Glocalization in Organization

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Unpacking the glocalization

of organization: from term, totheory, to analysisGili S. Drori

a, Markus A. Höllerer

b & Peter Walgenbach

c

a Department of Sociology and Anthropology, The

Hebrew University of Jerusalem, Jerusalem, Israelb Australian School of Business, The University of New

South Wales, Sydney, Australia

c Faculty of Economics and Business Administration,Friedrich Schiller University of Jena, Jena, Germany

Published online: 30 May 2014.

To cite this article: Gili S. Drori, Markus A. Höllerer & Peter Walgenbach

(2014) Unpacking the glocalization of organization: from term, to theory, to

analysis, European Journal of Cultural and Political Sociology, 1:1, 85-99, DOI:

10.1080/23254823.2014.904205To link to this article: http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/23254823.2014.904205

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Unpacking the glocalization of organization: from term, to

theory, to analysis

Gili S. Droria *, Markus A. Höllerer b and Peter Walgenbachc

a Department of Sociology and Anthropology, The Hebrew University of Jerusalem, Jerusalem, Israel; b Australian School of Business, The University of New South Wales,Sydney, Australia; c Faculty of Economics and Business Administration, Friedrich Schiller University of Jena, Jena, Germany

( Received 7 October 2013; accepted 5 February 2014)

Over the past two decades, the notion of ‘glocalization’ came to stand for more than what the term literally encompasses. Not only does it refer to themutually constitutive character of the global and the local; rather, it spearheads the challenge to the numerous dichotomies that have dominated

previous discussions of globalization, and points to the dualities of similarity and variation as well as universalism and particularism. In thisshort essay, we make an attempt to specify the dimensions of complexityand multidimensionality inherent in the notion of glocalization of

organization and management. We propose three sets of analyticconceptualizations. First, we identify three axes of glocalization: vertical,horizontal, and temporal. Second, we extract three core themes of glocalization: the ‘what ’, ‘who’, and ‘how’. Last, we name severalsequenced components of glocalization: abstraction, construction of equivalency, and adoption and adaptation. Laced together, theseconceptualizations are the basis for description and analysis of glocalization. We argue that the important principle of such an analyticapproach to the multidimensionality of glocalization is the intersection, or conjuncture, among these three sets of conceptualizations.

Keywords: glocalization; organization; management; global; local;complexity

“We don’t see ourselves as a Silicon Valley company. We see ourselves as a Japanesecompany in Japan, a Singaporean company in Singapore … ”1 (President of aregional division of a US-based worldwide software company, 2011)

“To truly be global, beyond merely opening of ces here and there, we recruited

foreign managers and board members, which required that we move all our

© 2014 European Sociological Association

*Corresponding author. Email: [email protected]

European Journal of Cultural and Political Sociology, 2014

Vol. 1, No. 1, 85 – 99, http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/23254823.2014.904205

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communications to English, which required that we change the prole of our localrecruits.”2 (Vice president of an Israel-based worldwide software company, 2012)

1. Introduction

Multidimensionality has been at the core of debates on ‘glocalization’ since their

onset in the 1990s: developing in response to the econo-centric view of globaliza-

tion and its focus on overpowering homogenization, the notion of glocalization

re-introduced emphasis on culture and variation. Such formulation of the notion

of glocalization was, above all, a purposeful assault on essentialism and binary

thinking: obviously challenging the global – local divide, it also targeted the

dichotomies of foreign vs. indigenous, ‘McDisney’ vs. authentic, new/innovative

vs. old/traditional, hegemonic vs. marginalized, and top-down vs. bottom-up.

The call for looking beyond such oppositions – particularly the dichotomous cat-

egories of space and time – denes glocalization as a process of transcendence

of various social and cultural boundaries. This then-emergent discourse scrutinized

the romanticizing of the ‘authentic local’ as well as the idealization of global

models; and it introduced multiplicity and multivocality – of both ‘outsiders’

and ‘locals’. This complex imagery of global processes, which interlaced global

with local and universalism with particularism, triumphed and brought about

rich research revealing the glocalization of diverse social practices (e.g., Auyero,

2001; Giulianotti & Robertson, 2007; Jijon, 2013; Kjeldgaard & Askegaard,

2006; Thompson & Arsel, 2004). Still, such research did not elaborate on theinitial denition of glocalization, nor did it offer an analytic grid for its description.

