Global Organizations, Essay Example

The modern world experiences multiple challenges and changes in the context of globalization and overall integration that await every contemporary country. Despite the huge realm of cultural peculiarities and differences most countries have historically formed, they are now forced to tolerate each other and to learn to cooperate on a routine basis to achieve common goals, to promote progress and to enhance their position in the world map. The notion of global organizations is comparatively new, and they need to be considered from several points of view, which can be done with the application of the social science basics. For this reasons main questions related to the identification of global organizations and their functions in the modern world has become the focus of the present research.

It goes without saying that both types of sciences utilize a set of scientific methods to ensure accuracy and objectivity, but depending on the subject of research they almost always choose different paths for considering the data and testing their hypothesis. It is necessary not to forget that the social phenomena always contain an element of irrationality, the so-called human factor that allows making only approximate inferences, never being able to state something with ultimate accuracy to which natural sciences tend.

Global organizations are a significant element of the modern global community; as they cater for the needs of various groups of people that are not united by a common religion or national identity, it becomes interesting to understand the mechanisms that govern their activities and ensure their success. Thus, the present paper aims at answering three fundamental questions: What is a global organization? How does it work? What does it do? Identification of these basic questions represents the first stage of the present research – selecting and defining the problem or the issue. The conditions that cause the necessity of global organizations-related research have been identified, the modern conditions claiming the necessity thereof are described, thus it is now possible to proceed to the next stage – reviewing literature (Perry & Perry, 2009).

Identification of social research methods that will be utilized in the process of examining global organizations now need to be identified. Surveying will help with getting an understanding as to how many people are actually involved in helping their country with global organizations. Observation will help the researcher learn how to become a part in a global organization with further finding the key to understanding how global organizations work. Having and researching through existing data will allow a better knowledge of global organizations and their functions. Usage of the original scientific method would be the best way to learn what a global organization is. The steps of the scientific method are: defining a question; gathering information and resources; forming a hypothesis; performing an experiment and collecting data; analyzing the data; drawing a conclusion; publishing the results and retesting the experiment (Lafferty, 2002). However, the original scientific method will be slightly modified taking into consideration the specificity of the subject of research, as it will be seen further.

As it has already been said, the classical scientific method will be applied for the investigation of the present question – it is necessary to assume that the researcher does not know what a global organization is, thus starting to collect data from resources on the formulated question: What is a global organization? Some of the social science theories that can be helpful in researching Global Organizations are critical theory and phronetic social science. Researchers can use critical theory to examine and critique society and cultures that the Global Organizations represent. This will help give a better idea of what exactly is represented within the peoples and cultures of the global organizations countries.

A global organization is simply defined as a world organization where other countries participate in helping one another (The Free Dictionary, 2010). It can be described as a global alliance made up of many different countries. The one thing that all global organizations have in common is that they are working together to better the world. The significance of the question to this paper is to help give a better understanding of a global organization, its uses, what it works to present to the world and why we have global organizations all over the world. The question shows significance because it relates to different cultures and people around the world. It can help people understand what effects this question has on its society and the people of the society, therefore clear research findings are essential at this point to continue with the consideration of global organizations at deeper levels.

Going further to deal with the second question, namely the research of how global organizations work, it is possible to say that the approach of phronetic science is also highly appropriate for the research. However, as it has been already noted, observation and volunteering are the most suitable choices for the present issue as they will give the researcher first-hand information on the inner processes that occur in global organizations, which, in the long run, will enable him or her make a set of conclusions and create a generalized descriptive inference from research. However, observation is a non-experimental study, so it is not explanatory, which should be understood before the beginning of the study depending on the aims of the researcher. The researcher can also apply such scientific methods as case study (analyzing a structure of some global organization to define its components) that is an in-depth descriptive study that allows the researcher to get a proper understanding of a subject o phenomenon; however, it will not explain why global organizations work the way they do, i.e. case studies do not provide explanation as well.

The third question is: What do global organizations do? Global organizations help achieve global effectiveness by having different types of fund raisers or charity events to help raise money so that they can help make the environment better.  A way to get an understanding on what global organizations do is by research or volunteering, as a way to gain a first-hand experience. In case such research design is chosen, it will be possible to proceed to collecting and analyzing data to produce a set of highly credible results. An experiment could be conducted to see how much money a global research company makes within one fundraiser: initiating the program for fundraising and applying different sets of promotion tools the result will be arrived at. Case studies and naturalistic observation may also be highly relevant in terms of finding out the practical side of global organizations’ activities – by observing a couple of organizations closely for a certain period of time or searching through literature available on a particular organization the researcher may obtain all necessary information about what they do under different conditions.

