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The global strategies of high-tech start-ups fall into two types. One is characteristic of knowledge-based firms; the other is characteristic of knowledge-intensive firms. We present two propositions related to timing of globalization and resource acquisition for each type and examine four case studies from the region around Cambridge University in the United Kingdom.

Knowledge-based start-ups target global markets from the very beginning, aiming at rapid market penetration. From the start they are highly globalized in acquiring core technology and financial and human resources.

In contrast, knowledge-intensive start-ups start in local markets and initially restrict acquisition of core technology and financial and human resources to those markets. Only at a later stage, when the local business is solidly established, do they gradually expand their businesses to global markets.

This chapter focuses on theories and methods for policy studies in higher education, in an era of accelerating globalisation. Policy is increasingly conceived as a complex process which extends from global to local levels, and is contested at all levels. At the same time, higher education has assumed a more central role in the development of a so-called ‘global knowledge economy’. Thus, the re-conceptualisation of ‘policy’, along with the repositioning of the role of higher education in globalising times, call for a rethink on theory and method for higher education policy studies. With attempts to cover a broad global-local span, single theoretical framings are often insufficient, and theoretical eclecticism potentially offers more comprehensive insights into dynamic policy processes than single theories alone. In particular, the combination of critical theory and post-structural theory has presented a fruitful way to build policy ‘trajectory’ and ‘network’ analyses across multiple levels and sites.

Purpose – To understand women's participation in domestic and global sex (entertainment) industries in South Korea, this study proposes an integrative theoretical framework of political economy with three analytical dimensions: position in the world-system, local patriarchy, and the state policies.

Method/approach – The theory that seeks to understand the South Korean government's policy on prostitution is formulated based on reviews of transnational and global research on gender and sex work, local patriarchy, and political economy of world-system. Two historical examples of the sex industry, businesses near U.S. military camps on the Korean peninsula and Korean prostitutes in several cities of Japan, are used to illustrate the theory. The data for these cases were collected from a variety of sources including government and nongovernment documents, newspaper articles, film, and demographic information.

Findings – The application of the theoretical frame makes it possible to understand the socioeconomic and political contexts in which South Korean society, as a semiperipheral nation, has produced a vast number of women in the sex industry.

Practical implications – When the government's policy emphasizes rapid economic growth viewing women as a source of revenue, it will be difficult to understand marginalization of women's status in informal sectors and massive production of prostitutes in domestic and transnational scale.

Value of study – Using a macro and structural perspective, this study sheds light on the transnational/global nature of the prostitution industry, and specifically the role of the state, and local patriarchy in the globalizing South Korean sex industry.

This chapter explores the role of iconic architecture in the development and promotion of urban megaprojects (UMPs) in globalizing cities. Iconic architecture is defined in terms of fame and aesthetic/symbolic significance. The argument is framed within the concept of the culture-ideology of consumerism. While the focus is on two case studies – the grands projets in Paris and UMPs in major Chinese cities since the 1980s – the chapter seeks to demonstrate the increasing importance of iconic architecture for UMPs around the world. The chapter utilizes official sources, scholarly research, and reports in the mass media to support the arguments, all within the context of a theoretical framework developed over the last two decades and widely published by the author, to explain how capitalist globalization works. Within the context of the culture-ideology of consumerism, the widely accepted rationale for capitalist globalization, the production and marketing of what has been increasingly identified as iconic architecture is the main route to achieving the profits – financial, political, and cultural – deemed necessary for the success of UMPs all over the world. The chapter presents the first available analysis of the key role of the transnational capitalist class in the production and marketing of iconic architecture in urban megaprojects, thereby offering a systemic explanation of the growth and characteristics of urban megaprojects in the era of capitalist globalization.

Cosmopolitanism represents a complex, multilevel, multilayer phenomenon manifested in a variety of social spheres, including moral, political, social, and cultural. Yet, despite its prominence in other disciplines, cosmopolitanism has received relatively scant attention in international management research. Furthermore, the understanding of cosmopolitanism as an ever-present social condition in which individuals are embedded lags significantly behind.

In this chapter, we develop a conceptual framework for cosmopolitanism as an individual-level phenomenon situated at the intersection of the moral, political, and sociocultural perspectives. The framework explicates the interrelations between macrolevel dynamics and individual experiences in a globalized world. We conceptualize cosmopolitanism as an individual disposition manifested and enacted through identities, attitudes, and practices. We also highlight the diversity of individuals who can be considered cosmopolitans, including those who may not possess the classic cosmopolitan CV. Finally, the chapter explores the implications of cosmopolitanism for global organizations and global leadership.