Therefore, the acknowledgement of the complexity and multidimensionality of

glocalization necessitates nuanced analyses and a systematic approach.

Despite its prominence in the scholarly domains of sociology and anthropol-

ogy, the notion of glocalization has not readily trickled into the expanding eld

of comparative organization studies. Rather, the latter presents itself as prolic,

with empirical research of the changing conditions of organization, organizing,

and management, enriched by concepts such as diffusion, translation, and brico-

lage (e.g., Czarniawska & Joerges, 1996; Guler, Guillén, & Macpherson, 2002;Sahlin-Andersson & Engwall, 2002). Still, studies in this tradition, however

rich and detailed, each highlight a particular aspect of glocalization and do not

engage with the multiple facets of glocalization. As a result, current comparative

organization studies miss the opportunity to draw on the multidimensionality that

is implied by the notion of glocalization.

Our work here, drawing from a recently published compilation of research and

commentary on the glocalization of organization and management (Drori,

Höllerer, & Walgenbach, 2014a), fuses the scholarly discussions of organization

studies and of glocalization. Specically, we work to sort out the complexitiesof glocalization in the domains of organization and management by offering a

comprehensive framework for the theoretical and empirical accomplishments

86 G. S. Drori et al.

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made to date. Our proposed framework integrates three analytic conceptualiz-

ations of glocalization. First, we specify three analytic axes: vertical, horizontal,

and temporal. Second, we extract three core themes: ‘what ’, ‘who’, and ‘how’.

Last, we detail the sequenced components of the process of glocalization: abstrac-

tion, construction of equivalency, and adoption and adaptation. Articulating the

nature of glocalization of organization and management based on these conceptu-

alizations, we argue that the complexity and multidimensionality of glocalization

are depicted by the intersection of these three analytic dimensions. In this essay,

we consider the manifold expressions and meanings of the notion of glocalization,

theorize its principal features, and offer a set of analytic marks as the chart for

additional studies of glocalized forms and practices, as well as underlying pro-

cesses of glocalization.

2. Analytic axes of glocalization

Organization and management have emerged as dominant features of globaliza-

tion, as they envelop several of the central themes of Western-now-global

culture: rationalization, professionalization, and actorhood (Drori, Meyer, &

Hwang, 2009). Expressions of organization and organizing are, therefore, to be

found everywhere: for instance, associations formally incorporate or register;

administrative roles rapidly differentiate and exponentially grow in number; and

consultancies and ‘management gurus’ preach strategies for growth and solutions

to overcome uncertainty in decision-making. Most importantly, managerialismeven penetrates long-standing communal activities, and increasingly asserts

itself as the prime form of professionalized authority. We therefore observe ration-

alization, professionalization, and empowerment of the Tocquevillian associa-

tional society worldwide (e.g., Drori, Meyer, & Hwang, 2006, 2009).

While the phenomenon of modern organization is anchored in assumptions of

universality (according to which optimal production and management procedures

are universal, and thus similarly applicable at any locale), such global and world-

wide organization reveals itself as most varied. It can be best described as an

assemblage of glocalized forms of organization and management. Even staunchdevotees of international business and management increasingly recognize the

existence of cross-cultural differences in the operations of production, trade, and

commerce, and the need for translation and adaptation of even the best of manage-

ment practices to their adoptive social environment. In an immediate way, this

realization resulted in ‘strategic glocalization’, with numerous tales of rms that

have adapted products, services, processes, and activities to local preferences

and demands. In addition, it also opened management science to the conversation

of glocalization and infused organization studies with the related language of glo-

cality, now orienting research towards seeking the dimensions by which glocaliza-tion is arrayed.

Early discussions of glocalization highlight the two dimensions of space and

time, and describe them as both condensed and transcended (e.g., Robertson,

European Journal of Cultural and Political Sociology 87

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1994, 1995).3 Drawing upon comparative organization studies, we propose here a

distinction between three central analytic axes (or dimensions) to describe the

various processes of glocalization: vertical, horizontal, and temporal (Drori,

Höllerer, & Walgenbach, 2014b).

