WORDS MIGHT LEAD TO MISUNDERSTANDING IN CROSS-CULTURAL SETTINGS. WHAT ARE OTHER ALTERNATIVES IN WITH CONFLICT SITUATION?

It is important to take into account that words represent only a 35%[1] of our total communication; therefore understanding all others aspects that can play a significant role when dealing or interacting with different people is so relevant if avoiding misunderstandings is the goal. Multiples issues such as the tone; the posture; the gesture and look, could send all kinds of messages such as calm, aggressiveness, scare, kindness, tendered, mostly all felling; and affect the way how people perceived us. When dealing with a conflict situation it is key managing all these features; it is proved that a smile, a gentile tone and body movements, keeping away from speaking loud; looking directly into the other person face, to name some, could modify other people attitudes towards us. Keeping politeness, serenity even in a hard situation, when face to face confrontation is produce, helps to generate the same behavior in the other, as it was the case of Alvaro Uribe Velez in the “Cumbre de Unasur en Republica Dominicana” with Hugo Chavez, the Colombian President was so prudent that was capable to shake the Venezuelan president hand, despite his insults.

When dealing with cross-cultural setting is vital understanding customs, history, behaves, manners of the person with are speaking with, knowing what food, drink, sport, famous artists of the country where the person is from it is also helpful in order to create, improve or a relation. When solving a conflict, ambience also plays a key role, colors, ventilation and furniture must be properly according to the situation; having for example light colors such as white, light green, cream generate a felling of peaceful and relaxation even for the eyes. A right ventilation and furniture could avoid having distraction of thoughts, and losses of focus even awaking feeling of discomfort that affect people behavior towards the conversation. As a conclusion it could be said that when people are interacting in conflictive circumstances there are external aspects that could be handle with the objective to don’t let the entire solution base on verbal communication only, especially because on cross cultural settings dialects, some works in certain languages could be taken in the wrong way.

Fuente imagen: http://www.maestrosdelweb.com/editorial/herramientas-y-ejemplos-para-mejorar-tu-trabajo-como-freelance/

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[1] http://petermjfitzgerald.wordpress.com/2010/12/15/nonverbal-communication/

DIFFERENTIATED STRATEGIES WHEN REACHING FOREIGN MARKETS.

Convergence and divergence are two theories that had taken more relevance after World War II, they explain different approaches of how crossing international borders are occurring and affecting business, culture, economy, etc. the fist one stands for the global village, referring to the increasing sharing characteristic among nations, it stand that it will be a point when we will even have a global language English; on the other side divergence carry on and refers to cultures  uniqueness and diversity, it meant the resistance to change because the core values are not modified easily . I think that even in our times where globalization is a reality and interconnection in political, economical, military, environmental, cultural issues, etc. among countries around the world is growing and it’s stronger day by day. It is important to recognize that each region and culture keeps having really unique characteristics that identify a particular territory; values, symbols, beliefs, customs, etc. still plays a significant role in each one.

Despite multinationals are around the world and sell the same products in each place; they way how they sell it, it’s what is different; companies expends large quantities of money making research of certain markets, because they had understood the importance of properly perception and sensitivity of each place and ethnicity. Here is mention some of the companies that apply this:

• McDonalds, for example sell happy meals, and big macs all around, but it doesn’t do it in the same way, even if the essence of its business in enrolled in similar attributes, there are lightly but significant differences in each country; for example in Germany they sells a combo curry (famous sausage there); in Colombia there are a large amount of sauces for free, while in Europe you pay them.
• Red Bull for example introduce a different can, logo and characteristic of the product in china, there red bull is not blue and silver; but it’s a chubby can, in yellow and red colors, without gas and with vitamins. The company was aware of the importance of these colors for that culture, and applied on its products a different methodology to introduce it.
•  Cars companies such Nissan and Toyota are aware of the importance of symbols, and significance of certain words for each languages, that’s why Moco car has not been introduced in Colombia. In order to reduce mistakes and have positives approaches, names are changed or modify when penetrating an specific market; numbers had result in a good way to avoid failures in marketing.

Image source: http://www.tcnj.edu/~darakjy2/globalization.jpg  

http://www.redbull.com

http://www.redbull.com.cn/e/cp.htm / 

AN ETHICAL DILEMMA IN ORGANIZATIONS

As was explained during the course ethic practices had an important impact on international business decision because they could lead to create a well recognition as aware or responsible, as (Ronald. R. Sims, 2003) explain: “ethical behavior is acting in ways consistent with one’s personal values and the commonly held values of the organization and society.”

