TASK 8

The Corporation

Multinational corporations are entities that nowadays have an enormous power because of the great influence on the countries that they execute and the financial muscle they own, besides, they have many legal benefits that often leaves them free to operate in different jurisdictions, therefore, a good regulation is the only thing that can prevent monopolies and abuses, however, it is natural that corporations will try to monopolize the market through many strategies most often not benefical to society.

Due to the above, if the most important decisions of the corporation are concentrated in a small group to impose their interests over the interests of the society, the breeding ground for corruption and corporate fraud will be well fed and the actions of the corporation will be very far from being part of a real strategy of social responsibility, and therefore the effects of organizational actions may have serious damage components on the image of the organization.

In conclusion, it is clear that in order to change this structure of behavior, it's mandatory to execute a deep change within the corporations regarding individual morals in order to change to a more human vision of the institution that has to include aspects like fairness in the workplace, the proper distribution of wealth and access to power strictly by professional capacity of those members within the corporation.

References:

- Achbar Mark, Abbot Jennifer and Bakon Joel.The corporation documentary, 2003

Video Taken form Youtube.com, 2010. Corporations vs The People - Fighting Corporate Rule. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=POY-4YHPUBI

- image: Image: Hardin, Patrick, Catalog Reference: pha0357, Avalaible at: http://www.cartoonstock.com/cartoonview.asp?search=site&catref=pha0357&MA_Category=&ANDkeyword=corporations&ORkeyword=&TITLEkeyword=&NEGATIVEkeyword=

TASK 7

Women Migrant Workers and the OIM

IOM is an organization that is commited to the people rights regarding migration. The organization was created in 1951 and has been dedicated on the promotion of international migration laws, protection and assistance for migrants.

One of the most important issues with IOM is its work with migrant’s women rights, taking into account that at the moment, migrant women generally are family heads.Figures say that women represent almost half of the migrant population globally, and however, migration policies and regulations in countries of origin and destination have generally not adjusted to this situation. So, in this way the OIM is providing training in order to improve social skills and internationally acceptable standard certification for the women migrant workers.

IOM is concerned about providing good quality of living in the host countries where the migrants travel, and has worked with governments in order to educate and develope the apropriate authorities on women migratory issues in order to give an important value to this issue that perjudicates migrant women worldwide, creating in this way, agreements and campaigns that support the ideal of the organization.



Images References:
- OIM, 2010 (online) available on http://www.iom.int/jahia/Jahia/media/feature-stories/featureArticleAF/cache/offonce/lang/en?entryId=10454
- Migrant Worker, 2010 (online) available on http://www.humanrights.ie/wp-content/uploads/2010/07/migrant.jpg .

Task 6

Ubuntu and the organizations

Ubuntu is a cultural philosophy from the south of Africa that preaches about growing as a person by feeling secure about the people that sorrounds you, secure about the capacities, skills and values of all the persons that compose a determined group or organization.



Taking this into account, the best way a cross-cultural manager can be aware about this pretty ideology is by trusting in all the persons that are part of the enterprise, knowing that they’re within it in order to develope theirselves in terms of professionalism and as a person itself, so they will give all the capacities they have in order to hace success in the enterprises. If there’s trust in the top of the company, all the responsibilities below will be accomplished in a good way because there’s no pressions of being punished occupationally.
Punctually, a way of applying Ubuntu within organizations would be reducing intimidation from the highests levels of the organization in order to trust in the capabilities of all workers and employees by giving them more freedom of movement in their labors.

References:

- Youthfulguy (2010) "Ubuntu: South Africa 2010" Available at: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pNZ4KsihQPQ.

- Image: Zahn, Carroll, Catalog Reference: cza0987, Avalaible at: http://www.cartoonstock.com/cartoonview.asp?start=&search=main&catref=cza0987&MA_Artist=&MA_Category=&ANDkeyword=good+boss&ORkeyword=&TITLEkeyword=&NEGATIVEkeyword=

Task 5

Metaphors in organizations

Sometimes organizations use publicity metaphors in order to manage communication inside and outside the organization, that most of the times express attitudes beliefs or a creative way of launching a product.

This fifth task is related with creating a metaphor for an innovative product, and taking into account that Colombia is a big exporter of flowers, an innovation for that sector (for example roses) would be a nice green covering with recycled material for the stem of the flower, but at the same time emphasizing the red colors of the petals. The slogan metaphor would be "THINK RED, DRESS GREEN" in order to promote the red color of the rose, but at the same time promoting the green awareness that the organization would have with the environment.

the strategies that are necessary to implement are,
1) focus on countries wheres environmental awareness is important and attractive
2) good handling of the product in terms of logistics in order to taking care of the green covering.
3) rename the slogan on the labeling



taken from: http://www.adn.es/tecnologia/20090211/IMA-3899-Valentin-Ecuador-San-mejores-prepara

Task 4

the Task 4 is related with making comments on the blog of 5 different partners of the class:

- Valentina Valencia

- Luz María Fernandez

- John Henry Ciro

- Evelyn Aguirre

- Pablo Andrés González

Task 3

The pygmalion effect, as possitive as contraproductive.

Many theories and analysis about the pygmalion effect focus on the important and productive consecuences that this has toward certain areas, the most common is in the organizational and business affairs in which managerial techniques look in order to improve productivity and performance in the workers and employees using the motivation as a tool that finally enhance the possitive things that the enterprise needs.

However, the pigmalion effect has a contraproductive side as well, that many times has been shown in the history.

Continuing with the business affairs issue, that in my opinion is very important to analyse in the psychological side, an example that I investigated, is the pygmalion effect in the bank area, where the deliberations of the people in mass could generate tragic consecuences in the system like the bankruptcy of many financing entities and crisis in many other areas related with the banks, loans, credits, savings (almost all areas).

One specific example of this was the bank crisis in Venezuela in 1994, which has a lot of causes (as all crisis), but one of the most important ones was the bank distrust, which made many venezuelan people retire their savings, “sell their houses, divide their money in several financing institutions and plan their lives according to the leasings of their properties” (Semana, 2008), besides that the country was passing through times of politic instability, financial regulation failures, capital flights.

According to that, people was constantly predisposed to the crisis, every day more and more… threats of bankruptcy of the economy, news bombing and speculation… which madethe crisis happen!: the bad side of the pygmalion effect on massive scale due to the bank insolvency toward the amount of people trying to recover their money.

taken from: http://www.eluniversal.com/aniversario/100/ca11_art_cayo-el-latino-y-se_1230401.shtml

References:

Semana, 1994. "Crisis bancaria histórica es la que vivió Venezuela". Available in http://semana.com.ve/article.php?id=2271. Consulted on August 11th of 2010.

Task 2

The Role of Managers in international negotiation and the importance of cross cultural management skills

Taking into account the main role of the international business managers within the organizational behavior, it’s very important to state that, they as the heads of the companies should take the best decisions in order to improve the profits of the enterprise and thus benefit the employees that work for it.

For me, nowadays, the phenomenon that affects more the decision process of an enterprise manager is the globalization of the markets, which means that the decisions he takes should be focused on a broad way, in which negotiation skills could provide the necessary tools to have a good relation with other markets, different of the already explored and exploited. The above, in order to have a second hand market in case of legal and political barriers with the commerce.

The best example I can choose for that is:

Due to things and facts like that, it’s very important to develop cross cultural management skills in order to avoid problems with other markets and not going to bankruptcy just for determined problems with a country. For example, Colombia is working hard in order to improve relations with Asia, Africa and the eastern countries.