their new market's requirements for a successful takeaway food. This however can be very costly and time-consuming.
An example of a global business that has faced challenges due to localization of their products can be presented through the closing of a Starbucks in the Forbidden City of China in 2007. Starbucks' attempt to localize into the culture of China by accommodating their menu to local elements such as serving green tea frappuccinos and enlarging their stores was prevalent in most areas of China, but when Starbucks spread to the Forbidden City, a problem surrounding cultural identity arose. Factors surrounding "western influences" related to Starbucks were seen as a threat by a web-based campaign which was successful in initiating the closing of the Starbucks in the Forbidden City. The leader of this campaign, Rui, stated, "All I want is that Starbucks move out of the Forbidden City peacefully and quietly, and we'll continue enjoying Starbucks coffee elsewhere in the city."
Although there are many challenges to globalisation, when done right it has many benefits; allowing companies to reach a larger target market is just one of them. Society also benefits when globalisation occurs as an increase in market competition generally pushes the price of products down which means the consumers benefit by gaining a lower price point. This decreases the inequality gap as people who couldn't previously afford products when the market was controlled by local monopolies are able to purchase the product more cheaply.
Although globalisation has benefits for the consumer, it does not always benefit the producer, with newer and smaller companies struggling to keep up with the low production costs of the multi-national competitors. This results in either a higher price and loss of consumers, or a lower profit margin, which in turn results in less competition within the market.

Education

Glocalization of education has been proposed in the specific areas of politics, economics, culture, teaching, information, organization, morality, spirituality, religion and "temporal" literacy. The recommended approach is for local educators to consult global resources for materials and techniques and then adapt them for local use. For example, in information, it involves advancing computer and media understanding to allow students and educators to look beyond their local context.

Media

in The World Is Flat talks about how the Internet encourages glocalization, such as encouraging people to make websites in their native languages.
Television
Besides the usage of Internet, television and commercials have become useful strategies that global companies have used to help localize their products. Companies, such as McDonald's, have relied on television and commercials in not only the Western Hemisphere but in other parts of the world to attract a varying range of audiences in accordance with the demographic of the local area. For example, they have used mascots ranging anywhere from a male clown in the Western Hemisphere to attract younger audiences to an "attractive" female clown in Japan to attract older audiences.

Community organization

Glocalization, or glocalism, in community organization refers to community organizing that sees social problems as neither local or global, but interdependent and interconnected, necessitating organizing practices that concurrently address local problems and global issues. Glocal organizing techniques are commonly associated with The New Community Organizing, and are distinguished from other methods by emphasizing "play, creativity, joy, peer-based popular education, cultural activism, and a healthy dose of experimentation."
One of the most common glocal models of practice, functional community organization, seeks to organize communities around a function. Functional community organization emphasizes a deep understanding of issues, strategies for change, and communication strategies that promote "inclusive networking." The goals of functional community organization are to organize communities through direct action in order to meet immediate community need while addressing glocalized problems. In so doing, functional communities act as their own unique forms of protest, vehicles for community empowerment, and alternatives to institutionalized social welfare systems. Popular examples of functional communities include community projects such as community gardens, Community Technology Centers, gift economy markets, food sharing, and other forms franchise activism and mutual aid.