CORPORATIONS, LIFE KILLERS??

How incredible is to realized that now days corporations are not just considered as legal people. It stole the same legal rights of the humab beings, so real that they adopt a criminal sicology, to the point that they are inability of being guilty, they cheat and lie for the profit motivation, inability to follow norms and rules or even boundaries and no long term relationships.

The corporations not even take into the account the environment or the employees that work for them in awful conditions or recieving very law salaries like Nike did with some developing countries where the people who are starving to death, and that they don´t have other choice to earn a painful salary to live.

The problem is the profit motivation, which is the reason for using agresive marketing, manipulating contumers and make our relationships becoming more commercial, creating the need of every single product, and little by little create every situation like an advertising.

Should be a line between actions of the corporation and actions of the individuals?, and at the same time with the role they played in the society?, Yes totally, beacuse at the speed we are going, there will be no difference between the both, and the situations live will be situations created by those corporations whose only goal is to earn a certain quantity of money, that it is a negative consequence too because in some time, somebody will be the owner of everything; not only goods and productions, also human rights, thoughts and live conditions.

How can the world ensure that corporations take responsabilities from their actions?, is very difficult, because this corporations has policies and rules that they must follow even though they are against the world, or againt what is good or bad.

If these corporations manage resources and goals in a way the society goals and their goals fit, it will be more easir to take adavatage of the world development in a way that at the end the situation will be win -win, but actually in my opinion the corporations do not make benefits for the society, because while they are taking away lands in Brazil where the people how work there they need more than these corporations, and while they trashed food instead of giving them to people that they dont have to eat, or while they trashed clothing instead of giving people something to wear, really will be not benefit at all.

The society not only needs little helps like clothing or food, it needs reinvest, support to strenght the gaps it has, at the corporations can give these factors to society.

It is worth so many lives, damage of the environment, reforming the society, and changing people thoughts and need through agressive marketng just for profit? For individual money satisfaction?

No, it depend on us the future managers how to create paths no only for the corporations profits, butl also for the society benefits, better life conditions, and better awarness for the environment.

Image taken from: www.hermes-press.com/new_america.htm

The video is one chapter of the documentary The Corporation, but in this few minutes you will understand how Corporations are becoming with sycological disorder.

FEMALE LABOR

The process of migration is not an easy step, this one depends of several factors such as:

• It is a voluntary decision, or the person was push to leave the country.


• The economic situation, that is linked with the social situation.


• The identity that involves culture, langauge, history, ideology and religion.


• The difference of GENDER, being the last one but the most important of all of them.

Talking about gender is important to mark the difference with sex, because sex is the biological difference but gender is the social difference between gender, that is created since history and molded through culture and time.

When a person decides to leave the country complicated and complex but for women not also the obstacles increase, also the vulnerability is one of the most concerning things, because women tend to be more weak in front several situations and people in other countries take advantages of it.

A very clear example is what happen in Sri Lanka, where the majority of migrant women work long hours for low pay. In the article " Advocating for Sri Lanka migrant workers", make a statement about how migrant workers situation leads inexorably back to the state, where Sri Lanka state has three main factors:

• Sri Lanka gender norms


• Women´s lack of participation in national politics


• Sri Lanka disadvantageous position in the international division of labor
  

(Gamburd. R, Michele, Advocating Sri Lanka migrants workers, Critical Assian Estudies, 41: 1 (2009), o61-088)

With the changes of numbers of migrants between gender, the IOM started working for better conditions for migrants. Now days half of the migrant population are women, comparing years ago when it was a male phenomenon. There are several organizations or NGO´s working for this, but the IOM is the most recognized organization to fight for the migrants rights, health, migrant dimension of gender and orientation.

How important is to have an organization like this, becasue if the world is having the phenomenon called globalization, all of us have to work for the consequences even though they are god or bad!, and migration is not only about adopting new culture, languages and way of thinking, countries must have in mind that they are working with human beings, that have essential needs that need to be satisfied and they look the way to satisfied them through work that is a right for all.

At the same time migrants must respect the culture differences when the go to host countries, it is a game that must be played by two and not for one party only.

