NON-VERBAL COMMUNICATION, CULTURAL DIFFERENCES

As Ekman(1969) explains: Informative, communicative and interactive are some categories involved in non-verbal communication; all of these behaviors influence the way how our messages are perceived by others and the effectiveness in correctly transmission of the information we are trying to send. When cultural differences are in the middle is really important to attend these kind of behaviors due to the facility of committing mistake when interacting with people who was different background, education, beliefs, faith, religion, etc; that’s why creating a global map of who are we dealing with or will relate in a future is basic, doing some research about the other culture, using tools such as Hosftedes’ dimensions or Edward T.Hall Cultural dimension allow to create a preliminary vision of different places , which values are developed, if it is individualism or collectivism; Feminine or Masculinity, uncertainty avoidance; relationship with natures, context, space, time , power distance.. In a global world when each country has certain practices, ethnocentrism must be keep away from personal interaction and cultural sensitivity must be welcome. Studying the concepts mentioned above became useful when avoiding faults in crucial manners is the goal.

In business as in any relation that is being developed; it is important to take Informative, communicative and interactive communication into account in order to avoid misinterpretations and interferences; here will be presented some examples of non-verbal communications differences: a Germans who is monochromic and a Colombian who is polychromic set a reunion, the German arrives  on time even some minutes before, and the Colombian arrives 15 minutes late, he excuses, but this action could still be perceive for the German as disrespectful. Another example could be the Japanese who has a high power distance and a deep sense of respect to elder people and could interpreted the lack of a sign of respect to authority as inappropriate.  As a conclusion it could be said that non-verbal communication is even more challenging when cross-cultural interaction is in between, but it could be understate when studying and learning about the other part of the communicative cycle.

REFERENCES

Paul Ekman and Wallace V. Friesen, The repertoire of non-verbal Behavior, Semiotica; University of California San Francisco. 

Image source:  http://web.mirror.co.uk/pemonitorhosted/ws/results/Images/Cultural%20Differences%20Of%20Nonverbal%20Communication/1/408/BottomNavigation/Relevance/zoom=off/_iceUrlFlag=7?_IceUrl=true 9

http://www.communication-type.com/culture-in-nonverbal-communication/

IMMIGRANT’S TYPES OF LABOR AND LIVING CONDITIONS

The United States is one of the most important countries worldwide know by its power, economic development and influence. Located in the American continent this region is known for having a high rate of international immigrants. As it can be observed in the map along with countries such as Spain, France, Belgium, Japan, and United Arabs Emirates among others; it is recognize as major receiver of immigrants, particularly of those coming from the Caribbean and Latin American countries; according to the report made by the CEPAL (2006): between 1990 and 2000 the number of immigrants from Latin America and the Caribbean was almost double, representing approximately three quarter of the total of migrants in the region. Despite the amendments of immigration policy, the “Latinos” or “Hispanic” amounted to 35.3 million of people in the US. For 2005, 71% of the total population was Mesoamerican (mostly Mexicans), 17% Caribbean, and 12% from South America.” As statistics shown, Mexicans are the principal source of immigrant in the United States, “since 1980 the immigrants with highest growing rate and births were the Mexicans concentrating 60% of all migrants in the region, and keeping a sustained growth”[1]. Despite representing historically a majority in the US; Mexicans are known for having a large segment of undocumented population; and when compared  with people coming from south America and the Caribbean they have a lowest rate in education, and professionals; this noticeable situation has gain this ethnic the reputation of being an important labor force with low wages in sectors like construction, agriculture and manufacturing; states like California for example represent high employment of Mexicans  for manual jobs. Language is also a barrier for them, English is essential when reaching high incomes jobs is the goal, as CEPAL (2006) explains that:  the succeed of integrations within the American society, it is determinate by a combination of factors such as national origin or ethnic group, level of English, the access to American citizenship, support of social networks among others”. As is reported by Martínez (2003): Mexicans have the highest grade of undocumented, and the lowest level of integration within American society, they profiles of education are lowest too”[2]   the important issue is that citizenship represent access to certain rights and improvement on life conditions, Mexican naturalizations as citizen of legal permanent residents are lowest, while : “Anguilla represents (69%), British Virgin Islands (62%), Cuba (60.6%); Argentine, Chilean and Colombian naturalized represent over 40% and Panamanians represents 58%; Mexican recorded a percentage, only about 23%”. [3]

