Glocalization
Glocalization or glocalisation (a portmanteau of globalization and localism) is the "simultaneous occurrence of both universalizing and particularizing tendencies in contemporary social, political, and economic systems".
[5] The word stems from Manfred Lange,[6] head of the German National Global Change Secretariat,[7] who used "glocal" in reference to Heiner Benking's exhibit Blackbox Nature: Rubik's Cube of Ecology at an international science and policy conference.
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".
[10] 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[11] and Zygmunt Bauman.
As a theoretical framework, it is compatible with many of the concerns of postcolonial theory,[16] and its impact is particularly recognizable in the digitization of music[17] and other forms of cultural heritage.
[19] It is also a prominent concept in business studies, particularly in the area of marketing goods and services to a heterogenous set of consumers.
"[26] A notable example is referenced by Professor Noel Salazar of the University of Pennsylvania, whose study dove into these distinctive glocalization attributes on the island of Java in Indonesia.
An example of a company succeeding in creating new products for their emerging market is McDonald's new rice meals in India and China.
Glocal governance[29] is the interlinkage between global, national and local formal and informal actors that aim to find common ground, take decisions, implement and enforce them.
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.
Anthropologist Andrew Ofstehage refers to this change from small, personal farms to large corporate ones as an aspect of "financialization".
[33] Glocalization of education has been proposed in the specific areas of politics, economics, culture, teaching, information, organization, morality, spirituality, religion and "temporal" literacy.
For example, in information, it involves advancing computer and media understanding to allow students and educators to look beyond their local context.
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.
[35]: 248 In this context, glocalization seeks from the outset to minimize localization requirements for video games intended to be universally appealing.
[35]: 248 Academic Douglas Eyman cites the Mists of Pandaria expansion for World of Warcraft as an example of glocalization because it was designed at the outset to appeal to global audiences while celebrating Chinese culture.
