Globalization and Consumer Behavior

Globalization may be described as the combined influences of trade liberalization, market integration, international finance and investment, technological change, the increasing distribution of production across national boundaries, and the emergence of new structures of global governance. The global marketplace, equipped with the application of global communications, has become the focus of the global business arena, which keeps the world markets open and competitive practices fair. At the same time the antiglobalization movement is also developing, protesting against the hazards of suppressive strategies used by global companies, which affects regional trade entities. Contemporary trends in globalization and corporate responsiveness to increasing competition suggest that globally integrated strategies are largely customer-centric and supported by the consumer consensus on marketing policies for many industries. The social media based firm-level model explains corporate responsiveness in reference to industry trends from economic perspectives and organizational behavior. The mass markets represented by the large consumer segment exhibit high potential for firms to sustain the market completion. Thus firms should stay consumer-oriented and build their foundation on the social networks in order to develop interactive marketing platforms. This would help firms not only to develop consumer loyalty but also to enhance their market share of this large demographic segment (Tallman et al., 2002).