The Corporation

"By Mark Achbar, Jennifer Abbott & Joel Bakan"

The movie "The corporation" we watched on the last class is a documentary that shows a critical issues of the modern last years corporations, considering its legal issues as a individual and evaluating all the behaviour and environment towards the nowadays societies and the world. This is explored through specific examples that the documentary give us to show a clear explanation of the power and the dominance of the corporations in the last century and how are they growing. "The Corporation" movie is used as a pathological pursuit of power and big amounts of profits.

1. Should corporations be entitled to the same legal rights as individuals? Where should the line be drawn?

In the documentary "The Corporation", which consistently show the development of large corporations power in modern societies and how they follow some pathological patterns of fulfill their selfish interests, sometimes regardless of the means to achieve their objectives. This demonstrates clearly that in the legal field, corporations should never be treated as individuals, because they must obey to taxes, rules and different laws, which are much more demanding, and can control the excessive power they have over modern societies. In the middle 1800s the corporations emerged as legal persons imbued with personalities of only self interests to dominance. The corporations really generate unprecedented wealth and capitals, but at what cost?... Here is where the line should be drawn in order to maintain the balance of power in the socities, because if the legal field is not enough to balance this powers, it is going to increase the ranks of illness, deaths, poverty, exploitation, pollution and corruption in the whole world.

2. How can we ensure corporations are held accountable for their actions?

Nowadays we can really see that the corporations does not have a clear head or responsible for their acts, what it makes strongly difficult to held someone as a encharge of the corporations actions that harm or damage the general public and the socities. If the countries laws get modified in the constitutions, we can reach to build the proper systems and specific laws where the actor marginalized by corporations can have a voice or a clear head, and preventing corporations from becoming uncontrollable forces, growing with no much control; could be possible to make corporations accountable for their actions, and also available them to be punished about their wrong actions. If we want to see nowadays real cases about this, lets talk about the case of the United States of America, where they gave corporations almost unlimited power, which goes of the hand with the hidden support of politicians, that start going out of control. Only when corporations where stop and confront about what they were doing, the government can handle the situations and began to find out the responsables of it.

3. Should individuals bear any responsability for the actions of a corporation? If so, to what degree?

In the actual system world individuals are always going to bear responsability for the actions of a corporation, because as we see in the domuntary " The Corporation" what at the end matters inside the cause and effect rule is that they are the decision makers of the corporation actions that should respond for the actions taken on their lead. Over the corporations they puts the interest of the stakeholders around it at the same level of those ones that could have the shareholders. By this, all is a process of transparency inside the actions and desicions of the corporation. Finally, we can see that the leader managers should be open to be investigate for their actions if they are a threat to world societies.

4. What are the benefits of the corporate form? could an alternative model offer these as well?

In the last century it have been appearing some big corporations that has to be acknowledged that they have helped to change our nowadays world, some big enterprises as Microsoft, General Electric, Mc Donals, Coca cola, Starbucks, burger king and the pretoleum multinationals, are constantly changing our way we live, our perspective of life and our reality. Since they are really enourmous, they have access to many resources to produce cheaply in the foreign markets and at great amounts, which allow more people to afford these products. People of our societies could enjoy this benefits of the goods and services offered today by big corporations, but what would be provided by smaller companies which were closer to the public and that also want to share markets and growth with their supply. The corporation of this days tends to do not care more about humane needs and prefers to create their own demands. Also, all the environmental damages, the shady worker conditions, and the lack of accountability would probably disappear if there is not a constant control over the growing and extend of the corporations.

_____________________________________________________________________

International Organization For Migration

"The Organization was established in December 1951 and began its operations in early 1952 as the Intergovernmental Committee for European Migration. Its Constitution was adopted on 19 October 1953 and came into force on 30 November 1954. Amendments were made to the Constitution, effective 14 November 1989, and the Organization was renamed the International Organization for Migration. The Organization possesses full juridical personality and has its Headquarters in Geneva. It currently has 125 member states".

"The Organization's organs are the Council, the Executive Committee and the Administration. IOM is committed to the principle that humane and orderly migration benefits migrants and society".

Some actions in the international community of the IOM:

• 
  
  Assist in growing in migration management.


• 
  
  Advance over the issues of migration.


• 
  
  Promote social and economic development based on migration proccesses.


• 
  
  Help in the support of the human dignity and well-being of all migrants around the world.

"Women migrant workers"

Even though population movements are a gender-neutral process, they are strongly related to if you are a women or a men because of different reasons like the use of different channels to do it and the different experiences they have. Also the social context, within which migration takes place, is based on family relations or social relationships everyone has. This, in turn, strongly influences migration behaviour, and also affects the experiences men and women are going to have in their process of migrate. In the decision of an individual to migrate or not also illustrates why it is important to consider gender issues when considering and formulating migration policy options, regardless of whether these focus on immigration, family reunification, labour migration, resettlement or asylum.

