Globalization and the Cold War: The Communist dimension

Abstract

In this article I argue that one of the today's key management issues, globalization, evolved differently during the cold war in the Communist world than it did in the capitalist world. Stalin and Mao Zedong tried to create aWorld Socialist Market.This was ultimately doomed to fail because of the resilience ofWestern and Asian capitalism and the rivalry between the two axis of the communist worlds, Moscow and Beijing. Stalin's and Mao's heirs attempted to come to terms with global markets via competition and integration. In the end, the dream of aWorld Socialist Market crumbled due to its lack of unity and its inability to compete with those markets. In addition, communist management with its emphasis on central planning was considerably different than western management and only after the end of the war did the former communist bloc countries adopt similar management practices to the West.