Visibility and Globalization Levels of Architectural Firms Under the Influence of Internet and Internationalization: a Speculative Research

Abstract

In a world dominated by the Internet, visibility is becoming increasingly important, and the visibility of architectural firms has also increased with the impact of internationalization. Architectural firms are increasing their visibility, both through the rapid dissemination of information provided by the Internet and by starting to use social media tools. This article explores the relationship between the visibility and the globalization of architectural firms in the year 2022. The article challenges the perception that all well-known/visible architectural firms can be global. The research has two time periods. (before and after 1985, the Internet Revolution). During the data collection phase, 20,942 architectural firms were scanned; a cluster of 522 firms in 49 different countries was formed; 10 different variables were studied in these firms. The 10 variables examined were determined according to the common and majority characteristics of the globalized architectural firms (44 firms) founded before 1985. The investigated variables enabled us to determine the globalization and visibility characteristics of the architectural firms founded after 1985. In the analysis phase, the firms were separated according to their countries (49 countries) and the levels of visibility and globalization were calculated by taking the averages. The levels of visibility and globalization were determined at three levels: low, medium, and high. Not every architectural firm with high visibility has a high level of globalization; it has been determined that every company with a high level of globalization is not visible enough and that there is no homogeneous relationship between globalization and visibility levels. The originality of the research lies in the use of Archdaily, which allows the scanning of 20,942 architectural firms, as a data source and the documentation of its data in 2022.