In this chapter we approach the issue of Business Diplomacy (BD) from a historical perspective, showing how this activity has been performed since the ancient Greece. In particular, we give a brief overview of the main BD concepts used, starting with the proxenos, the “pioneers” in the BD field, until present days.

The analysis is grounded on a theoretical approach backed by a comprehensive overview of the representative literature in the field of BD. We identify and discuss the main challenges to be faced by BD in a globalized world, dominated by multinational corporations (MNCs).

We show that BD has been practiced for centuries and nowadays is still performed by honorary consuls and chambers of commerce. In a globalized world, BD is being assimilated by MNCs either as their main activity or as an auxiliary one becoming a key tool and mindset toward securing their market reputation, positioning, and legitimacy.

Apart from the historical overview of the beginnings and evolution of the main diplomatic actors and activities, the chapter proposes new concepts and legal frameworks for the actual BD field such as: consulariate instead of consulate (devoted to business) and chancellariate instead of embassy (devoted to political affairs).

Canada's rural economy today is a dynamic source of economic growth and jobs are available in the natural resource extraction, manufacturing, agri-food and service sectors, yet despite this relatively favourable outlook, a profound socio-economic transformation is taking place. Within Ontario, the nation's largest and most economically diversified province and the focus of this study, the agri-food sector seeks new ways to deal with heightened competitive pressures and unstable commodity prices, in part by securing a relatively inexpensive and reliable labour force, while transnational auto-parts firms have looked increasingly to small town Ontario as fertile ground to transplant new ‘flexible’, niche manufacturing facilities. This multifaceted process has had a distinct impact on the regional economy, migratory labour flows and community social dynamics. As Harvey (1996) makes note, the effects of capital's re-spatialization have been uneven, and the state's role in this process contradictory, simultaneously facilitating capital mobility while regulating labour's (im)mobility (see also, Peck, 1996; Antonio & Bonanno, 2000). This chapter presents research findings and examines the impact of capital/labour flows on the changing character of three small communities in the heart of rural south-western Ontario – Bradford, Strathroy and Tillsonburg – with a particular focus on the conditions under which migrants and immigrants are socially included and excluded from the communities where they work. Based on these case studies, I argue that while small town Canada has managed to benefit partially from opportunities linked to a globalizing economy, the formal and informal means of socially incorporating this new transnationalized labour force is lagging significantly behind, reflecting in fact a regressive turn in Canadian labour-market regulation, while the concern for sustainable community development is largely ignored.

This study examines to what extent Internet firms have globalized and the key factors that have enabled some firms to globalize more than others. Contrary to arguments that Internet-based firms automatically benefit from a global market, this study shows that most Internet firms serve regional markets, consistent with Rugman's (2000) findings for firms in the FT500. However, there are a few notable exceptions. In these cases a combination of early mover advantages, unique product, technology standards and complementary products and services have created a ‘winner-takes-all’ market in which a few firms dominate markets worldwide. Implications for globalization theories are discussed.

This chapter aims to contribute to research on standards and regulation in education, taking as a point of departure three sets of interrelated policies, core to the globalised educational agenda: policies on competencies and skills, school autonomy and performance-based accountability, representing a new governmental logic founded on the values of efficiency, quality, competitiveness and outcomes. The chapter has a double purpose: first, to make a theoretical contribution to the literature interrogating the new modes of governing schools and curricular knowledge. It does this, by explicating the relationship between the regulative dimension of global policy discourses, embodying the principle of performativity, and the discourses regulating pedagogic practices in local sites, where policies are enacted. Second, to present aspects of a study carried out in the Greek education context, in which policies towards a post-bureaucratic administration regime (school autonomy, national testing, accountability mechanisms) have failed to be institutionalised. Focusing on the Modern Greek Language curriculum and its enactments in demanding school settings, the study illustrates how discourses on inclusion, diffused within the educational field and invading the school space, exert strong control over teachers' instructional practices. It is argued that developments of Bernstein's theory of knowledge pedagogisation provide a language to describe the complex ways in which regulative discourses operate in global times, affecting the recontextualisations of curricular policies. The theory thus contributes to the literature on the enactments of globalised education policies and helps explain the diversity of national and institutional responses to such policies.