THE CORPORATION

We can see clear in the video of “The Corporation” by Mark Achbar, Jennifer Abbott and Joel Bakan; that for many, a company is a family unit where people work together but each one of them has different roles; some defend, others pass the ball, but everybody have a common goal, that is WIN.

Phrases like, “time is money”, “we have to win no matter what”,” we have to eliminate the competition”; are some of the feelings of companies; almost always, multinational companies or companies that have some power in the industry, that with the pass of the years have become more and more famous without the specific intention of being recognized; have as their main goal, to achieve the more money they can even if that means low pays to employees, stole ideas from the competition, reduce cost in products or services in order to become a threat to small companies.

Since many years, companies were not that important and didn’t have the position and the recognition that has nowadays. Now corporations are powerful, rich and have control over the population and sectors of the market; being this way, they lose responsibilities, they lose human sense and the question is: should corporations be entitled to the same legal rights as individuals? Yes, corporations have the same legal rights as individuals, but is important to take into account that these entities only work for money, they don’t take care about how many people lose their lives or if the sea is full of oil or how they should fix the damage or how many employees they have to fire. For these and other consequences, corporations must pay, but they can't do so like humans, going to jail; then, the only way the compensate what they did, is paying for it, which finally will finish in a lesson unlearned and the repetition of the fact.

Where the limits should be drawn? We are creating in our minds the thought that corporations are like gods and have to be respect by others, even, no matter what, they make mistakes beacuse they have the power, recognition and the money; but seeing how they affect the world, corporations should be punish like humans because if their rights are the same of us, the responsibilities and the duties should be the same as well.

The corporations are constituted by people, human people, then they are the ones that make decisions; So if some wrong decision affect external people, the person that choose to do what they did wrong, should be punish and all company should suffer the consequence. This way, corporations are going to take care about their decisions and they will have to think more than two times what is the best option

People forget they are people when they enter in a big company, they start to think and act like the goals of the company; they forget values and human quality; in the other way around if people preserve their values, the consequences of mistakes could be minor.

(Image taken from:workingtv.com)

WOMAN MIGRANTS WORKERS

First, let’s define what migration is: movement of people from one country to other. People use to do this because of many reasons, for instance: improve quality of life, give better opportunities to their descendents, avoid poverty, conflict or hunger. Another important reason that is going to be developing in this article is the differences in gender that can be reflected in women.

Economical, social, political and environmental reasons are related with migration, for example, people move to search new jobs with better salaries or to develop their professional direction, also as I said before to improve their quality of life or to be more close to their familiars, many others move because of the types of governments (there still exist many countries that have many restrictions to people to live free).

Sri Lanka is an island nation in south Asia; its govern type is a republic and a unitary state which is governed by semi-presidential system, where the major migrants are women, because they work many hours and receive low pay. And there are 3 important factors that affect this situation: gender norms, lack of participation in national politics and the bad position in the international division of labor. (Gamburd. R, Michele, Advocating Sri Lanka migrants workers, Critical Asian Studies, 41: 1 (2009), o61-088)

According to OIM, women are nearly half of the migrant population in the entire world. OIM develops some rights to protect migrants around the world, especially for women, because they are the most vulnerable to discrimination, exploitation and abuse: (OIM.Retrieved on October 16,2010, form http://www.gemmaproject.eu/publicdocs/prevent_violence_against_wmw_2009.pdf)

• Promotes legal and safe migration for women

• Promotes policies that regulate the recruitment and deployment of women migrant workers

• Protection and protection of women migrant workers human rights

• Counter-trafficking activities including capacity- building and direct assistance to victims.

• Promotion of gender-sensitive international migration policies

Nowadays there are not these visible gaps between men and women; women participate in many important labors in companies or even tough helping and getting high jobs in politics. Today women migrate independently to search better opportunities of life and give them the place they think they disserve.

(image taken from:agadjanian.org)

UBUNTU

I didn’t know much about Africans culture; just that they influenced countries like Cuba, Argentina, Dominican Republic and others countries in America; in northern there were many empires, like: Egypt, Cartago, Roma and the Islam; Nowadays China and United States are countries very interest in Africa because of their oil and antiterrorist.

