CORPOR@TIONS

QUESTIONS:

1. SHOULD CORPORATIONS BE ENTITLED TO THE SAME LEGAL RIGHTS AS INDIVIDUALS. WHERE SHOULD THE LINE BE DRAWN?

A corporation consists of a group of people working together to achieve a main goal, yet i believe they shouldnt necessarily have the same rights as individuals because a corporation in a way has more power within a society, which is why they should be more controlled and they should have more boundaries.What corporations do or do not do may affect in a bigger manner a society.

2. HOW CAN WE ENSURE CORPORATIONS ARE ACCOUNTABLE FOR THEIR ACTIONS?

I believe that in order to ensure that corporations are accountable for their actions, the people working for the company should be very well chosen and analyzed. Contracts should be well done in order to avoid any misunderstandings and protect the rights of individuals. Sometimes corporations may take advantage of individuals but this can be avoided or well handled if the appropiate management team is on top of all paper work, contracts, finances, etc. and make sure the company is indeed upto date and not violating any terms.

3. SHOULD INDIVIDUALS BEAR ANY RESPONSIBILITY FOR THE ACTIONS OF CORPORATIONS?

Yes, however i believe the degre to which they are responsible depends on the amount of participation the individual has within the corporation. For example, the marketing employee should not be held responsible to the same amount as perhaps the CEO who has a higher responsibility in the corporation. Individuals should be responsible because without individuals there wouldnt be corporations.

4. WHAT ARE THE BENEFITS OF THE CORPORATION FORM? COULD AN ALTERNATIVE MODEL OFFER THESE AS WELL?

The benefits of corporations are that they can act independently therefore there is protection of personal assets, they can get to be a source of competitive advantage, they allow for cultural diversity, it is an easier form to raise capital, and its easier to become global. Even though right now there isnt a model as complete as a corporation, an alternative model could indeed be created to offer these as well, perhaps not an independent model but one that also may be part of corporations. For example, S,A. S.ltda are types of corporationf that also allow to obtain certain of these benefits.

(businesscredit.com)

IOM

INTERNATIONAL ORGANIZATION for MIGRATION

The IOM, or International Organization for Migration was created in 1951 and its main objective is to promote international cooperation regarding migration, its purpose is to help solve and find solutions regarding migration that is ocurring all over the world right now and give assistance to migrants and refugees who need it. It consists of 127 member states.

An important factor to keep in mind is that half of migrants today are now women, and even though before they were simply the regular housewife following her husband, nowadays this concept has changed and the number of women migrating independently for a better life on their own are increasing every day more and more. As a result of this, there are a lot of ways this organization works to protect migrant womens rights.

• - Promotes legal and safe migration for women: IOM provides women with clear and better information regarding migration, and provides safe channels for them in order to avoid illegal migration. It has a weekly training session where women can have direct contact with this information.

• - Promotes policies that regulate the recruitment and deployment of women migrant workers: It helps protect women from false, discriminatory employment contracts.

• -Protection of womens rights: Helps protect women from discrimination and abusive labour practices. OIM also provides direct health assistance to the migrant women. To those women who have already been victims of any type of abuse, the OIM also provides them with shelter, legal and medical counseling.

• Institutions: OIM works to creat projects, mechanisms, and programs to help improve migrant needs.

http://www.gemmaproject.eu/publicdocs/prevent_violence_against_wmw_2009.pdf

<http://www.iom.int/jahia/Jahia/about-iom/lang/es

UBUNTU

"............GOD GAVE AFRICANS TIME AND
THE WESTERN A WATCH..........

A manager needs to have a good understanding of the cultural background of their workers and this is done by having a close relationship with their workers and interacting with them. By interacting and sharing time with the workers, the managers can understand their culture , uderstand why they act the way they do, understand their believes, and avoid misunderstandings or misinterpretations. In the Case of South Africans, it is of great importance to understand this Ubunto believe in order to create harmony in the work place. Managers should reinforce the importance of time ( for Africans time is a blessing, a healing process) , equity, respect towards seniority, communication, kinship, and human interdependece, when working with African Americans. This is important in order to obtain better results in the work field, obtain the respect from workers, enhance efficiency, and even save money( avoid strikes like that mentioned in the reading). A good example of this was the company that decided to use the importance of isangoma in order to obtain the confession of the workers, who before with the use of police refused to speak, however when their spiritual belief was used the confession was easier to obtain. They give more credibility to their spiritual believes.

