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)