2.1. Vertical

By the nature of the term, glocalization focuses attention on the global and the

local, thus reinforcing social science imagery of so-called ‘levels of analysis’.

Imagery of levels involves a sense of nesting: the assumption is that the local

level is nested within the global, thus drawing an overarching and singular

global, with multiple nested localities. Most portrayals in this form focus on

power relations and the post-colonial imprinting of the nested entities, particularly

those in developing countries or otherwise marginalized settings. Others focus onstrategic glocalization, highlighting adaptation as a ‘ best practice’ in a multina-

tional/-cultural context, and also seeing the global imprinting on the entities

nested in it. In such a vein, North American multinational rms, for instance,

bring with them hegemonic models of human resource management (e.g.,

Frenkel, 2014), operations management (e.g., Djelic, 1998), or product develop-

ment (e.g., Chan, 2014), among many others. For example, the vocabulary and

practice of workplace diversity, considered to be an American ‘HRM gospel’,

sweep subsidiaries in many countries outside the US – even if action on this

matter is mostly limited to US subsidiaries, whereas in other contexts the discur-sive references to the importance of workplace diversity only thinly mask, for

instance, persistent prejudice towards migrant workers (Barbosa & Cabral-

Cardoso, 2014). The reason for the spread of workplace diversity is a combination

of coercion by the rm’s headquarters and the global perception of diversity prac-

tices as progressive and ‘modern’ (and thus as desired). Both these mechanisms

reveal that the course of glocalization is vertical, acknowledging the many

‘layers’ of glocalization (see Frenkel, 2014).

While such portrayals envision top-down, global-to-local relations, discus-

sions of glocalization rightly consider a recursive impact. Whether referred to as‘ boomerang’ (Strang, 2014) or ‘re-localization’ (R. E. Meyer, 2014), several

studies point to the co-constitutive relations between the global and the local.

Such a complex path of inuence and constitution is evident in the study of

many issues within organization and management, a classic one being the business

strategy of total quality management (TQM). Numerous studies detail the elabor-

ate path by which TQM, whose core principles are Japanese in origin, is adopted in

various foreign countries – including its adaptation into American work culture

which is antithetical to some of its principles (see Kennedy & Fiss, 2009; West-

phal, Gulati, & Shortell, 1997). Strang (2014), for instance, examines howTQM is promulgated by a New York-based bank to its worldwide branches, but

whereas the program resonates with the culture of peripheral branches, TQM is

most alien to the character of its source work culture in New York. In this way,


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even the constructivist canon regarding diffusion processes, according to which

universalized models disseminate to embedded entities, is amended to present a

complex ‘ path’ of global-to-local-and-back-to-global. This complex image,

where the source is also the target, is nevertheless anchored in the perception of

vertical, nested, and likely hierarchical relations.

2.2. Horizontal

The transfer of ideas, structures, and practices that is at the heart of the glocaliza-

tion process is based on the acceptance of some degree of equivalency. The prin-

cipal mechanism for establishing equivalency is theorization, which, as Strang and

Meyer (1993) outline, extracts common features and conrms comparability on

the basis of such commonality. Constructing comparability, rms benchmark

their performance to the performance of other rms, governments review policyguidelines that were drafted by other governments and deemed to be best practice,

and even the professionalization of non-prot organizations that is inspired by

management routines of for-prot organizations draws upon the denition of

both types as standard forms of organization. In such cases, notions of universality

and equivalency enable the emulation and diffusion of ideas, structures, and prac-

tices from entities that are assumed to be comparable. Such borrowing is an

expression of horizontal glocalization – across the boundaries of entities that are

dened as sharing essential features, be they geographical regions, industry

sectors, elds, or organizations.Horizontal processes of glocalization are common in spite of the differences

among the compared entities. The motivation for horizontal glocalization is, there-

fore, perception, or attribution, of success: one adopts (and, most likely, adapts) an

idea, a structure, or a practice from another entity that one regards not only as com-

parable but, most importantly, as a consummate exemplar. For example, the basis

for the borrowing of practices from for-prot organizations by non-prot organiz-

ations is based on the theorization of the two sectors and of the organization’s man-

agement. Once equivalency between the sectors is established, compelling

measures of ef ciency and proper governance in one diffuse to the other; theincreasingly scientized character of management and organizing paves the way

for comparability (Drori & Meyer, 2006), which becomes embodied in categoriz-

ation and indexing, and also quanties managerial best practice (see also Hwang &

Powell, 2009). In this sense, theorization serves as the basis for comparability and

construction of equivalency, which are critical to the horizontal processes of

glocalization.

