Preface
Our ignorance of history causes us to slander our own times.
Gustave Flaubert (1821-1880).
French novelist (literary realism).
Preface Highlights
In 1993, along with my colleague Professor Peter McKiernan at Warwick Business School in the UK, we published a book in partnership with the Economist Intelligence Unit (EIU) titled Inside Fortress Europe: Strategies for the Single Market. The text examined the principles of global business strategy and discussed the political and economic processes involved in creating the European Single Market of twelve member states on January 1st 1993.
Twenty-five years later, reflecting on the period between that significant event and the UK’s momentous decision to leave the now enlarged twenty-eight-member European Union (following the June 2016 Brexit referendum) seemed important and relevant. In 2018, I published a ‘sequel’ book, Outside Fortress Europe: Strategies for the Global Market. Its objective was to provide a cross-functional, multi-disciplinary perspective on the challenges of ‘organizational life’ and strategy development in a highly competitive and complex global business environment.
During the research for the project, an intriguing series of apparently unrelated ‘episodes’ of events and historical processes revealed significant interrelated changes in three broad areas within a relatively short timeframe, our studied ten years in this book:
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- Multiple interruptions to the long march of globalization, which had accelerated since 1945.
- ‘Once in a generation’ geopolitical and economic disruptions, including the dramatic collapse of the USSR, the end of the Cold War (round one), the formation of the European Union and the extraordinary rise of China and Taiwan as global economic powerhouses.
- ‘Step-change’ developments in communications infrastructure, underpinned by the convergence of the telecommunications and information technology sectors alongside ‘disruptive’ business processes.
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To include detailed coverage of these developments in ‘Outside Fortress Europe: Strategies for the Global Market’ would have detracted from its focus as a textbook on international business and global strategic management.
Since two significant events – the 1987/88 and the 1997/98 global financial crises – bracketed a decade during which these episodes unfolded, the Ten Years That Shook the (Capitalist) World: 1988-1998 title (hereafter, Ten Years) for this book selected itself. The first edition was published in 2018.
This second edition expands the core themes of the original and presents a more detailed analysis of the significant events and historical processes explored in this tumultuous decade. A new chapter outlining essential principles of free trade, globalization, and international business ‘sets the scene’ for the 1988-1998 decade that is analysed. It also explores the nature of uncertainty, risk and decision-making in ‘unknowable’ times. The book as a whole has benefited from extensive feedback sought from its readers and numerous academic colleagues.
Book Structure
Chapters One through Twelve feature the dramas, events, and historical processes that played out in the ten years of the book’s title, broadly in chronological order from 1988 to 1998.
The Introduction, Free Trade, Globalization, and International Business, provides the context and lays down the principles that underpin the analysis featured in these twelve chapters. It explores the degree to which historical events, processes, and globalization dynamics can be interpreted with reference to an established knowledge base rather than as a series of unrelated random (chance) occurrences. (This assessment explains the rationale behind the pervasive presence of tumbling dice from the book’s front cover onwards).
The Introduction does not adhere to the time brackets of the extraordinary decade Ten Years focuses upon, but it does include multiple important issues and themes that are referenced throughout its pages.
Similarly, while the Epilogue reflects upon and interprets the chapters it follows, it also provides additional content that examines critical issues in globalization dynamics and international business which fall outside the scope or timeframe of the book’s principal focus.
Appendices
The book includes two appendices. Appendix One, 1998 – 2018: A Brief Overview, offers summaries of three significant disruptions to globalization that arose in the two decades following the ten years featured here. It also provides a comprehensive list of resources for further inquiry.
Appendix Two, Milestones in the History of Globalization, provides a timeline of significant milestones in ‘the long march of globalization’, from Ötzi ‘the Iceman’ millennia ago to Donald Trump’s international trade shenanigans and the impact of the smartphone and social media network revolutions at the time of writing the 2nd edition of this book. Despite being designated an Appendix, many readers would benefit from reading the Globalization Milestones before studying the book.
A Personal Note
In 1995, I published Creating Organizational Advantage, which enjoyed critical and commercial success. Like most popular business books, it was ‘of its time’, capturing a moment and addressing a zeitgeist that tended to suggest globalizing companies, especially from countries such as Japan, Taiwan and South Korea, were doing ‘more of the same’, only cheaper and/or better and, consequently, were taking market share from their lumbering, sloth-like Western counterparts.
A second edition of this book was considered but time moves on, and new ideas emerge. The publisher of the first (and only) edition has agreed to the inclusion of passages of the original ‘Creating Organizational Advantage’ text in Ten Years. Many of the ideas are the same, just updated. And more potent.
My teaching expertise lies exclusively in post-experience education, including MBA, MSc and Executive Development Programmes. My consultancy practice facilitates business education programmes, courses, seminars, workshops, etc., on subject domains relating to international business, global strategic management, innovation, marketing and branding.
Throughout the book, I draw heavily upon my experience working worldwide as a business advisor to the technology giants IBM (1994-2002) and Royal Philips International (1989-2012). This was a monumental period of technological transformation, rivalling anything arising during previous epochs of the Industrial Revolution but much more intense, immediate, and impactful.
Royal Philips International began many corporate restructuring initiatives in the early 1990s following a difficult period addressing intense competition and emerging technologies. But there were also potential opportunities for the company beyond technology, its traditional focus, especially in the emerging markets of Central and Eastern Europe and Southeast Asia. While Philips had the physical infrastructure in the regions, it needed to develop organizational capabilities and competencies to realise the potential of these multiple markets. I worked closely with my great friend Carlos Casali, a Philips executive, designing and delivering business education programmes in these emerging economies from the early 1990s onwards.
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