Reflections on global strategy in a turbulent world

The familiar, comfortable neo-liberal economic world of an ever-expanding, ever more efficient global market has been torn apart by political, economic, social, and economic turbulence in the last decade or two. So far, multinational firms have successfully been able to use rapidly improving information technology, increasingly friendly national governments, and ever more integrated world markets to build global value-adding networks that are reliant on steady increases in offshoring and outsourcing. Hypothetically, these global network organizations were both cost efficient and flexible in the face of challenges. And then the forces of chaos hit - COVID-19, the Russian army, and rapid climate change, among others. Can global networks survive, or must the world economy retrench toward domestically focused, closely held firms in a divided and antagonistic world? We investigate these and other questions facing global strategists in a “world gone mad”.