In the international scene there a re a lot of research of the issues related to the women migration also in a feminist and developmental perspective. Some of the theories find out of the research in the IOM are:

• 
  
  "The first two theories evolved from simply following the approach "add women, mix, and stir" without reflecting on societal roles and relationships between men and women as well as on the impact of the variable of "power relations" to an analysis that included a gender dimension.On the other hand, in the Gender and Development theory, the analysis starts by assuming that the behaviour, roles, and relations between men and women are conditioned by societal structures and expectations, and therefore have to be addressed as a totality and not in isolation".


• 
  
  "Gender and Development theory attempts to put the position of men and women on an equal footing and seeks to examine the impact of different programmes and policies on both sexes".

Obtenido de: http://www.iom.int/jahia/jsp/index.jsp

_____________________________________________________________________

Management lessons from Ubuntu

"Ubuntu lessons from South Africa"

According to Mangaliso, cross-cultural managers can be aware of this cultural philosophy and use it for benefits of the organization and its employees, if they do not neglected the lessons from Ubuntu, this means that companies should take into account that there are expensive costs for them if they do not aprecciate what really underlying the peoples desicions like the different values, norms and beliefs, like in the case of the employees in South Africa that just want that top managment come and adress employees to speak to them and listen their needs and when they see the turn down of their request, they just went into a strike that involves many people fired and many economical losses for the company.

As a cross-cultural manager an important step to understand the peoples desicions making is: first to see what are the culture values and norms in which they believe, then you should try to understand what are their self-interests to determine the behaviour that support those behaviours in your employees and finally you are going to focus in the right keys to have good relationships with others. Some of this important keys are: First try to share or to express yourself with understandable languague and the proper communication; second, you should be able for strongly commitment with your employees with slow action; third, you should understand punctuality as a virtue, that shows respect with people you are going to talk; fourth, you should generate strong loyalty to gropu goals inside your collegues; and finally you are going to take advantage of the age and the capacity of leadership that each employee have, and take into account that older workers are not so productive but they bring experience, wisdom and new connections for your company.

As successful cross-cultural managers, we need to incorporate the practices of ubuntu inside our companies in order to reach a better relationship between us and our employees, this means that we are going to threat others with the respect they deserve, generating an environment of collegiality based on sharing, caring and helping, we are going to be willing to negotiate with justice, especially in conflict resolutions, we are going to allow people to express themself, understanding all thing should be equal and older people can give us experience, and we are going to try to be flexible and accommodative in the corporate performance.

" Ubuntu is rich with consideration

for compassion and comunality"

-Mzamo P. Mangaliso -

____________________________________________________________________

Ethical Decision Making

http://bp1.blogger.com/_cwa8yn5F9Bo/SHypO2-ceDI/AAAAAAAAB3Y/

J-qn9jL7Iio/s1600-h/Osama+Bin+Laden+View.jpg

.

The rest´s model of moral action is the one in which it is explain the four components of the ethical reason processes of individuals. It tries to explain the perception of people over what is good or bad and the cognitive process whereby the person go step by step to the end that is act ethical or unethical. To see briefly and clearly in an example, let´s talk about Osama and the 9/11 incident. Let´s suppose that the Dilemma of Osama was that: if he commit the attack, he is going to generate the third world war between his country and the world power United States, but if he do not commit the attack, his group Al Qaeda was going to removed him from the power, because he could be seeing as a weak terrorist (Ethical Sensitivity). Then he began judge the parts involve and the damage to the welfare of others, that can be to the enemies or to his pakistan village with the decision over the Dilemma he had (Prescriptive Reasoning). After that, he take a look insight him and think over his own values and believes, and also about his intentions with this act(Deliberative Reasoning), moreover if he has the intention to act after that process of think over it. Finally, he act after this whole cognitive process, doing it as a common behaviour or as an ethical act (Good or Right Vs Bad) that is the final step (Ethical Character).

___________________________________________________________________

Tropical Flavoured Ice Creams

"Nowadays, The streets are burning and the sun is still running behind us"

http://valuestream2009.files.wordpress.com/2010/07/ice-cream-cones.jpg

The new tropical flavoured line of ice creams should be implement with an strategy of leadership in costs to stablish previously a strong competitive advantage, taking into account that the weather nowadays is hot and we are crossing by the problem of the global warming, we will exploit scale economies with well defined scopes in each country we will go in, because when we think in an ice cream, we want to feel refresh in a hot day, no matter your conditions are, when the sun shines a lot and you feel that the sun and the warm follows you to every part even to the shadows, an ice cream will be the best option and if the price is so competitive you can reach easily the entrance in a new economy. But what other things we must done to be successful with the new tropical flavoured ice creams in other countries or regions also? We have to take care of the design of the package of our ice creams and the design of the store too. First one to continue with the strategy of leading in costs, the package and the product must be small but not to much, seeking the ideal size that allow us to save money in the production and packing and still very attractive to our clients in the world. Secondly, in the store, it must be painted with tropical colors and with fruits by all walls, having ample spacesfor customers and if it can be outdoors with an agreable view, better. The music we will put inside the store or in the terrace or the balcony will be cumbia, electronic cumbia, folcloric and chillout, such as "Colombian Chill"(colombian band).