A manager needs to do the following in order to be aware of such philosophies:

• *Research cultural backgrounds of employees
• Interact with workers
• Have Face to Face reunions with them
• Never make workers feel inferior, doing this will make them close up to you and be less efficient
• Time- Spend time with workers. Is not only important for workers to get to know manager but also for managers to get to know their workers.

COMMENTS

These were the blogs I found interesting and commented as part of the last task:

Juan Camilo Vanegas http://jcvanegasp.blogspot.com/

Valentina Valencia www.vvalenc5.blogspot.com

Juan Camilo Jimenez http://miloscorner.blogspot.com/

Pablo Andress Gonzalez http://fybehaviorist.blogspot.com/

Alejandro Bustamante http://fybehaviorist.blogspot.com/

Metaphor- Caram3l Appl3s

".......WE ARE THE

APPLE OF


COLOMBIA'S


EYES............"

I took the idea of the American caramel apples and decided to put a paisa touch to it and add more ingredients to them such as arequipe, bocadillo, gelatina, and more colombian products that will attract the attention of foreigners and of those Colombians living outside the country. I thought this metaphor was a very unique idea in order to represent the product because as you can see it represents the apple itself and it connects it to Colombia so foregners can relate the product back to us and when we mention its Colombia's eyes its telling foreigners the importance and uniqueness of the product.

In order to promote this product, advertising will be created with the slogan and will be placed in many english markets where the slogan will be clearly understood in order to obtain the best results. The idea is to first promote this product in American market and before we look into other markets, think carefully of how the slogan translates in other cultures in order to avoid any misunderstandings.

http://grammar.about.com/od/mo/g/metaphorterm.htm

Cashier Scolds Customer....(Org. Behavior)

Power Distance

(google images)

Power Distance refers to how much a culture does or does not value hierarchical relationships. Countries with high power distances are those where ranks stand out and class division is greatly encouraged. Countries that clearly reflect this are China, India,Russia, France, among others ( see graph). Germany is also an example of this, as a matter of fact there was a case where a German family lived in the United States for a year and when they returned to Germany they were surprised to see how much the power distance differences among the two countries reflected in a simple scenerio in the supermarket. They were in the supermarket and were scolded by the cashier who told them to hurry up packing the grocieries, something that is not seen in a country such as the United States with a lower power distance.

WHY DID THE CASHIER SCOLD THE CUSTOMER? In socialist Germany, cashiers had great power and could speak whatever way they pleased to the customers since they were the ones who provided the things you needed and had the ¨power", which is why the cashier felt complety normal treating the cashier this way, however this same kind of behaviour is completely unacceptable in countries such as United States or low power distance countries.

This minor example comes to show us that cultural differences play an important role when it comes to business implications because culture affects the way people act, think, and see the world around them and it is important to understand this in order to avoid unpleasant situations in the business field.

http://www.jimcurtiss.com/powerdistance.htm

China´s poor understanding of the Pygmalion effect

China once again is seen in a case where workers are poorly treated, they are treated as slaves rather than human beings. These situations have been seen in important companies such as Hewlett Parckerd, Samsung, Acer, etc. It is sad to see how human beings are treated as animals. The negative expectations from the employer have forced these innocent victims to feel as slaves who in their own words said : " ....we dont work to live, we live to work..we have no life, we simply work....". Its a shame to see what a poor understanding of the pygmalion effect the chinese have, who think that through force, poor salaries, and threats they can obtain a positive attitude and work from these workers not realizing that it is something not only ilegal but also an effect that will later on destroy their own company once they realize how the targets performance starts diminishing and collapsing due to the poor treatment and strict expectations. ( On the picture we see the workers who during fifteen hours of work fall asleep in their working tables)http://www.telecinco.es/informativos/tecnologia/noticia/100018836/Trabajadores+chinos+contratados+por+Microsoft+caen+dormidos+de+agotamiento+sobre+sus+mesas