The iage is taken from (ecosoulintellectual.blogspot.com)

UBUNTU

Reading Building Competitive Advantage from Ubuntu Management lessons from South Africa; confirmed my thoughts of how amazing is the African culture, something totally different from the Western culture.

Now days adopting viewpoints, philosophies and processes from several parts of the world make companies and people more complete and competitive in the work field.

Africa offers to the world the philosphy Ubuntu, " it can be defined as the humaneness, a pervasive 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 philosophy is very well grounded, because it not only speaks about culture, norms and values; but also takes into account beliefs, mythology; and all little details that in some countries and even organizations are forgotten.

In the African sulture there is a motto "umnu tungumntu ngabanye", that means a person is a person trhough others( Mangaliso, P. Mzamo, (2001) Builgind competitive advantage from ubuntu: Management lessons froms South Africa, Academy of Management Executive, vol 15 no 3, pag 24), through this phrase i will resume how important is that managers use this philosophy, ¿ why?, just because employees in organizations want to be part of it, feel like they are importasnt for superiors and for the development of the company.

When people learn about others background, behavior, thoughts and culture, everything works more easier and environment more harmonic.

The knowledge of people within a company and relationships between them not only has impact inside the company also on the outside, this philopsphy will help managers to make emplyees love their job, productivity and efficiency, synergy iin the organizations structure, hermonic work environment, better profits, etc.

Taking little pieces of other cultures and adopting to your thought and behavior, will make a better world.

Nelson Mandela the men, thath changed Africa talks about waht is ubuntu, and one thing that i really like is that ubuntu is a life style.

Image: Ubuntu festival (taken from www.growsouthafrica.com)

Video The ubuntu experience Nelson Mandela interview ( taken from www.youtube.com/watch?v=ODQ4WIDsEBQ)

" Eat great, live well, love huge"

In this week task, i had to think of a creative methapor that could be used for a Colombian organization that is trying to internationalise a new unknown product in foreign markets.


Using methapors in business led the company explore not only tha brand, but also the possibilites it has, the costumers, the values and how it can be used in different fields. A lot of companies have used not only methapors but also sticky songs for positioning the brand or just for remind costumers that they are still for them.



Music, Game of words and others create sensations that emerge brand experiences for costumers, thats why methapors can be key in costumers and employees emotions.



I came up with an excellent idea for maybe a consultant food company, so they objective of the company is to advise peope in what restaurants they could go in every ocassion, such as meetings, birthdays, fun, etc. We want to export this service to the parts of the world where there is excellent restaurants: New York, Paris, Spain, Greece, Brazil and Japan.



The methapor i want to use is " Eat great, live well, love huge", it means that if you eat healthy and yummy, you will live better and your heart will be satisfied, but at the same time expreesses the love theres is inside the organization, and how important are all the people involved in it.


With our foreign partners we can:

• Create alliances with the restaurants and make marketing strengh with mouth to mouth strategy, the objective will be that those restaruants will be in our first spots in our list and they can suggest our company.


• The posibility of a gastronomic day, with a tour by all the restaurants in the host city we want to work.


• Do an open fair where the restaurants get know each others and the costumers get to know better the restaurants also provide and suggest colombian suppliers to this restaurants.

( Image taken from www.vitadelis.com)

This week task, was to look for all of our friends blogs and choose 5 of them. It was very intersting to look other opinions about the topics we have seen, but also how they adopted their blogs to their personality.

1.From Monica Giraldo Castro Blog, and their explanation of Pygmalion effect i really, liked the example and the video.
http://monicagiraldoc.blogspot.com

2.From Maria Mercedes Agudelo, i liked the video of how pygamlion effect is applied in schools.
http://mariaorgcult.blogspot.com

3.From Daniel Velasquez Isaza, i liked the explanation of cultural dimmensions in business.
http://danvelis.blogspot.com

4. From Susana Escobar Villegas, i like the pygmalion effect example and concepts.
http://susanaescobarv.blogspot.com

5. From Maria Camila Jaramillo, i liked the example between Japan and Norway of cultural dimmensions and diferences.
http://camilajorg.blogspot.com

Positives expectations are applied in all fields: Sports, business, education, military and more, almost in everything.

