Borderless Society

From a definition perspective, a borderless society refers to a society without boundaries or a society free from restrictions. The concept of a borderless society has no clear definitions, and has evolved continuously over years. Many names exist that describe it; age of ICT; electronic era; global community and information society. Universities are often involved in discussing the issue and a conference called “AIIA Borderless World Conference” also treats the issue.

Not only the concept of borderless society has affected politics, economics, and law, but it has also affected our daily lives and our modes of communication. Progress in technology is definitely a factor that influenced the term of borderless society. But more important is the mind set or philosophy of humans to create new links beyond their limits and borders. Observers and theorists of the 80’s and early 90’s such as Harold Levitt's "Globalization of Markets" or Kenichi Ohmae's “Borderless World” had already noticed this trend [1]. From an economic point of view, it is globalization that has erased the economic distinctions between countries, and thus creating a “borderless world” in which national boundaries are excluded [2]. Health is also another significant sector where a borderless society might have created issues. Also according to Dr NordStrom, better health care and treatments can be provided if a universal access to resources is made possible [3].

Leaders, managers, organizations and people can contribute to the idea of a borderless society. From the point of view of a firm, a globalize world means new opportunities, new markets, but at the same new competition from local to international firms. As individuals, competitors are everyone living on the planet. Government would also have competition because people could claim better services since other governments might offer better ones. Also, in a borderless world, a company would not be of a nation, it would be a multinational. This results in companies being able to look for the best conditions to install and build their factories around the world. However, the vision of the ideal borderless society and the actual demonstration of a global community diverge. Organizations adopt the concept of borderless society for strategic purpose, which only interests are to achieve the corporate goals [4]. Therefore, one of the future goals of the leaders and managers of the 21st century is to change the mind-set of corporations to use the concept of a borderless society not for their own benefits.