Essay Sample on Globalization: A Closer Look

Introduction

Sound understanding of global stratification concept is the prime reason behind the success of any multinational corporation. Basically, the world is stratified along political, economic, and social lines. The world is further stratified into first-, second-, and third-world countries, depending on individual country's superpowers. Thus, for multinational corporations to efficiently operate in these countries, they must apply the resource inequality strategy. Naturally, a given nation differs from others in aspects of politics, economy, marriage, family, education, and religion among others. Due to global stratification, multinational corporations have impacted these societal elements in various ways. This essay seeks to explain the impact of global stratification on the local cultures and the United States in the context of Walmart, a multinational corporation headquartered in Arkansas, US.

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Every corporation, whether profit or non-profit oriented, will always intend to operate cost-effectively, and so is the case with Walmart. One of the strategies employed by Walmart to accomplish this goal is outsourcing its non-core activities, especially to the developing countries such as China and India. Labor cost in many underdeveloped and developing countries is relatively cheap. This makes many multinational companies such as Walmart take advantage of their labor services. According to Kohler (2006), outsourcing of workers has brought mixed effects to both the foreign cultures and the United States. For instance, when Walmart became one of the leading labor outsourcers in the US in 2012, several impacts were heavily felt. Loss of jobs to foreigners was the most common social impact of this practice. Resultantly, many families and marriages were torn apart (Henslin, 2017). Additionally, criminal activities such as robbery, prostitution, among other unethical practices, were other negative social impacts of outsourcing of labor. It is crucial to note that cultures differ across nations. Thus, increased labor outsourcing has led to saturation of local customs. When children are raised in a culturally diversified society, they are likely to adopt different traditions, some of which are inappropriate and unacceptable in their communities.

On the other hand, global stratification has numerous positive effects on the local cultures. Following global stratification, poverty levels in most second- and third-world countries has decreased by a significant margin. Moreover, standards of living of the outsourced workers' dependents have significantly improved. Most outsourced workers have used this opportunity to improve their families' social status, such as health and education. As a result, the quality of formal education has improved, since many individuals want to attain the qualifications required for various positions in the company (Henslin, 2017). Additionally, when Walmart pays its outsourced service providers, the economic disequilibrium between the United States and the developing countries diminishes, thus improving economic growth of the latter.

The effect of outsourcing labor can be viewed at the national level as well. When Walmart outsources some factors of production from foreign countries, it enhances international trade. Just like any other country, this form of trade has both positive and negative impacts on the US economy. One of the leading positive implications of outsourcing strategy to the US is that the country gets the desired factors of production at relatively lower costs. When the cost of production is low, Hitomi (2017) observes that consumer products become relatively affordable. In the long run, this significantly boosts the US economy. Additionally, outsourcing increases the volume of production. Whenever Walmart produces more goods than its previous production levels, its export value tends to rise. The increase in export also serves as a major booster for the US economy. Besides, the produced products are highly valued in the global market due to their outstanding qualities. The good reputation that the United States gains out of the production of high-quality goods also serves as a positive impact on the country, as it becomes the most desired destination for several importers.

Notably, both the United States and foreign countries mutually benefit from outsourcing. Even though the former gains much from outsourcing as practiced by firms such as Walmart, the latter tend to enjoy a significant portion of cake. Outsourcing creates job opportunities to locals in developing nations. As a result, their living standards improve by a considerable margin, hence reducing poverty levels (Henslin, 2017). On the other hand, the country outsourcing tends to encourage local unemployment in the area. Unemployment reduces both the consumer spending and tax revenue, thus destroying the economy. The prime reason why Walmart and other multinational corporations outsource workers is to reduce labor cost. The tax paid by the low-earning outsourced workers is far much lower than what would have been remitted by the equivalent American employees (Thatcher and Evia, 2017). This makes the local government lose revenue.

Conclusion

It is clear that stratification of the globe is indisputably inevitable. As much as some nations may not positively view global stratification, its positive effects outweigh the drawbacks. Outsourcing, a common international corporate strategy that largely relies on stratification, has significantly boosted economies of both the outsourcers and the service providers. At a lower level, it has improved individuals' standards of living as their cultures are enriched. Contrary, some citizens have undergone severe hardships due to outsourcing practices. Lose of the job has destabilized some families to the extent that access to quality education and healthcare services have become a complete impossibility. Outsourcing should, however, be encouraged since it helps in equalizing the stratified global economy.

References

Henslin, J. M. 2017. Essentials of sociology: A down-to-earth approach. Pearson Education Inc.

Hitomi, K. (2017). Manufacturing systems engineering: a unified approach to manufacturing technology, production management, and industrial economics. Routledge.Kohler, G. (2006). The global stratification of unemployment and underemployment. Sierra, 5(36), 628.

Sudmant, P. H., Mallick, S., Nelson, B. J., Hormozdiari, F., Krumm, N., Huddleston, J., & Jorde, L. B. (2015). Global diversity, population stratification, and selection of human copy-number variation. Science, 349(6253), aab3761.

Thatcher, B., & Evia, C. (2017). Outsourcing technical communication: issues, policies, and practices. Routledge.