Public Organizations in the Age of Globalization and Technology

Both globalization and information and communications technologies (ICT) have been shown to be important factors in defining organizational environment. However, the cumulative effects of these two factors together on decision-making and the exercise of power within large organizations are currently not well explored. This paper attempts to fill that gap by conceptually analyzing the combined effect on globalization and communications technology. ICT has had the cumulative effect of shrinking an organization’s effective size. Globalization contributes to this effect of removing geographic boundaries by centralizing control over certain functions. In other words, globalization and ICT, in conjunction with each other, have considerably heightened the concentration of power and decision-making authority within the organization. Copyright Springer Science+Business Media, LLC 2007