2.3. Temporal

By the very nature of being a process, glocalization is affected by the passing of

time. First, the process of glocalization differentiates among the glocalized entities

in terms of timing of adoption, adaptation, and enactment – i.e., between early and


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later adopters. In addition, over the course of diffusion and adoption comes change

to the very ideas, structures, and practices that are being diffused, adopted, and

adapted (Ansari, Fiss, & Zajac, 2010).

Second, the temporal axis translates into historic eras, each bringing its own

culture and a related set of fashions, preferences, tastes, and models. Periodicizing

of this sort involves abstraction, or theorization, of certain practices in each era as

typical: for example, pioneer internet companies poured their own content into

webpages, whereas Web 2.0 companies are dened as distinct from their predeces-

sors because of their reliance on client, or ‘ prosumer ’, content (see also Ritzer &

Jurgenson, 2010). Such era-specic characterizations also leave an imprint on

organizational forms, differentiating, for instance, nineteenth-century multina-

tional corporations from twenty-rst-century multinationals (e.g., DiMaggio,

2009; Jones, 2010). Likewise, with the dominant culture of a specic historic

era imprinting on organization and management, temporality may just as wellaccount for non-variation, building stability, continuities, and inertia. Tradition

or reference to some core principles and ideas of an organization’s founder –

which are often not as idiosyncratic as asserted – are frequently used as a ration-

alization for non-change in organizational settings.

Last, much of the formation, and surely also the adoption and modication, of

organization and management is shaped by images of the past and the future.

Looking to the past means that current translations and adaptations rely on preced-

ing forms, enduring arrangements, and their lasting legacies. For example,

much of the recent restructuring of universities wrestles with the legacies of theuniversity as an academic ‘ivory tower ’, as a medieval-era guild, and as a nine-

teenth-century nation-building institution (Kodeih, 2014; Logue, 2014). The glo-

calization of organization and management can also be future-oriented, translating

and proactively constructing in accordance with the hopes for, and images of, the

future. For instance, ideas of post-bureaucratic organization serve as transmitters

of ideals of democratic organization, in which organizational members are per-

ceived as empowered and sovereign actors with far-reaching rights and

responsibilities.

In these ways, time intervenes in the process of glocalization, setting the ima-gined past and future as an interpretive grid for adoption, adaptation, and enact-

ment. Temporality weaves into social science discussions of change and the

related debates about continuity and disruption, often reifying Western presuppo-

sitions about the linearity of time and the prospect of progress.

2.4. Summary

The term glocalization captures the processes of translation and amalgamation

among entities on the global –

local scale –

which we equate here with the verticalaxis – and highlights the resulting hybridized form that combines elements from

what have been assumed to be contradictory models, or dichotomies. Our delinea-

tion of three distinct axes, however, adds specication of the opposing, or


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otherwise different, models. Therefore, ‘vertical’ stands for the difference among

hierarchically ordered, or nested, entities, namely the global and local; ‘horizon-

tal’, then, stands for the difference between equivalent entities, somewhat like a

here and there; and nally, ‘temporal’ stands for differences in era or stage of

process, namely then and now. In summary, these three axes of glocalization

create scales for variation – and/or similarity – across related entities.

Together, the axesdene glocalization by specifying time and space, thedirection

of impact, and the dimensions along which sameness and variation are constructed

and observed. Until recently, discussions of space conated horizontal and vertical

relations; there was not much distinction between the travel of ideas, structures,

and practices among nested entities or among equivalent entities. We propose here

that such distinction is crucial, also because it allows for the parsing out of matters

of power and/or enactment. Further, the role of time as the bridging of then and

now, and now and then, has not yet been fully considered. The inclusion of thetemporal dimension helps facilitate the understanding of the vitalization and revita-

lization of the global and the local. The three axes come into play in creating an ‘arc’-

shaped process for the diffusion of ideas, adaptation, and enactment, spanning and

linking across various levels of analysis (i.e., the micro, meso, and macro levels),

and allowing for a sequenced process of glocalization to unfold (see also below).