In life everbody expects something about you: youre parents, teachers, friends, collagues of work eventhoug yourself.

The pygmalion effect describes how " the percievers positive expectations enhance the target´s perfomance" (Inamori, T & Analoui, F (2010) Beyond pygmalion effect, Journal of managment development Vol 29, No 4). So is very simple higher expectations, higher the perfomance and larger the result.

Dr. Robert Rosenthal is a social shycologist that said " We teach more , for those who we expected more". Not only in school, but also in business this effect is one of the best secrets to be succesful in life and in the business environment.

While i was reading about this, a clear example came to my mind, the story of Chris Gardner, the inspiration of the movie " The pursuit of Happyness", and the writer of the book with the same name.

He is an ordinary man from Louisiana, USA, that despite he never went to collage and having that hard time in his life, he overcame so´cuase his child expect the best of him but also he realized that he could achieve great things, now he is a self millionaire, entrepenuer, motivational speaker and philantropist. (taken from www. en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chris_Gardner).

And we dont have to go so far, think about what your teacher expect about your tasks, and your parents about youre life, and your friends about you. In youre mind you will always have higher goals when there higher expectations of youreself.

The pygmalion effect is also related to cultural factors. For example in China, the culture forced them to achieve grater things because since they are little, their family expects to achieve greater things but not also their family, also the state, because their culture is very patriotic.(Deresky, H; International management page 369-370).

( The picture is taken from www.ajourneyofdreams.com, book review the pursuit of happyness)

"Business implications of cultural differences"

Culture can be defined in several ways, it is a concept that is integrated by many elements such as language, religion, cousine, sports, music and others; but in few words culture can be defined as the behavior of each person . As Nick B. Mayer analized on his conference " dealing with cultural differences" Doing international business, has different strategies and tactics, but the knowledge of the impact of cultural differences, is the key not only for success, but also a respectful behavior.

Greer Hofstede, calls culture the " software of the mind" ( taken from understanding culture and cultural differnces, online, http://blue.butler.edu/jfmcgrat/culture.htm), and that really is an intersting definition, beacuse even though now days globalization makes as a world community, there is no "world culture". Because everyone have messages to transmit but different ways to do it.

Mr. Mayer in the conference analized the five dimensions developed by Hofstede, not only the concept but also with clear examples.

One dimension that really caught my attention is the power distance, it means that the power is distributed inequality, so how does this affect business?, doing business, you must have in mind how power is distributed not only in societies but also on organizations because this affect the way of thinking, so you must find the way to caught their attention. For example: In countries like Luxembourg the feel of inequality is very low, because every one has education opportunites, better life conditions, better job opportunities. Their culture knows how to work in teams, share triumphs and delegated responsabilites. And that is reflect in life style. Mean while in countries like Colombia only the rich ones has all type of opportunities, so maybe doing business in a country like Colombia is more complex because you must have more contacts to get to the superior. In a country with a low power distance the job evironment will be more pleasurable, beacuse the relation between boss and employees is closer.

For me this is an excellent help when youre doing business beacuse you can predict how decitions are taken.

During the conference Mr. Mayer also talk about the dress code so in this area i really have an intersting example, the last semester in my fashion marketing course i had a very intersting conference of the line clothe " Onda de Mar", in this conference the marketing director told us how in the photo shootings of each collections must done very carefully, because the sell their beathingsuits in other parts of the world, like Dubai, that must be careful beacuse on the photos the models cant be drinking anything, beacuse alcohol is not accepted, and they must had photos with clothing beacuse there they are very extricted in showing the body, why? beacuse of the religion. So they used the photos of bikinys in countries that are allowed and the photos of the clothing in Dubai. It shows how a company can be recursive and find ways to get in cultures that are more complex than others, but been aware of cultural differnces.

Finally i will like to end with a very good quote. Ernest Gaines, "Why is it that, as a culture, we are more comfortable seeing to men holding guns, than holding hands" ( taken from culture quotes, online, www.thinkexist./quotations/culture/2.html)

The image is called " The colors of the world" (taken from, www.3viajesaldia.com)