Book review

Abstract

This qualitative analysis examines Wal-Mart managers’ perspectives of the strategies that the US corporation has implemented to increase its sales and profits at more than 4000 stores in local US communities. Two theoretical paradigms were specifically used: glocalization and grobalization. The former refers to adaptation to local cultures; the latter means aggressive standardization. The ultimate goal of the researchers is to identify the current state (i.e. tension and/or balance) of those two forms of globalization. In-depth, face-to-face, qualitative interviewing of 10 Wal-Mart managers in Central Florida allowed the researchers to actually comprehend managers’ perspectives, gather fresh data, and construct a final product to enlighten readers on the current Wal-Martization of the US. Throughout the data reduction process, three key themes surfaced as the most relevant to two initial research questions: (1) Awareness of Glocalization as Key to Success; (2) Grobalization Strategies Implemented; and (3) Centralization as a Pattern of Grobalization. Overall, it was found that Wal-Martization is a process that requires complex strategies and efforts to match the contemporary conditions of globalization. Meeting the needs of local Wal-Mart stores varies from one geographical location to the next. While grobalization is a reversal of the meaning of glocalization, this study has revealed that part of Wal-Mart’s phenomenal success is to be both grobalizing and glocalizing. Wal-Mart offers its customers the opportunity of consuming locally (e.g. Hispanic products, Mediterranean food), globally (e.g. universal US merchandise), or both simultaneously (like products and traditions found in Orlando stores).     

Wal-Mart: An Analysis of the Glocalization of the Cathedral of Consumption in China

This paper examines the methods adopted by Wal-Mart to cater to local cultures in China. This analysis draws on glocalization, a concept that refers to the interaction of the global and the local, or the incorporation of local elements into global products and/or services. This paper is important for two reasons. First, glocalization, in and of itself, has the capacity to enhance scholarly understanding of globalization with reference to global agency and cultural differentiation. Second, not only is China a nation where Wal-Mart had to glocalize the most; China is also the fastest growing market in the world. So, this analysis can bring fresh insights into today's reality of globalization processes. One of the consequences of Wal-Mart's strategy of glocalization is that it contributes to its status of ‘cathedral of consumption’ even more. A cathedral of consumption refers to an incomparable magnitude of global success (achieved by a major corporation) that gives birth to a consumer religion and a display of abundance and excess.

Este artículo examina los métodos adoptados por Wal-Mart para satisfacer a las culturas locales en China. Este análisis se basa en la glocalización, un concepto que se refiere a la interacción entre lo global y lo local, o a la incorporación de elementos locales dentro de los productos o servicios globales. Este artículo es importante por dos razones. Primero, la glocalización en sí, tiene la capacidad de mejorar la noción académica de la globalización, con referencia a la agencia global y a la diferenciación cultural. Segundo, China no sólo es una nación donde Wal-Mart tuvo que glocalizarse en mayor grado; sino que además es el mercado de mayor crecimiento en el mundo. Así, este análisis puede traer un conocimiento fresco a la realidad actual de los procesos de globalización. Una de las consecuencias de la estrategia de glocalización de Wal-Mart es que contribuye más aún a su estado de “catedral de consumo”. Una catedral de consumo se refiere a una magnitud incomparable de éxito global (lograda por una corporación mayor) que da vida a una religión de consumidor y a un despliegue de abundancia y exceso.

     

Subjective well-being in European countries��on the age-specific impact of physical activity