Now that I have read "Building Competitive advantages from Ubuntu: Management lessons from South Africa", I have many arguments to explain their behavior in companies and their lives. First, lets define UBUNTU: “can be defined as humaneness- a perceive spirit of caring and community, harmony and hospitality, respect and responsiveness- that individuals and groups display for one another” (Mangaliso, P. Mzamo, (2001) Building competitive advantage from UBUNTU: Management lessons from South Africa, Academy of Management Executive, vol 15 no 3, pag 24).

This philosophical thought system explains the Africans behavior, including their culture, religion, values, mythology, and the importance of being a human and be treated as well; in all places and situations. These are important factors that managers in companies pay attention at first, but with the pass of the years they start to act forgetting their employees and their requirements. UBUNTU explain us how to create a successful workplace and how to learn and practice it in companies.

The relationships with others in UBUNTU are key concepts; norms are exchanges, maintaining close relations and ignoring self interests. Managers must respect the different cultures, for example, UBUNTU considers kinship ties very important, they treat people, including the ones that have not blood ties, like their family; the presence and the respect of this thought, creates an emotional and psychological support to workers.

Create an environment full of peace and productivity between every member of the company, makes more easily the coexistence and the development of labors; that’s why learn and know the people who are working with us is fundamental, everybody wants to be treat as a human like I said before, employees that don’t have high employments are also important people to the company and their opinions must be listened by their managers.

Managers have to “educate” their employees to do a better job, not shouting them, or giving strict punishments; teaching to love their jobs, getting to the company on time, doing their labors quickly and well done, giving them a treat fairly, giving them a space to say what they think to help to the growth of the company and the most important, making them feel important people, because they are.

" HAVE FUN DRINKING YOUR PAST"

The tasks for this week consist in a Colombian organization that is trying to internalize a new product or service. The idea is to create a metaphor that could help with its internationalization.

Everything starts with an idea, then you formulate a project, that consist in a planning process in which people make advance decisions to let clear what you want in the future. All aspects have to be take into account; people must question themselves if the new business is an opportunity, a problem or an unmet need.
The costumers you want to focus on are one of the keys of success. The exportation of a new product is not only important because of the sales you are going to achieve, are the costumers, which provide that revenue. That’s why culture plays an important role here; the investors must know how to capture that market, investigating the behavior of the people and if the product is going to be liked in the other country.

After you know your market, the strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats, then come the tactics to make people consume your product. Many companies use different types of advertising in order to generate brand awareness, one of them could be print mediums like magazines; and broadcast advertising like: TV, radio and internet messages.

In Colombia we see brands like Pilsen with the slogan: “Todo heroe merece una pilsen”. Or Multinational companies like Coca-Cola: “Destapa la felicidad”.

For this activity I decided to focus on a drink very famous in our country: chicha; The Muiscas who lived in the plateau “Cundiboyacence” created it and the preparation consist in the crush and fermentation. The issue that differentiate our product is that this drink is based on liquor and is in different flavors like pineapple, apple or banana. We can export our products to South America, where the people admire very well their ancestors and this admiration could help us to expand the market. Alliances with night clubs, bars and restaurants that are recognized by the population could be an excellent way to enter in South America.

The metaphor I want to use is “have fun drinking your past “. It means that when you drink the product you are going to feel happy, funny, and active, this experience is going to stay in your head creating brand recognition. The bottle is going to be so attractive highlighting where the chicha come from.

(image taken from:guiachilenadeturismo.wordpress.com)

BLOGS

This task consist in choose 5 blogs of ours friends.

1.From Susana Escobar Villegas.
http://susanaescobarv.blogspot.com/

2. From Simon Franco.
http://organisationsandcultures2010.blogspot.com/

3. From Sara Baena Castro.
http://miragemblue.blogspot.com/

4.From Maria Mercedes Agudelo.
http://mariaorgcult.blogspot.com/

5.From Manuela Castillo Ramirez
http://www.manuela-castillo.blogspot.com/

The Pygmalion Effect.

Perceptions are images we create about things, situations, and people. When you perceived something of someone you expect him/her to do the best they have. People are influence by people, in a job, your boss expect you to do the best you can and you have a pressure that makes you do the best you have no matter what.

The Pygmalion effect tries to understand the behavior of the actors; this effect is commonly use in education and business. The way we develop a job or the way we are day by day is influence by the expectation that the other people have of us. Pygmalion has some benefits very important at the time you apply it: Shows how positive expectations should provide a better efficiency and performance and help managers or teachers to develop employees or students that they want in their companies.