____________________________________________________________________

World Culture

___________________________________________________________________

VISIT BLOG`S

I have posted some comments in the blogs i find out more interesting... Good job !!

- Maria Alejandra Redondo Romero

- Luisa Mejia Salazar

- Manuela Hernandez Suarez

- David Zuluaga Botero

- Juliana Espinosa Lopez

____________________________________________________

Beyond Pygmalion Effect

Fuente disponible en: http://inwiki.pabo-inholland.nl/_detail/pygmalion_effect.jpg?id=pygmalion-effect&cache=cache

" The role of managerial perception"

Going back in history and contextualizing the pygmalion effect, Pygmalion was a sculptor from the greek mythology who fell in love with a women painted in one of his own works, known as Galatea -as if she was a woman from the real world- because of his passion for his creations. Galatea who was the love of his dreams and the one who shows to be the perfect women for his life, thanks to the greek goddess aphrodite took own life to do justice to the love pygmalion felt towards his statue.

In a real life example which applies the personal overcoming of pygmalion, of create a well done work exceeding their own expectations to the point of falling in love with his creation Galatea, is in the work environment because the boss constantly has a perception of his peers and co-workers and treated each one of them based in this perception. Although the boss do not always communicate directly this perception he already has to their associates and colleagues, they perceive it the whole time. We can see this very clear inside any type of organizations looking forward to reach a special project or objective, but let contextualize it in a special real case to see it clearly. In the offices of the bank Occidente in different parts of the city, where each one of them has a boss, there is a lot of environmental stress in the employees, thta desmotivates the work teams, they need from their boss to perceive accpetance from he(the boss) and also he should seek for speacial motivations for them to make them feel as part of the body(company or project). If the boss reach this, the employees stop lookinf and felling just as subordinates and begin feeling that they beyond to the company or the project, so they constantly are going to exhibit high performance in their own roles and and began showing greater performance helping to solve problems that can appear to the boss that are not part of their roles but they know how to handle it. Leading at the end woth all of this to reach the anually objectives proposed by the central bank branch(bank occidente), which benefits directly to the head of the body(the boss) and likewise to his team(his employees), then the environment that creates the boss is always so good for them all.

___________________________________________________________________

International Business Managers in the Negotiation Arena

"ORGANIZATIONAL BEHAVIOR"

Nowadays, when we talk about an international business manager, is generally understood in a simple way as the person who operates in a function that concerned in the decision making process or productivity inside a multinational or transnational company. But this a very flat perception of what actually means an international business manager and it different roles in main activities of the companies that negotiate between different countries and different cultural norms. " Managers perform a range of different of different roles. These include leading, acting as figurehead, communicating information, negotiating, allocating resources, handling disturbances, planning, overseeing implementation of plans, evaluating."1. and also the international business manager must be prepared with his or her own interpersonal skills or develop them to be allowed to manage a stuff of different cultural groups as their work partners and to reach succes business if he is expatriate of his or her home country.

We have seen that the international business manager can deal with many different roles in the negotiation arena, but as we mencioned before let´s talk about an expatriate business manager that must handle with a stuff of different cultural groups to reach a goal, a project or a business. The main role in this circumstances is leading with the interpersonal cross cultural managment skills. We talk about cross cultural managment as "development and application of knowledge about cultures in the practice of international managment, when the people involve have different cultural identities"2 like the stuff of different cultural groups. So, manager must be able to adapt himself to the other culture where he is negotiating or located and capable to lead his or her stuff conformed by different cultural groups, this means that as a manager you never could force a member of a different culture into your own cultural rules, because you must understand that they have a perception of their reality and also there values inside them that are not negotiables. So when going on making desicion process as an international business manager your first role is to lead and identify when it will be significant the cultural differences inside your teamwork, because each one of them can react in different ways to a similar situation.

Cross cultural managment skills reach importance when you understand that also the cultural differences gives you an advantage in a business process, because it is likely how you structure your plan or strategies and see what kind ofrelationship you want to achieve or your company wnats you to reach.

"Culture is not programmed into your

genetic structure, your learn it "

-Hofstede-

1. Mead, Richard. (2004).International managment and culture. London: Blackwell Publishing. Chapter 1, page 15.

2. Mead, Richard. (2004). International managment and culture. London: Blackwell Publishing. Chapter 1, page 16.

___________________________________________________________________

VISIT THE BLOGS RECOMMENDED:

- After a successful mundial Sudafrica 2010, come and see what it is the truth behind it.

http://makowi.blogspot.com/


- If you want to know important news that you are missing, check this out.

http://www.rumournation.net/


- Lets work together for our future, learn about it.

http://www.itsgettinghotinhere.org/




___________________________________________________________________