I. Meaning of globalisation:
• There is no one meaning or definition of the term (or of the word) ‘globalisation’. Indeed wefind different that different subjects focus on different aspects of globalization for instance, economics may be dealing more with the economic dimensions such as capital flows, Political Science may focus on the changing role of governments.
• The very process of globalisation is so far-reaching that disciplines have to increasingly borrow from each other to understand both are causes and consequences of globalization.
• The scope of sociological study is extremely wide. It can focus its analysis of interactions between individuals such as that of a shopkeeper with a customer, between teachers and students, between two friends or family members.
• It can likewise focus on national issue such as unemployment or caste conflict or the effect of state policies on forest rights of the tribal population or rural indebtedness.
• Global social processes such as the impact of new flexible labour regulations on the working class, or that of the electronic media on the young, or the entry of foreign universities on the education system of the country.
• What defines the discipline of sociology is, therefore, not just what it studies (i.e., family or trade unions or villages) but how it studies a chosen field.
• Sociology is not defined by what it studies but how it studies. It would be not quite right to state that sociology only studies the social or cultural consequences of globalization. What it does is the use of sociological imagination to make sense of the connections between the individual and society, the micro and the macro, the local and the global.
II.International companies, their adopted strategy and cultural synthesis in India
• Since April 1, 2001, all types of quantitative restrictions (QR) on imports were withdrawn. It is no surprise now to find a Chinese pear, an Australian apple vying for attention in the local fruit stall. The neighbourhood store also has Australian orange juice and ready to fry chips in frozen packets.
• What we eat and drink at home with our family and friends slowly changes. The same set of policy changes affects consumers and producers differently.
• They are obviously also linked to public policies adopted by the government and its agreement with the World Trade Organisation (WTO). Likewise macro policy changes have meant that instead of one television channel we have literally scores today.
• Sociological imagination enables to make this connects between the micro and the macro, between the personal and public.
• Among the many economic factors driving globalization, the role of transnational corporations (TNCs) is particularly important.
