Globalization and Demographic Change – A New Age for Human Resource Management

“What is currently happening is comparable with the discovery of America. Under the flag of happy-go-lucky modernisation, we set sail for “India” and we got to the One-World society where a deterritorialised socio-spatial order still remains unchartered – including its new transnational power games, ways of life and lifestyles, cultural landscapes, elite management, contrasts, cross-border social movements and ways of governance beyond the national state. In the meanwhile, we are all global players in some sense, according to the sociologist Ulrich Becker who described the phenomenon that had its first entry in an English dictionary under the term: globalization. If the discovery of America introduced “modern times” in historical and geographical terms, then globalization is a dramatic socio-economic break. It poses new tasks, particularly for the strategic management. It is a synonym for the integration of national economies into a shared global economy with intensive transnational trade-offs regarding goods and services, capital, knowledge, and people as well as the often-cited “War for Talents”. However, in contrast to the common perception, this is not merely the continuation of an internationalisation process, but instead a completely new phenomenon as national economies, societies, value systems as well as political regulation frameworks are deeply affected, if not erased. “The key challenge for humankind will be the capability to manage global interdependence”. This concise statement by Professor Klaus Schwab, Executive Chairman of the World Economic Forum, addresses the challenge of globalization faced by business management. The skill to influence new global connections and dependencies will be of absolute importance for modern HR management.