(Length: 47 pages)

Executive Summary (This is a document excerpt)

Fortune 500 CEOs' capitalistic vision of a flat world ruled by super-efficient corporations without boundaries fails to heed growing geopolitical and sociocultural risks that have begun to roll back their global expansion efforts. To minimize global risk exposure while capturing opportunities worldwide, innovative CEOs will transform their monolithic firms into globally adaptive organizations (GAOs) by instilling flexibility, efficiency, altruism, and openness into their globally networked talent, processes, and partnerships. When this is done correctly, these socially responsible GAOs will enjoy far superior financial performance and corporate sustainability relative to their peers. Paradoxically, although these economic benefits are evident, it will be fear more than greed that will instigate the flattening and integration of the world.