Globalization and Global Innovations

One of the main phenomena to which societies are confronted and that has influenced all aspects of social life of people living in the earth is globalization. Globalization is a multifacet phenomenon which leads to disappearance of the borders between economic, social, cultural and political relations and shapes a modern relation and communication between nations (within countries and among countries) Due to the significance of this phenomenon in the life, it has been the focus of the attention of scholars so that most scholars consider globalization as a factor for development, welfare and integration among nations which lead to the distribution of global benefits among people. Despite this perspective, some theorists consider it a discriminative force which makes the poor, poorer and the rich, richer. In their views, many people of developed and advanced counties would benefit of globalization while developing and undeveloped countries would drop behind developed countries due to lack of facilities to compete in this area. So based on this, the proponents of globalization consider it as a positive phenomenon in all respects and the opponents consider it as the destructive factor of regional and national cultures due to overcoming the capitalism and the increase in economic and political dimensions. Because of this, the consequences of globalization on different aspects of human life and different matters lead to dissolution of interpretations. The aim of this chapter is to examine the relation of globalization and innovation. So first the concept of globalization and its origin are reviewed and then for better investigation of this relation, the effect of globalization on different aspects of innovation would be analyzed. The authors believe that globalization reduces innovation following the reduction of variety in different aspects of the society including economic, social, political and cultural dimensions and inclination toward integration and unification and it has negative effect on innovation.