Skepticism of Globalization and Global Strategy: Increasing Regulations and Countervailing Strategies

The authors analyze how skepticism of globalization, the socially constructed vulnerability that emanates from global interdependencies, affects global strategy. They argue that inequality, identity, and influence drive skepticism and propose that the increase in rhetoric against globalization and for new regulations do not seem to result in significant reductions in cross‐border economic flows. They explain this discrepancy by proposing that multinationals' strategies counteract the impact of politicians' regulatory reactions to the skepticism of globalization. Specifically, they propose that firms increase flexibility in global value chains in response to skepticism of cross‐border trade, rework the localization of global operations to deal with skepticism of cross‐border investment, use lobbying in global finance to address skepticism of cross‐border finance, nativize the global workforce in reaction to skepticisms of cross‐border labor, and protect global knowledge to solve the skepticisms of cross‐border knowledge flows.