As an attempt to measure the ‘experienced’ utility of individuals in economics, the investigation of individuals’ subjective well-being (SWB) was pioneered by Van Praag and Frijters (1999) and Kahneman et al. (1999). Since then, a number of studies has analysed the factors associated with SWB and policy makers are now recognising the importance of SWB as a policy target, with the implication being that one could target its factors associated with increase in the overall SWB in countries. However, despite its significance to economies, and increasing policy relevance, investigations on the impact of sport and physical activity on SWB are relatively rare [e.g. Rasciute and Downward in Kyklos 63(2):256–270, 2010]. More specifically, despite sports participation and engagement in physical activity having a strong age-specific profile (Breuer et al. in Eur Rev Aging Phys Act 7:61–70, 2010; Hinrichs et al. in Eur J Sport Soc 6(1):49–57, 2010; Mechling and Netz in European Rev Aging Physical Activity 6(2):89–97, 2009), there is no study that investigates whether the magnitude of this impact is age-specific. Consequently, this paper seeks to make a unique contribution to the existing literature by exploring the age-specific effects of physical activity on SWB for a broad cross-section of 19 European countries. Overall, the results suggest that engagement in physical activity generally contributes to the SWB of individuals on a European level but that significant age-specific differences exist.     

Between global and glocal: content analysis of the Chinese Web Sites of the 100 top global brands

This study examined the Chinese web sites of the 100 top global brands. It revealed that 58 of the 100 top global brands sponsored a Chinese web site. Refuting the argument that globalization is a homogeneous process, this study found that a glocal strategy, as opposed to a standardized global strategy, was being practiced in cyberspace by many of the companies with top brands. These companies glocalized their Chinese web pages by integrating local cultural characteristics into their brands’ strategies, thus presenting themselves as being socially accommodating to the local market. This study confirmed that glocalization is an outcome of the interaction between globalization and localization.     

Olympic and world sport: making transnational society?

This paper introduces the special issue of the British Journal of Sociology on the subject of the transnational aspects of Olympic and world sport. The special issue is underpinned by the perspective that because sport provides a space for the forging of transnational connections and global consciousness, it is increasingly significant within contemporary processes of globalization and the making of transnational society. In this article, we examine in turn eight social scientific themes or problems that are prominent within the special issue: globalization, glocalization, neo-liberal ideologies and policies, transnational society, securitization, global civil society, transnational/global public sphere, and fantasy/imagination. We conclude by highlighting five 'circles' of future research inquiry within world sport that should be explored by social scientists.     

Sociology’s <Emphasis Type="Italic">Suicide</Emphasis>: A Forensic Autopsy?

For decades Durkheim’s theory of suicide has been tested and found wanting. Yet, rather than being consigned to the dust-bin of history, it lives on and is pointed to as an exemplar of the powers of sociological theory and research. If this rationalizing and/or dismissal of so many falsifications of the theory were an isolated phenomenon, it might be evidence of some lemming-like propensity for suicide or a disciplinary death-wish, among a few sociologists. But it appears to be a much more widespread and common occurrence. In this paper we explore some possible explanations of this ‘falsification denial’—‘The Social Misconstruction of Reality’ (Hamilton 1996), ‘When Prophecy Fails’ (Festinger et al. 1956), ‘Underdetermination’ (Duhem 1954; Quine Journal of Philosophy 67:178–183, 1970, Erkenntnis 9:313–328, 1975; Lakatos 1970), and ‘Boundary Maintenance’ (Erikson 1966), and we outline some of the more important and pernicious consequences of this falsification denial for the discipline and future of sociology.     

The Emergence of Associational Life in México’s Wild West: Pioneering Civic Participation,Sea Turtle Conservation,and Environmental Awareness in Baja California Sur

This research explores the contributions of the sea turtle conservation movement in Baja California Sur (B.C.S.), Mexico, to the growth of associational life in the state. Mexico has historically been known as a country with a traditionally weak associational life. Yet, the activities of sea turtle NGOs and community groups presented a unique case study to better understand the social, political, and strategic factors that have contributed to voluntary civic engagement and the environmental successes of the movement. Through 799 interviews and surveys with public stakeholders, this research utilized Sabet’s (Democratization 2:410–432, 2008) focus on political opportunity, efforts to reform informal rules, and supportive social networks, as an explanatory framework to help describe the emergence of associational life. We found that the sea turtle conservation movement in B.C.S. has become accessible to a diversity of interests and individuals. We found unexpected results in the extent of federal environmental agency complaisance in regard to the involvement of NGOs in conservation programs and environmental policy decisions that have traditionally been the sole domain of the Government of Mexico.     

