Freshman and Sophomore Business Students’ Perception of Global Forces

The purpose of this article is to describe the perception on global forces of business major freshman and sophomore undergraduate students in the United States. As global forces deeply impact business life around the world, educators are looking for ways to provide necessary knowledge and skills in business education curricula to develop competitive and competent students who are prepared for the global economy. Although such efforts focus on the end result in education, understanding students’ initial perceptions can help educators better shape their curricula and courses. The findings in this article are categorized into individual impacts, organizational impacts, and personal solutions. Emerging themes in individual impacts of globalization include increasing individual competition around the world, loss of individuality and new lifestyle with technology, and the Internet and social networks. Students identified organizations as winners of global forces and described organizational impacts more positively. Meanwhile, emerging themes in organizational impacts of globalization included more, cheaper, and better qualified employees as well as off shoring American jobs to developing countries, more customers, and new business practices on the Internet and social networking sites. Personal solutions to cope with global trends were focused on improving qualifications through education to stand out among global competition.