ABSTRACT
Global community-building dialogues are conceivable in global companies if facilitated by power asymmetries, corporate cultures, network structures and negotiation processes. Digital networks certainly improve the synchronization of spatial and temporal differences, but face-to-face-communication and informality seem just as important in business communication today as in the past. Therefore it is much too early to refer to the “death of distance”. Virtual interaction even harbours new risks, as neither complex content-related, let alone informal community-building aspects of communication are automatic concomitants of globalization. Observational communication and global knowledge diffusion are possible but can also create new knowledge gaps. The interests of global capital and nationally oriented economic policy not only promote but also inhibit global business communication. In external communication, the promotion of the global community or global society is not the systemic goal of an economy whose external communication constantly reproduces local stereotypical discourses. Overall, the distinction between global investment relationships, glocal internal communication and local marketing in globally operating companies provides a good approximation of reality. A world is growing together economically that people do not always understand. In terms of real global communication, capitalism remains ethically unpredictable.