Rothschild and Stiglitz’s mean preserving: revisited

Lemma 1 in the classic paper by Rothschild and Stiglitz (J Econom Theory 2:225–243, 1970) is incorrect. We use the concept of “single” mean preserving spread to provide a version of this critical lemma. It is shown that this modified lemma can in fact be used to prove Rothschild and Stiglitz’s principal result.     

Stitching-up the labour market

In mainstream International Political Economy (IPE) writings on globalization, the multinational corporation (MNC) is placed at the centre of the emergence of a global market economy. Allied to this view is the normative position that these firms will have a positive, developmental impact on the states that they invest in. This article presents a gendered political economy perspective on the process of foreign direct investment (FDI), arguing that liberal IPE has failed to understand adequately the impact of the MNC on host states because of its attachment to ideas of rational action and modernization, and its assumption that the market is a gender-neutral space. By contrast, in this article, I argue that by looking at the gendered nature of recruitment practices within an MNC we are forced to confront the way in which firms work with existing inequalities embedded in the economy of the host state in order to secure a supply of low cost labour. The article presents case study research from an MNC operating in Malaysia, focusing on how company recruitment intersects with local social divisions based upon gender, ethnicity as well as age, rural–urban divides, class and education. I suggest that via its recruitment strategies, the firm plays a role in the construction of gendered and racialized inequalities. I argue that the MNC needs to be investigated as a site for the active construction of gendered identities across globalizing production lines, thus moving away from the traditional focus of feminist analysis of East Asian development on the experiences of the workers themselves.     

New Directions in Globalization Indices

Abstract

This paper discusses the measurement of globalization with a view to advancing the construction of globalization indices. It critically analyzes the types of indices that can contribute to knowledge and policy on globalization. Three issues are particularly highlighted: (a) the focus of measurement (i.e. on activities or policies); (b) the dimensions of measurement (i.e. cultural, ecological, economic, political, and/or social); and (c) the units of measurement (i.e. local, national, regional, and/or global). This paper argues that a workable forward strategy should not seek to identify the single best composite globalization index, but rather should work in an interdisciplinary mode towards a set of complementary globalization indices. These quantitative analyses can then be productively blended with qualitative approaches in a fuller assessment of globalization's extent and impact.     

Mindfulness and Cognitive Therapy in Depression Relapse Prevention: A Case Study

Depression is the most commonly diagnosed mental illness in the United States with relapse rates as high as 80–90% in some circumstances (Chen et al. in Res Soc Work Pract 16(5): 500–510, 2006; Mintz et al. in Arch Gen Psychiatry 49: 761–768, 1992; Teasdale et al. in J Consult Clin Psychol 68(4): 615–623, 2000). Cognitive therapy (CT) and psychopharmacology have been the mainstays of treatment for depression and relapse prevention, yet relapse remains a significant risk of this mental illness (DeRubeis et al. in Arch Gen Psychiatry 62: 409–416, 2005; Meyer and Scott in Behav Cogn Psychother 36: 685–693 2008; Rush et al. in Cognit Ther Res 1: 17–37, 1977). The literature review, case illustration and analysis examines the rationale for integrating mindfulness practice, and demonstrates the application of this practice in conjunction with cognitive therapy to reduce the risk of relapse in Major Depression.     

The grobal in the sporting glocal

Abstract This article provides a counterpoint to analyses of contemporary sport culture that falsely polarize the global and the local, in a manner that tends to privilege, and indeed romanticize, expressions of the sporting local. Rather than treating them as mutually exclusive categories, this discussion seeks to further the understanding of the constitutive interdependence linking the (sporting) global and the (sporting) local. In looking to further the understanding of the contemporary sporting landscape, we offer an alternative approach that reinscribes the influence of the global in shaping structures, practices, and experiences of the sporting local. The processual and empirical continuum through which we conceptualize globalization is bounded by grobalization (the imperialistic ambitions of nations, corporations, organizations, and the like and their desire, indeed need, to impose themselves on various geographic areas) and glocalization (the interpenetration of the global and the local, resulting in unique outcomes in different geographic areas): the grobal and the glocal. We discuss four sport scenarios, and illustrate the manner in which they exhibit – in varying inflections and to varying intensities – the necessary, but never guaranteed, interpenetrative relationship between the grobal and the glocal. This is achieved by both problematizing the very possibility of the sporting local within conditions of intensive and extensive globalization (leading to the concept of the glocal), and simultaneously explicating the importance of the global (through the concept of the grobal) to the structure and experience of everyday sport cultures.     