For example in the university many people say that some teacher is very difficult and his/her exams are very complicated; with this kind of comments you can create a perception of this person and you have been influenced by internal factors like: personal experiences, personality (because not everybody says that, maybe there are someone’s who think the opposite) and also exists external factors such as environment and context. (George and Jones, 1999, Buchanan and Huczynski, 2004; Analoui, 2007).

I have a clear example that could explain better what I’m trying to say. Masaru Emoto is a Japanese author and entrepreneur, he is known because his thoughts about the results when the water freezes and form crystals that their shape depends if the words are positive or negative. (Taken from http://es.wikipedia.org/wiki/Masaru_Emoto).




The video shows an exposition where can be seen the crystals and how the words inside the boxes where the crystals are, influence the color and shape of water; it basically depends on the sense of each word.
This theory is related with the humans because our body is 90% water then Masaru interpret his theory in this way; if the words could do this in water, imagine how can do words in our bodies.

Considering the conference "Dealing with Cultural Differences" by Nick B. Meyer, choose 1 cultural dimension...

Sometimes you have many ideas of business, especially in international business; we create a context where we negotiate with other people and we think that everybody acts the way we do, but is not that simple. The world is huge and people don’t act the same way, for example Colombian people greet each other kissing in the cheek but in East, people do not use physical contact, they greet with a bow without touching. We can’t go to another country, making decisions the way we make in our country, this could be a big mistake and the consequences could damage the negotiation.

As Nick B. Meyer explained in his conference "Dealing with Cultural Differences", is very important to know the people, their culture, and their way of thinking, speaking, relating, and understanding the way of life so in the moment you have to share with other cultures, you already know and take into account the habits, attitudes and all you need to establish a conversation about anything.

I want to focus on power distance. I’m going to give an example of some countries that have a high power distance: China, India, Russia and Arabic speaking countries; and some countries that have low power distance: Japan, Australia and Canada. Now, to be more specific I’m going to explain the difference between those characteristics. (Taken from http://www.kwintessential.co.uk/intercultural/power-distance-index.html).

Many companies use different methods to make decisions. Exist the organizations that have a shape of pyramid, where the communication is more complicated, because people who are in the surface, in the lower area, to do and express something, have to ask their superiors for consideration and permission, and for sure also these employees have another boss, so when information gets to the top of the pyramid it arrives filtered, generating misinformation and waste of time. These companies are characterized because of the distances that have employees with their bosses, they are not too close, so the employees don’t represent an important part of the company and class divisions are more evident.

The other type of companies are the ones that works in shape of a chain, here people work together, the decision making is more easy, people are more prepare to take control of their work. The communication between boss and employees is closer, they are treated like important people and as I mention before their decisions are important to the company. The work environment is more pacific, don’t exist competition. Maybe some people have a better job title but they are characterized for being respectful with each other.

As Geert Hofstede said power and inequality are fundamental facts in a society. We all know and accept that power is distributed unequally. “All societies are unequal, but some are more unequal than others”. Inequality is going to exist forever but I think is a situation that could be manage, especially in the companies that focus on the team work and the opinions of the members that work there. (Taken from http://www.geert-hofstede.com/)

Interesting blogs

-http://www.joseluisavilaherrera.blogspot.com/

I don’t really know too much about arts but I admire people who know about these topics. I think that a good photographer is the one that look around him and knows how to appreciate life, is the one that have the opportunity to see amazing things like the sky, in different colors or a rainbow.

They capture moments that could be normal when you are living them in the daily basis but could be amazing when are seen in a photography.


-http://asinsehace.freehostia.com/

Discovery channel presents a program named “Factory made”. I’m very curious and I love to know how things are done. That's why this blog caught my attention; I saw the video of NEW BALANCE factory in Flimby, UK. You have never imagine the way the process begins and ends.


-http://juarezenlasombra.blogspot.com/

The person who wrote this blog was describing day by day the conflict that many people live in Juarez, a city situated in north Mexico. Most of the time we only hear about the conflict and the drugs trafficking in Colombia, but it`s interesting to see that conflict is not only here; the actual situation in Mexico is getting worse. The writer uses an expression “the danger is to be alive” and young people are afraid in the fight to preserve their lives and their rights.