3. Core themes of glocalization

The various studies that present evidence for t he adoption and adaptation of organ-

ization and management models worldwide,4 whether they directly link with the

notion of glocalization or rely on alternative conceptualizations, vary in their

emphasis. Some highlight the idea, structure, or practice of organization and man-

agement that is being glocalized (‘what?’), others highlight ‘glocalizers’ who

shape the glocal and steer the course of glocalization (‘who?’), while a third

group highlights the nature of the process of glocalization itself (‘how?’). The

three foci triangulate a comprehensive description of the phenomenon of glocali-

zation. We therefore propose that these, as core themes, act as principal descrip-

tors, thus guiding empirical research.

3.1. What?

Many are the examples for ideas, structures, and practices of organization and

management that ‘travel the world’: from diversity management, to strategies

like TQM and ISO-compliance, to policies that foster work-life balance, establish

a shareholder value-orientation in corporate governance, enforce corporate social

responsibility (CSR), or regulate harassment in the workplace –

to name only afew. These transferable ideas, structures, and practices are perceived as being

bundled into coherent packages, yet much of the variation in their glocalization

may be accounted for by their loosely coupled character.


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3.2. Who?

‘Glocalizers’ are the agents of glocalization – those who carry or otherwise activate

the processes of adoption and adaptation across time and space. Commonly known

as knowledge practitioners, they are positioned at junctions of translation: experts(i.e., consultants, advisors, academics, or think tanks, among others) and

decision-makers who are charged with seeking innovative pathways, deciding on

their adoption, and shaping and implementing their modication. Therefore, this

diverse group of individual and collective actors, as well as many others such as

the various kinds of interest groups and civil society organizations, act as transla-

tors – either domesticators or internationalizers. Moreover, by J. W. Meyer ’s

account, glocalizers construct and enable the agency that they then assume: ‘the

same world forces that construct exoskeletal models of proper organizational struc-

ture also construct local people as empowered actors, under human rights norms or

standards supporting the customs and interests of local societies, to put forward

their own distinctive identities’ (J. W. Meyer, 2014, p. 414). In his recent work,

Robertson (2014) adds that these glocalizers are increasingly aware of the value

of being different, or unique, conceiving it as an opportune niche position. With

that, the role of glocalizers becomes as complex as glocalization is itself: they

are simultaneously charged with interpreting similarities, so to form the basis for

the transfer of ideas, structures, and practices, while at the same time charged

with establishing uniqueness, so as not to appear redundant.

3.3. How?

This third theme and descriptor of glocalization highlights the features of the

process. Analytically, process-oriented studies have different foci: on the nature

of change (standardization or differentiation), on the direction of inuence

(from whom and to whom, but also with respect to recursivity and co-consti-

tution), on the nature of interpretation (translation, sedimentation, or hybridiz-

ation), or on the social sphere (regulatory, political, or cultural). Here, too, the

terminology discloses the specic orientation. For example, the ‘internationaliza-tion’ of an organization highlights the openness to foreign ideas, structures, and

practices, whereas ‘domestication’ highlights the process of adaptation to the dom-

estic, which stands for the familiar and native local.

3.4. Summary

These core themes form a triangle of research emphases, akin to the combination of

subject, verb, and object into a sentence: glocalizers glocalize the glocal, or the glocalis glocalized through the institutional work (Lawrence, Suddaby, & Leca, 2011) of

glocalizers. Indeed, most studies of glocalization comment on all three themes sim-

ultaneously, seeing themas complementary. Still, the analytic distinction between the


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three again serves as a grid for empirical research. In other words, the themes, or

descriptors, allow the detailing of the expression and phenomenon of glocalization.