In Colombia mining sector is one of the most controversial, there are plenty aspect as security, legalization on issuing permission to exploits mines; regulation and control that are not yet fully standardize and applied in most of the 8.828 active mines by the date. Since 2004 investment in gold, emerald, cold mining is growing as well as deaths caused by the lack of safety in those places. Responsibility of accidents, as the last one in Santander that took 34 lives, lies not only on the local authorities that does not follows properly the rules to issue permission, or made all the inspections and demand for example to proper medical assistance allocated near mines with technological equipment to act more effectively in case of an incident; but  also implicates the ownerships of mines that in order to reduce cost or gain more benefits took deliberately advantage of the situation and fails on regulations, and do not take the proper measures to protect their employees. Besides the obvious problems, in accordance to “the International labor organization (ILO) and data from DANE, in 2007 there were registered 8.499 children working in mines and quarries exploiting gold, emerald and cold”[1], the previous situation is an example of how this organizations face a dilemma from an ethical point of view, is there labor practices, respect for human rights and fair operating practices? Since when reducing cost is an enough reason for hiring people from vulnerable sectors in order to pay less money, or use children only because their high is appropriate and fits within the mine as Lucero representative from Bogota  town hall affirmed. Children used as a labor force is a problem that not only exits in Colombia, but in countries such Peru, Bolivia and Guatemala to mention some of them. This remark how ethical decision are faced worldwide and unfortunately in those cases economic and growing desires had been stronger than altruism.

As part of the workshop I will answer: what does the statement “all capitalism is crony capitalism” is referring to? Do you agree with this statement or not? Give an example.  The text explains crony capitalism as the strategic or connections that some enterprises use by creating relationships with others in order to receive some benefits, those practices creates a kind of elite where the ones that are in highest positions covers each other, do favors a receive some as a retribution. People in lowest positions are the ones that suffers consequences from that because in some cases are the ones privatize from important information and opportunities. One example could be the recent investigation to the senator Ivan Moreno rojas for his intervention in allocating construction contracts for public works, to the group Nule, as a retribution for having helped in the campaign of his brother Samuel Moreno in Bogotá.

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[1]http://www.elcolombiano.com/BancoConocimiento/I/ilegalidad_y_muerte_codenan_la_mineria/ilegalidad_y_muerte_codenan_la_mineria.asp

Image source : http://www.webislam.com/?idn=8555

http://www.semana.com/noticias-nacion/samuel-moreno-puso-cara-pero-no-dio-respuestas/146230.aspx

Ronald. R. Sims, (2003) Ethics and Corporate Social Responsibility: Why giants fall. PraegerPublisher. United States of America. Pp. 100.

BENEFITS OF THE CORPORATE FORM? COULD AN ALTERNATIVE MODEL OFFER THESE AS WELL

Multinational plays a significant role for society, thanks to cross-boarding assessment and globalization is well known that they had acquired a status where not only influenced economic development, but political, military and social decisions.

Corporate form in the present represents some advantages for those that want to create one. For example, establishing an enterprise is not as hard in now as it was 60 years ago legally speaking and by being constituted as an officially authorized person, it is the one that holds directly responsibility for the shareholders and creditors. Even if they have presidents and CEO´s, accountability is distributed through its entire system.

 Nowadays Business could be compared as a coin, they have two faces, in one its represented the positives thing they provide to society, how they make easily our daily lives base on the products they marketing all over the world, the number of employment they could create and the economic development they endow with; and in the other face is how they manage resources whether if they are natural or human, what are their standards in labor, respect for nature and human rights, and until which point they consider production and earnings more important than providing a sustainable practice.  Saying that changing the corporation structure it’s not an easy task, because in a globalized and mostly capitalist world there are plain of interest and power in between, Even if there are rules that try to control procedures and environment had become a major issue, I think they should be more rigorous in order to controlling effectively, besides I think that is really important to focus on creating codes or programs that encourage values seeking for more ethical practices from employees among the structure of the organization, corporate culture should include ideals that reminds the importance to respect living beings, not matter if they are cows, person, rats, etc. humaneness should be forget. I also think that demands from united people and ONG pressuring for changes in practices are an important form of power, in order to be listening and generate adjustments in enterprises as it was the 

case of Lipton tea plantations in africa, china and other places.

Image source: http://inchincloser.com/2010/09/07/multinationals-implement-chinese-success-stories-in-india/

http://asianfoodworker.net/?p=719

IS ECONOMIC RETRIBUTION ENOUGH TO MOTIVATE EMPLOYEES?

As is defined by (Adair, 2006): “a person, man or woman, is motivated when he or she want to do something. The reason does not represent the same thing as the stimulus. While a person could be enthusiastic about a stimulus, her main reason for achieving something could be the fear of failure, the desire to distinguish herself from the others, the wish of acquiring knowledge, etc. The motivation of a person covers all the reasons for which he chooses to act in a certain manner”. This definition permits to point that managers who think that economic retribution is enough to motivate employees, keep short. As complex human beings, personal within companies have different reasons to perform in certain ways. That’s why creating different strategies and ambiences that maintain work force and enthusiastic activities among employees is important to sustain company’s development. Some alternatives besides economic retribution are for example:

• An appropriate work space and atmosphere based on mutual respect among all stages of the internal structure
• Listening suggestions from employees. That make them feel appreciated and as a contributive part for companies progress   
• “Rewards such as perks(time, holidays) or promotion” [1]
• “Recognitions such as symbols, peer recognition or self-realization and esteem”[2]

Creating goals could motivate also the different work groups in order to achieve them

Providing autonomy and giving responsibilities could encourage people to create new strategies and processes along the company.