Natural and physical sciences surely also have a word in the present study – the number of methods they traditionally use is as well applicable to examining global organizations, e.g. experimentation, correlation or naturalistic observation are usually utilized by natural sciences more than social ones. However, a significant aspect complicating such analysis is that global organizations are usually intangible objects, in contrast to the majority of physical phenomena studied empirically or by empirical tools that reflect their nature. For this reason mostly observational methods are chosen by social sciences, which is the main difference in the two discussed fields of scientific study on the whole. As one will see from the following analysis of three problems approached from the social science perspective, it is at times possible to apply natural sciences’ methods and sometimes the alternative is inappropriate.

One can consider the first question for proving the statement. Here the paths of social and natural sciences divide, and review of literature actually constitutes the present research. Since global organizations are too large to grasp by an experiment, or to make general conclusions on the basis of interviews, then the research design that will help answer the posed questions will be the qualitative theoretical research. It is rarely used in natural sciences alone because it usually supports the hypothesis that is also proven or denied in an experimental or observational way.

Forming a hypothesis is also irrelevant for the present research, in contrast to natural science research that surely includes an initial hypothesis that will be further denied or supported (Perry & Perry, 2009). The reason for this is that there is no aim to prove something in the present research. Instead, it aims at summarizing and reviewing the information about global organizations existing up to date and identifying their essence as well activities they perform. It is not stated whether they are beneficial or destructive for the modern reality or whether their functions are significant or not. Consequently, proving a hypothesis is not involved in the present research model. Literature review, i.e. deriving the information from existing sources, will be utilized in order to answer the main questions related to the discussed issue.

Dealing with the second question is also subject to some limitations from the point of view of natural sciences. To understand why this stage cannot be a subject of natural science research, one should consider a set of examples of establishing the mechanisms through which global organizations work. For instance, the Arab League is “an international organization of independent Arab states formed in 1945 to promote cultural and economic and military and political and social cooperation” (The Free Dictionary, 2010). Judging from its description, one can see that the Arab League is a locally formed organization that aims at responding to the challenges emerging in the Middle East and worldwide. The revelation of mechanisms through which it does it is impossible through only experimenting because the organization is too large, so even a series of experiments will not give a clear and precise answer to the question. Nonetheless, naturalistic observation is something both social and natural sciences rely on, so here an overlapping is possible.

Discussing the research on the third question, experimentation seems to be the alternative for both natural and social sciences. However, experimentation is perceived in different ways here – one can conduct a physical experiment to test natural laws, and can manipulate the variables that will be plain objects chosen. However, a researcher cannot manipulate a global organization or some events to which they respond (lack of education, famine or disasters). Here experimentation will be much more limited in its approach, though still possible. Volunteering is highly improbable in natural sciences because of the emphasis on non-intrusion and actually inability to intrude in natural processes. Here come the main differences in research as viewed from the social and physical perspective.

Summing up everything that has been said, it is possible to make a realm of decisions on the research design that can be chosen by the researcher. The fact that there are many global organizations catering for the needs of humanity and providing substantial services for particular groups of population is already obvious; however, the aim of the researcher is not to prove whether it really happens, but to find the inner mechanisms, policies and objectives they pursue. The described methods are also often met in natural and physical sciences despite the fact that social sciences are highly different from them and investigate social phenomena and objects according to different patterns. The unifying condition for physical, natural and social sciences is the scientific method that should lie within all of them, though with a certain number of deviations and variations. Thus, for example, the experimental method that is widely used by natural sciences by means of manipulating certain variables under certain conditions to investigate their effect on other variable is neither practical nor ethical in social sciences. The very essence of manipulating is not recognized and common in social sciences, so the most popular methods in social sciences still remain observation, case study and survey. Correlation can also be used for quantitative studies in social sciences to identify socio-demographic characteristics of a certain area or to explain the distribution of crime rates throughout a state etc. However, qualitative studies in social sciences can be approached from a limited number of viewpoints, which is clearly seen in the present study.

Consequently, it becomes possible to assume that social sciences must rely on physical sciences in order to help answer the question about global organizations. A combination of social and physical sciences’ methods will allow achieving much better and much more precise results, as it is seen from the analysis. For example, experimentation will be a good way for social and physical sciences to help research and get the answer to the question about global organization. Learning what a global organization does will be easily determined from the usage of the physical sciences, as they relate to researching and experimentation more than social sciences do (even though social sciences must be used at times in the experimentation).

References

Global Organization (2010). The Free Dictionary by Farlex. Retrieved April 20, 2010, from http://www.thefreedictionary.com/global+organization

Lafferty, K. (2002). Steps of the Scientific Method. Retrieved April 20, 2010, from http://www.sciencebuddies.org/science-fair-projects/project_scientific _method.shtml

Perry, J.A., & Perry, E.K. (2009). Contemporary Society: An Introduction to Social Science (12th ed.). Pearson Education, Inc.