4. The multidimensionality of glocalization

Our suggested framework offers a multidimensional portrayal of glocalization –

breaking the terminological ties of the simple global – local dichotomy – and

expands on the reaches of the term to various entities and contexts. For a multidi-

mensional description and denition of the glocalization of organization and man-

agement, we propose here an analytic grid that includes both the three axes that

delineate scales for similarity and variation (i.e., vertical, horizontal, and tem-

poral), as well as the three themes that highlight specic features in the overall

process of glocalization (i.e., what, who, and how). Such intersection, or conjunc-ture, of sets of analytic dimensions brings to the surface the typical conceptual

approaches to the issue of glocalization, and allows for a classication of the

rich research on glocal(ized) organization and management. Table 1 displays

this conjuncture, highlighting concepts as discussed in existing studies of glocali-

zation of organization and management.

Table 1. Analytic grid for the glocalization of organization and management: selectedcategories and concepts.

‘What?’ ‘Who?’ ‘How?’

Glocalized ideas,structures, and

practicesActors andinuences

Processes andmechanisms

Vertical axis – acrossnestedcategories

Manifold ideas,structures, and

practices in theform of regulations,standards, or norms

Hegemonic andauthoritativeentities, such asregulators, standardsetters, opinionleaders, or powerfulnanciers

Enactment, propelled by coercion andnormativeinstitutional

pressures

Horizontalaxis – acrossequivalent entities

‘Best practice’solutions inorganization andmanagement

Equivalent,comparable, andapparentlysuccessful peer entities

Rationalization,imitation, andtranslation

Temporal axis

– acrosshistoricaleras

Era-specicorganizationaldesigns andmanagement fashions

Knowledgeentrepreneurs, suchas academia,consultants, and‘management gurus’

Inertia, translation,and sedimentation

Source: Based on Drori et al. (2014b, p. 14).


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A classication of typical concepts in the rubrics is, obviously, far from being

conclusive. The demarcations among the categories are blurred in each individual

study. We therefore offer examples from our own research, with colleagues, on

how empirical studies and related commentaries transcend the bounds of each ana-

lytic category.

Drori, Jang, and Meyer (2006), for instance, analyze cross-national patterns of

rationalized governance, tracing modest changes towards rationalized governance

among developed countries in the period between 1985 and 2002, and a much

larger change in this direction in developing countries. Such change is driven

by multiple linkages with world society, revealing that the path of inuence on

nation states is not necessarily nodal or direct. Rather, the indirect impact of inter-

national organizations to draft scripts for appropriateness, and thus to act as ‘moral

entrepreneurs’ (Dezalay & Garth, 1995) and ‘teachers of norms’ (Finnemore,

1993), constitutes a platform for enactment of such moral scripts for governancecompetency by nation states. Translating this study into the grid of glocalization of

organization suggested herein reformulates the claims: scripts of rationalized gov-

ernance (i.e., what), which are carried and advocated by international organiz-

ations (i.e., who), diffuse (i.e., how) to nation states worldwide, thus revealing

the inuence of world society on embedded nation states (i.e., vertical) and the

emulation of Western-style national administrative culture (i.e., horizontal)

during an era of hyper-globalization (i.e., temporal).

In their study on the translation of North American-style shareholder value

into the corporatist context of Austria’s coordinated market economy, Meyer and Höllerer (2010) show how a global management concept (i.e., what) diffuses

into a new local cultural setting. In particular, they examine the different ways of

framing a contested issue (i.e., how) that are used by both advocates and

opponents (i.e., who) to either anchor or discredit the idea of shareholder value

in Austria. While the diffusion of a shareholder value orientation in corporate

control clearly evolves along the vertical axis, a number of framings operate on

the horizontal axis (e.g., in constructing comparability to other settings). In

addition, the authors focus on various dynamics over time (i.e., the temporal

axis) and show, for the empirical case at hand, how the process of translationfollows a distinct trajectory. In a similar vein, Höllerer ’s (2013) research on the

diffusion of corporate social responsibility (CSR) in Austria reveals distinct pat-

terns related to the encounter of the Anglo-American notion of ‘explicit ’ CSR

with locally prevailing ideas of broader societal responsibility of business. The

study shows, in particular, how CSR is instrumentalized by different groups

within the Austrian business community to challenge, reinterpret, or explicitly

evoke the autochthonous idea of institutionalized social solidarity.