Having an appropriate common culture in accordance to the company performance

 

The last ones are an important part in J&J company, HP and ABB Thusman (1996): J&J  has over 165 separate operating companies  that scramble relentlessly for new products and markets. ABB relies on over 5000 profit centers with average of 50 people in each, these centers operates like small businesses. HP has over 50 separate divisions and a policy of splitting division whenever a unit gets larger that thousand or so people. The logic in these organizations is to keep units small and autonomous so that employees feel a sense of ownership and are responsible for their own results.

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[1] Innovation management course, Benoit Gaily,Louvain la neuve

[2] Innovation management course, Benoit Gaily,Louvain la neuve

Michael Thusman (1996), Ambidextrous Organization: Managing Evolutionary and revolutionary change; California Management Review, Vol 38 No.4

Image source: http://www.chisautube.com/blog/overcoming-a-lack-of-motivation/

http://www.strategic-services-aust.com/tips-to-improve-your-employee-daily-motivation-skills.html

IMPORTANCE TO UNDERSTAND DIFFERENT TYPES OF PERSONALITIES

According to(American Psychological Association, 2011)Personality is a relatively stable set of characteristics that influence an individual´s behavior .this one as the inherent of a person has been studied by several psychologist, that had overcome with some of the characteristics and theories  useful to appreciative it better.

Understanding differences in personality helps to know what people’s aptitudes, points of views, procedures and behaves are.  As is well known within organizations are a common culture that as explained by Thusman (1996): even if each person represents a unique personality, the culture acts as glue among the entire structure that holds it together. Therefore personality plays an important role when choosing staff, psychological, skills and personality tests could allows to create a map of what person could fit easily with the values of each company, or the role that it can plays; or could be implemented as a tool by the time of conforming team work groups in order to structure one, that integrate employees playing different functions.

As in a society, pluralism or multiculturalism could be found in multinationals;  it’s important to understand that the presence of different  personalities could have a positive approach and be seen as an opportunity for businesses because discrepancies among people creates multiples points of views and perspectives that permit several solutions   leading to create value. Working with people that have different personality or background also reinforce values as tolerance, and generate more open mind managers and employees willing to learn from others.

Images Sources: Andres velez, power point presentation, gestion intercultural 

Is possible to change corporate culture?

 Creating a coherent corporative culture that helps to form value, improving processes, or facilitates strategies in a time when is necessary is basic within a company because it creates a common sense, common value and cohesion among employees.



As is seen among history culture could be a great influence in an enterprise succeeded or failure; there are several multinationals that had implemented a change in their corporate culture in order to succeed in times of crisis, one of those examples is British Airways ; in the 70 the airline  had a bad reputation among costumers and was perceived as an unlikable company to flight, they used their initial BA as “bloody awful”  even their employees were embarrassed to work there, one of them said Thusman(1996): “ I remember going to parties, and if you wanted to have civilized conversation you didn’t actually said that you work for British airways, because it got you talking about peoples last travel  experienced, that was usually an unpleasant one”. After making a research the top manager Lord King and Sir Collin Marshall saw the necessity of a change in the structure of the airline and introduced a new corporate culture know as managing people first (MPF). Through numerous training conferences they made understood and reinforce the importance among their employees of recognizing that BA performs its activities in the service sector rather that in transportation sector. This modification in customer service satisfaction change radically the perception about the company and it became its competitive advantage.  Changing culture within a company is not an easy task, sometimes employees are use to do things in certain way, and when a change is necessary for example in a process or a dress–code, they refuse and make difficult to do it. In order to introduce a new concept managers need to be able to handle the situation, shows its positive aspects and create the appropriate ambiance, they should implement strategies such as investments on training the personal or team work challenges that reinforce culture among them, as the managers of BA made Thusman(1996): the emphasis on the culture change effort at BA was on installing the new culture establishing an evaluation scheme that measure not only what managers did but how they did it, and a compensation program with bonuses up to 20 percent based on how managers behave. T Therefore as in the case of this company culture play an essential role, because as its explain by Thusman(1996): a strong, widely shared corporate culture promotes integration across the company and encourages identification and sharing of information and resources, sometimes that would never occur without shared values.



References:

Michael Thusman (1996), Ambidextrous Organization: Managing Evolutionary and revolutionary change; California Management Review, Vol 38 No.4

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