The world is passing through turbulent times caused by technological, socio economic and political changes. Many of these developments have created new paradigms in management of economies and organizations. One thing that has emerged is that change today is far more rapid and disruptive in nature. The response mechanism therefore has to be innovative and equally disruptive. One such development at the
political level is the recent referendum in UK on BREXIT leading to Britain exiting EU. This has revealed the inherent weakness in the regional bloc. The weaker and smaller economies in Europe now feel uncertain. Even the UK vote shows a divide between London and the rest of UK because the former is far more global in nature and networked with the world economy and financial markets. BREXIT could be a potential threat to the global status of the London financial market. Similar developments in Asia Pacific and Donald Trump winning the US Presidential election symbolizes the emergence of right wing politics. Righteousness today is a virtue and hence finds favour with many who perhaps were left out in the era of globalisation. Majoritianism seems to be getting equated to cacophony in mass media and intolerance to minority view. The space for an intellectual debate and diverse opinionsin policy formulation is today getting gradually reduced,thanks to the righteousness of right wing politics. In other words,space for the centrist is now reduced.
Demographic changes in the world are today creating a new world order, where the bargaining power is shifting from the North to the South,
and West to the East. It is a fact that an aging population today in Europe and Japan has led to a decline in consumption and hence, economic
growth. The US economy too is growing essentially on the strength of migrant population. This is in contrast to India which is today the youngest nation in the world and thereby also contributing to a significant growth in the consumption economy.
Artificial intelligence, agile and flexible technologies, social media, big data, analytics, cloud technologies, robots and sensors along with the work on genome and stem cell today challenge leaders’ imagination and organization structure. Today, we can no longer think of applying the conventional theory of organizational design nor can we apply the principle of specialization in structuring government department and organizations. The new principles of structure are based on empowerment of an individual and therefore encouraging him or her to work autonomously and still be a part of the team to achieve the organisational goal. Independent and yet collaborative functioning, informal and yet formal structure, speed of response, creativity and continuous communication through the social media are some of the important parameters governing the new structures.
All these changes today have significant implications for research and policy formulations. The new polices today, for example in India,
are based on encouraging individual creativity, transparency in society, the speed of response and extensive usage of social media. Nobody else is a better representative of social media usage than the Prime Minister of India. Today, we see space for research in some areas like:
- New global economic order
- Resurgence of the nation state
- Has the `centrist’ lost relevance?
- Technology and conflict
- Inclusive growth strategies
- New governance model
- Leadership and conflict
NMIMS Journal of Economics and Public Policy is going to be a journal of and for the new world order. I am pretty confident that we will be able to solicit articles from thinkers, researchers, strategists and Policy Planners for this journal.
I do hope that readers will find value in this new journal from NMIMS, which is widely recognized in India as an innovative institution of excellence in higher education.
Dr. Rajan Saxena