Finally, Walgenbach (2000), in his study on ISO 9000 standards, demonstrates

how industry associations and industrial

rms in Germany, in their role as partici- pants in the standardization process of quality management systems in the German

standards organization (DIN), contribute to the development of the ISO 9000 stan-

dards by insisting that the international standard (i.e., what) becomes more exible


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case and thus a Weberian ‘ideal type’, then diffuses to equivalent entities, or to

entities that are embedded in a comparable context; it is in this sense that typied

practices ‘meet ’ typied adopters. To continue with the same examples,

UNESCO-member government agencies scale the performance of their schools

by the ‘ bar ’ that is set in the quantied scheme. Or, based on standardized auditing

processes, organizations meeting the requirements of ISO 9000 can be certied by

an external auditor. This process of deriving principles from a particular case and

then using such principles, or generalizations, as the transferable model, is what

we think of as the arc-shaped process of glocalization: from local to global to

local or equivalent. Again, here we observe the wide-ranging interlock of the ver-

tical and horizontal axis.

Seeing that global and local are relative positions, the arc of glocalization

stretches to varying degrees: the European Union serves as the meta-organization

of European countries, serving as ‘global’ for such countries, as ‘equivalent ’ toother regional state unions, and as ‘local’ to international organizations such as

the UN. In a similar vein, an organizational eld (e.g., a country’s population of

corporations or an industry) can be ‘local’ when it comes to the adoption of inter-

national standards and norms, or can be itself the point of reference for the diffu-

sion of ideas and concepts into individual organizations. Here, the term

‘glocalization’, however, limits our discussion of multidimensional diffusion pro-

cesses, since it is so tightly associated with the hierarchical (i.e., vertical) relations

of global and local.

A more precise – albeit at the same time more abstract – terminology is that of universalism and particularism, also suggested by Robertson (e.g., 1994; see also

2014). Robertson’s use of the paired terms, as in the ‘universalism of particular-

ism’, preserves the complexity, multidimensionality, and co-constitutive nature

of the presumably distinct entities. Other terms, like those listed herewith, more

closely follow one dimension of glocalization or another. For example, ‘indigen-

ization’, ‘creolization’, and ‘domestication’ highlight the adaptation of a global

theme to its (new) local host environment. Similarly, ‘transculturation’, ‘global

localization’, and ‘hybridization’ highlight the fusion of global and local into a

new form (as well as the inherent duality that results in such a new form). And‘glonacal’ reorients this terminological discussion towards the issue of levels by

referring to global, national, and local spheres. Indeed, the orientation, or empha-

sis, of each term discloses the theme of glocalization that is paramount for the par-

ticular study or researcher.

6. Concluding comments

In the two decades since the coining of the term (for an overview, see, for instance,

Robertson, 2014), glocalization has come to stand for more than what the wordliterally encompasses. It refers not only to the synergy between global and local

elements, but rather it spearheads the challenge on the numerous dichotomies

that have dominated previous discussions of globalization. Most importantly, by


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highlighting the co-constitution of the so-called ‘global’ and the so-called ‘local’,

glocalization refers to the duality of sameness and variation, and, in fact, to the

universalism of particularism. In this way, ‘glocalization’ is inherently a catch-

phrase for complexity and multidimensionality.

In this short essay, we have made an attempt to specify the dimensions of such

complexity, as well as the axes of multidimensionality. The framework we propose

– i.e., the three axes of vertical, horizontal, and temporal; the ‘what ’, ‘who’, and

‘how’; and the sequenced components of abstraction, construction of equivalency,

and adoption and adaptation – is offered as a basis for description and analysis.

Still, the important principle of such an analytic approach to multidimensionality

is the intersection among the many axes and themes. Table 1 reveals the possibi-

lities for a multidimensional analysis of glocalization, which may be overly ambi-

tious for any stand-alone research project, but is nevertheless a guideline for the

comprehensive analysis and understanding of glocalization.

Notes

1. Taken from an interview with Daniel Alegre, Google’s President for Japan and Asia-Pacic. BBC news. Available from: http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/mobile/business-13740893

2. Taken from an interview transcript whereby the interviewee wishes to remainunknown.

3. For a detailed discussion of the intellectual development of the notion of glocalization,see Robertson (2014).4. See the various contributions to Drori et al. (2014a) and several of the contributions to

Sahlin-Andersson and Engwall (2002), as well as Djelic (1998), Guler, Guillén, andMacpherson (2002), among others.

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