Why do larger families reduce parental investments in child quality, but not child quality per se?

Becker’s Quantity–Quality model (Becker in Demographic and economic change in developed countries, Princeton University Press, Princeton, pp 209–240, 1960; Becker and Lewis in J Polit Econ 81(2): S279–S288, 1973; Becker and Tomes in J Polit Econ 84(4): S143–S162, 1976) suggests a trade-off between family size and parental investments in children. To date, only Cáceras-Delpiano (J Hum Resour 41(4): 738–754, 2006) tests this theory by considering private school enrolment. This study extends this work by using a unique data set containing a broader range of parental investments that are arguably linked to parental intentions for producing higher quality children, such as overall and non-sectarian private school enrolment, the number of computers in the home per child, and saving for the child’s education. Both studies find that fertility reduces parental investments. However, the literature generally finds that fertility has no impact on child outcomes. The study offers three potential explanations for this ‘puzzle’.     

Examining Community Life “in the Making”: Emile Durkheim’s <Emphasis Type="Italic">Moral Education</Emphasis>

Although often overlooked in sociological circles, Emile Durkheim’s (1902–1903) Moral Education provides an important cornerstone in the quest to understand community life. Not only does Moral Education give a vibrant realism to the sociological venture in ways that Durkheim’s earlier works (1893, 1895, 1897) fail to achieve, but in addressing discipline, devotion, and informed reasoning as humanly engaged, collectively accomplished fields of activity Emile Durkheim also provides an exceptionally consequential baseline analysis of human knowing and acting. Notably as well, focusing on the organizational, intersubjectively achieved features of elementary education, Durkheim’s Moral Education lays bare the interactional nature of the moral order of community life. Indeed, as a sustained analysis of the way of life of a group of people collectively participating in the educational process, this text addresses the most basic features of people’s relations to one another and the broader society in which they find themselves. Much more than an account of childhood socialization, Durkheim’s Moral Education also presages the more thoroughly humanist sociology that Durkheim develops in The Evolution of Educational Thought (1904–1905), The Elementary Forms of the Religious Life (1912) and Pragmatism and Sociology (1913–1914).     

The Real Origins of the Global Crisis

In this paper we present an interpretation of the economic and financial crisis that considers crucial the issue of income distribution (Krugman 2007; Piketty and Saez 2003; Reynolds 2008), a question that is instead ignored by more widespread interpretations. In fact, we ask what lies behind the disaster of the subprime loans and, if a more thorough view is taken, it seems clear that the true causes of the crisis lead back to income distribution, in other words the enormous increase in the gap between rich and poor. This consideration is fundamental. If the crisis were merely financial then (perhaps) the policies of financial adjustment that are currently in place might be sufficient. If instead the crisis is due to more serious causes, and nothing is more serious than distribution inequalities, then the cure must be much more profound (and difficult). In other words, the crisis will be long and severe until such inequalities are reduced, a difficult task when weighed against public intervention in aid of financial institutions.     

The Glocal and Global Studies

Abstract

This article offers an overview of engagements with the glocal and traces the consequences of this research agenda for Global Studies. First, it compares the emergence of the global and the glocal in the literature. It tracks the uneven impact of the business use of the glocal and argues that this genealogy has obscured alternative accounts. Second, it offers a thematic overview of the uses of glocalization in the literature. It highlights publication clusters in specific areas of interdisciplinary interest. It further addresses key criticisms against glocalization. Finally, it explores the vicissitudes of research on glocalization on the scope and definition of Global Studies. Trends in Global Studies appear to move in an opposite direction from the one suggested by glocalization. This could lead to the emergence of a separate field of Glocal Studies, causing further fragmentation in the field.     

