Globalization Interview

Impact of Globalization: Marti Gibson, Personal Interview 4.4

Joyce Jones

Indiana Wesleyan University

MGMT- 500: Applied Management Theory

September 20, 2016

         Marti Gibson is a 32 year veteran of the copier industry.   For the last five years, she has worked as the Indiana and Kentucky Market Administrative Manager for Konica Minolta.  Her team consists of 10 employees located in multiple cities including Indianapolis, Lexington, and Louisville.    Gibson is a life-long resident of Lagrange KY living there with her husband and two children who both attend the local schools in Oldham County.  The following is a personal interview with Gibson conducted on September 14, 2016, addressing the impact of globalization on her community, business, and personal life over the past 20 years.

          “Lagrange is a mecca of globalization” (M. Gibson, personal interview, September 14, 2016) and it affects her community in both a positive and a negative way.  The most positive influence that Gibson sees with globalization in the last 20 years is a development of a more diverse community due to the demand of farming jobs.  These positions attract a large population of immigrants, resulting in an increase cultural awareness and racial tolerance particularly in the younger generation.  In her opinion, “because of the exposure to all the diversity in her community, the youth do not see color or race, they simply see a person” (M. Gibson, personal interview, September 14, 2016). This liberal mindset enables a more favorable acceptance of the cultural differences that exist and is a far different view where racism was commonplace during her youth.

With the high concentration of immigrants living in her small community, Gibson saw an adverse effect on the local schools. Lagrange Elementary, where both her children attended, had a negative image due to a majority of the immigrant children speaking English as a second language. At the primary school level, the poor communication skills of the immigrant children equated to lower test scores and school rankings.  There is considerable scrutiny over the test scores within the state.  Lower rankings lead to higher teacher turnover, parental dissatisfaction, and an overall unfavorable perception of the school by the community.

As a result of Gibson’s career in the copier industry, she has seen significant changes in business due to globalization over the past 20 years.  The first change came with the introduction of the internet in the mid 90's.  The internet had an enormous impact on daily administrative responsibilities primarily due to electronic mail providing faster communication to manufacturing partners, improved quality of communication, and timely access to order information. Companies are no longer needing to wait for paperwork by mail or difficult to read faxes.   Not to mention there were sometimes missing order pages that created process delays.    “A downside from an operations perspective was the creation of a more demanding and more educated consumer” (M. Gibson, personal interview, September 13, 2016) prepared with readily available information supplied by the internet leading to higher expectations in regards to costs, customer service, and speed of delivery.