As a conclusion it can be said that despite being historically the largest group of immigrants in the United States there are still some political issues that interfere in the total economic, social, cultural integration of Mexican in American social order, making it sometimes a bit vulnerable. It is also important to highlight that sometimes this lack of integration does not only depend on politics but in some Mexicans divergence and denial of the necessity of embracing the social context and life style they are getting into.

Image source: http://www.worldmapper.org/posters/worldmapper_map15_ver5.pdf

---

[1] Comisión Económica para América Latina y el Caribe  CEPAL (2006), Migración internacional, derechos humanos y desarrollo.

[2] Comisión Económica para América Latina y el Caribe  CEPAL (2006), Migración internacional, derechos humanos y desarrollo.

               

[3] Comisión Económica para América Latina y el Caribe  CEPAL (2006), Migración internacional, derechos humanos y desarrollo.

REFERENCES

Martínez, Jorge y Fernanda Stang (2005), Lógica y paradoja: libre comercio, migración limitada. Memorias del Taller sobre Migración Internacional y Procesos de Integración y

Cooperación Regional, serie Seminarios y Conferencias Nº 45 (LC/L.2272-P), Santiago

de Chile, CEPAL. Publicación de las Naciones Unidas, Nº de venta: S.05.II.G.99.

Comisión Económica para América Latina y el Caribe  CEPAL (2006), Migración internacional, derechos humanos y desarrollo.

FORCED GROWTH STRATEGIES, BANCOLOMBIA

As it was explained by Alzira (2003): “The prospect of increasing profitability and market share by acquisitions continues to exercise a more seductive and immediate appeal to business leaders than a reliance on growth alone”1. Colombians industries are not the exception in this practice, indeed some of the most important corporations that hold a large quantity of the different markets, had been product of fusion or acquisitions as it was for example the case of Banco de Colombia with Conavi and Corfinsura; Fabricato and Tejicondor; the French group SEB with Imusa and the case of OI-peldar among others. Despite several of these unions were between corporations that started in Colombia and most of their employees were from the country, the new transition represented a real challenge for those who were leading the negotiations. In the case for the creation of Bancalombia as a consolidated financial entity, the terms, objectives, goals, services that will be achieve took a few years, it was in 2005 when the final approval by the Superintendencia Bancaria de Colombia was given; besides the legal diligences; the human resources arrangements for some position needed to be organize as well as the rest of places; team works, transference of knowledge and workplace values and practices and set and parameters to achieve goals were challenging.  By this process of acquisition the principal goal was to create a competitive bank, capable to compete in international markets and improved the services provided to clients. At the beginning a lot of meetings were required in order to find match along teams and pull off new corporative values that glues all as one, extra work to employees and managers was the daily task, and increasing and correctly implementing the new services was necessary in order to succeed in the objectives. After all this process Bancolombia is now one of the most important bank, it provides a large quantity of services to clients, and it is one of the few corporation running stocks in the New York stock market. This case is an example of how a well managed integration could be a success, it does not matter is the companies involves run business in the same or similar sector, or if they are from the same country, took for granted that the process is going to be easy, and that converge among employees, corporate values and practices are simple, it is the principal mistake to evade. 


Fuente imagenes:
http://www.foroin.com/2010/09/wwwbancolombiacomcreditos.html

http://www.classpublishing.com/egvgf.php?cgir=Grupo-Bancolombia


(1)  AlziraSalama, Wayne Holland, Gerald Vinten, (2003) "Challenges and opportunities in mergers and acquisitions: three international case studies –Deutsche Bank-Bankers Trust; British Petroleum-Amoco; Ford-Volvo", Journal of European Industrial Training, Vol. 27 Iss: 6, pp.313 –321