Our Globalization Era among Success, Obstacles and Doubts

In the last decades, the never-ending and unlimited expanding of both interna tional economies and operations became globalization. Among its main features, one could recall the enormous increase of world macro-economic quantities (Gross World Product, Inter-continental Trade, FDI), as well as financial values (public debts and currency printing). The chapter tries to quantify them, by a statistical analysis of historical data (Section 1). Section 2 is dedicated to the strategic problems of firms, in particular the threats and opportunities for (inter) national firms willing to become global, and obstacles are included in Section 3. This given, it deals with the behavior of countries from the political and juridi cal points of view, and those ones passed form initial perplexities, distaste, or even hostility to a favorable behavior. Conclusions (Section 4) recall both the problematic alternative for globalized companies between “the world as our next door” and their social responsibilities and the similar problem for host countries, between socioeconomic advantages and protection of local workers, resources, and environment.