Globalization Risks and Information Management

摘要

The IMF publication, Finance and Development, recently published data about globalization that puts into perspective the dramatic advances the global trading community has made in the last century thanks to information technology. For example, in 1960 a three-minute transatlantic phone call from New York to London cost $60.42. Today, the same call costs less than half a dollar. An investment of $1,000 into a computer and related peripherals today would have cost around $1.9 million back in 1960 (and take up quite a bit more landscape). It's hard to imagine the life of an information technology researcher back in 1960, much less anyone looking at whatever "global" IT issues may have existed then. How is it that any products or services even crossed national frontiers given the barriers to the free flow of information that existed? The risk factors in international trade and the complications in bringing buyers and sellers together in a mutually trustworthy environment were close to insurmountable.