Recovering the social: globalization,football and transnationalism

Abstract In this article, we place the social and football (as a sporting realm) at the heart of social scientific analysis of globalization processes. Our theoretical framework sets out, in turn, the concepts of glocalization, with particular reference to what we term the ‘duality of glocality’; transnationalism, notably its socio‐historical aspects; connectivity, with particular reference to its antonym, ‘disconnectivity’; and cosmopolitanism, with strong focus on what we term its ‘thick’ and ‘thin’ variants. We explore the interplay of these concepts and processes within three broad domains of the ‘football world’: supporter subcultures, sport journalism, and Japanese football culture. We conclude in part by arguing for greater exploration of sport's role in regard to global processes and of the interrelationships between the duality of glocality and the thick/thin variants of cosmopolitanism.     

Rethinking Globalization: Glocalization/Grobalization and Something/Nothing

The concept of "grobalization" is proposed to complement the popular idea of "glocalization." In addition, a sociologically relevant concept of "nothing" is defined and juxtaposed with "something." Two continua are created—grobalization‐glocalization and nothing‐something—and their intersection creates four quadrants: the grobalization of nothing, glocalization of nothing, grobalization of something, and glocalization of something. Of greatest importance are the grobalization of nothing and the glocalization of something, as well as the conflict between them. The grobalization of nothing threatens to overwhelm the latter and everything else. Other issues discussed include the loss of something in a world increasingly dominated by nothing, the disappearance of the local, and the relationship of the triumph of nothing to political economy, especially social class. I conclude that no social class is immune to this process and that the poor and lower classess may be "doomed" to something.     

Two-stage electoral competition in two-party contests: persistent divergence of party positions

Models of party competition building on Downs (1957) have recognized that there are centrifugal and centripetal forces in party competition; but one such force, the existence of party primaries, has been remarkably neglected in recent literature. We consider party/candidate policy divergence in two-party competition in one dimension where there is a two-stage electoral process, e.g., a primary election (or caucus) among party supporters to select that party’s candidate followed by a general election. We develop a model in which (some or all) voters in the primary election are concerned with the likelihood that the primary victor will be able to win the general election and being concerned with that candidate’s policy position. This model is similar in all but technical details to that given in an almost totally neglected early paper in Public Choice Coleman (1971) 11:35–60, but we offer important new results on electoral dynamics for candidate locations. In addition to accounting for persistent party divergence by incorporating a more realistic model of the institutions that govern elections in the U.S., the model we offer gives rise to predictions that match a number of important aspects of empirical reality such as frequent victories for incumbents and greater than otherwise expected electoral success for the minority party in situations where that party has its supporters more closely clustered ideologically than the supporters of the larger party (in particular, with a concentration of voters between the party mean and the population mean).A much earlier version of this paper was presented at the Annual Meeting of the Public Choice Society, Long Beach, California, March 24–26, 1995. We are indebted to Dorothy Green and to Clover Behrend-Gethard for bibliographic assistance and to Nicholas Miller and the late Peter Aranson for helpful suggestions.     

On the selection of the same winner by all scoring rules

Different scoring rules can result in the selection of any of the k competing candidates, given the same preference profile, (Saari DG 2001, Chaotic elections! A mathematician looks at voting. American Mathematical Society, Providence, R.I.). It is also possible that a candidate, and even a Condorcet winning candidate, cannot be selected by any scoring rule, (Saari DG 2000 Econ Theory 15:55–101). These findings are balanced by Saari’s result (Saari DG 1992 Soc Choice Welf 9(4):277–306) that specifies the necessary and sufficient condition for the selection of the same candidate by all scoring rules. This condition is, however, indirect. We provide a sufficient condition that is stated directly in terms of the preference profile; therefore, its testability does not require the verdict of any voting rule.