The Future Challenge of Millennial Workers

Internationalization And Globalization Environment

Internationalization and globalization are important trends for the future. Hence, Generation Y individuals have to develop broader viewpoints, and understand that internationalization and globalization are highly valued aspects in relation to their careers.

Internationalization has more to do with the specific policies and programs carried out by governments, academic systems and institutions, and even individual departments to handle the issue of globalization (Altbach, Reisberg, & Rumbley, 2009). Moreover, innovation is considered as an essential factor in the process of internationalization. Internationalization is a gradual and sequential process that relies on the previous experience and current knowledge that businesses get through entry into successive new foreign markets. Usually, the internationalization of an organization or a company is a process that results in from the consolidation of the business in the domestic market (Castaño, Méndez, & Galindo, 2016).

Globalization typically is able to be defined as the broad economic, technological, and scientific trends that directly influence higher education and are largely inevitable in the modern-day world (Altbach et al., 2009). Furthermore, the American Defense Institute indicates that globalization can be defined as the rapid and constant inter-border flow of goods, services, capital (or money), technology, novel thoughts, information, cultures, and nations. According to this Institute, through globalization an unprecedented integration among economies is taking place, an information improvement is being experienced, and markets, companies, organizations, institutions, and governance are becoming more international. Thus, the term globalization is able to be provided as having various meanings to various people. It is able to be interpreted differently because of the a variety of dimensions of the term, such as time or location, cause or result cycles, and contrasting perspectives. Moreover, there are academic studies on the various meanings by which the term is applied. In one of these studies it is recommended that the term should be differentiated according to the disciplines involved (Dulupçu & Demirel, n.d.).

The Millennial individuals’ worldview has been established by their shared historical experiences and by the parental traits of the adults who raised them (Cramer, 2014). Generally, Millennial individuals have a higher educational level than previous generations. Furthermore, they are good at using technology products to learn new things, and for this reason they have more probability of developing novel thoughts and ideas. Additionally, in order to develop Millennial individuals’ viewpoints on internationalization and globalization, the national educational policy and Millennials’ parents also pay more attention to those issues. For example, in Taiwan the Baby Boomer generation and Generation X studied English from when they went to junior high school. The Millennial Generation began to learn English from when they started elementary school, or even earlier. Therefore, Millennial individuals have a higher level of English than previous generations. In addition, the parents of Millennial individuals spend more time and money to facilitate their English skills, as well as letting them attend examinations, such as TOEIC, TOEFL, LCCI, and so on. That is to say, they consider that if an individual has better English skills, he or she will have more opportunities to have an internationalized and globalized viewpoint. Therefore, there are many universities who ask their professors to use English to give instruction, as well as encouraging students to attend international conferences.