Religion and international business

Religion influences what people eat and the medicine they use this is why religion is so important when doing business. Religion is also blamed of not letting countries have an economic change where they can grow and stop being poor nations. lastly religion influences how two parties perceived each other when negotiating this is why is very important to know the other person culture and religion before negotiating to obtain good outcomes.

1.       How can we create an ethical relationship between religion and business so that they may cooperate towards a more sustainable and respectful development of life?

The way to create an ethical relationship is by developing a code of ethics where it shows how each should cooperate to help the growth of countries and improve the living standards of humans. The leaders of both religions and businesses should recognize what they have to lend one another to strive for a better world. It is also necessary to change the way people learn and teach business so it doesn’t interfere as much with religion and we would see that business and religion have many things in common.

2.      Can you imagine a world without religion where everyone would be trying to get immediate satisfaction to their individual needs?

I could not imagine a world without religion because what makes us different and interesting are all the types of religions there are in the world and what is important to me might not be as important to a protestant person. But it would be nice that religion itself does not become a business of money making and sometimes forcing people to do things they don’t want to it would be nice to have an equilibrium where religion instead of hurting makes people happy.

3.      Religion can create networks of trust and familiarity that facilitates economic transactions. Can you name other positive aspects of this relationship?

Other advantages are that it can create better understanding of people and knowing how to talk and dress in a negotiation in order to get more chances of obtaining the negotiation. Another advantage apart from trust is finding others needs and wants to see if your business can be successful in a specific country.

4.      Do you think that stereotyping based on religion has been influenced by economical or political interests, why, whose? What is the role of The Media in this issue?

I do think that stereotyping based on religion has been influenced by economic or political interest an example is what we see with Muslims we assume they are all terrorist or bad people because that was bin laden religion, the role of media in this issue is huge since most of people’s perception is given by the media since they publish whatever they want people to read or people to think about other religions.

                               Religion as business, youtube 2009: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6eJe7FR35dA

Virtual Teams

Re-working work for virual teams,2010 retreived on may 6 from: http://www.workingpoint.com/blog/re-working-work-for-virtual-teams/4088

Virtual teams or also known as geographically dispersed teams according to Gould are teams of people that interact through internet and that almost never have face to face meetings. Companies use virtual teams so that they are more flexible and the workers are more efficient since there’s less commuting and travel time. Virtual teams can be divided into 7 types of virtual teams two of them being networked teams and parallel teams. The first is when individuals collaborate to achieve a common goal on the other hand parallel team’s work on a short period of time to develop an improvement in a process or system.  For virtual teams to be successful it’s important that the objectives and goals and written so everybody is on the same page. It is necessary to mention some myths that are very popular and not true:

·   Myth: virtual teams are not effective because everybody its not located in the same place.

·   Reality: virtual teams can exceed the performance of other teams where everybody it’s located in the same place.

·   Myth: co-located teams are preferable

·  Reality:  face to face it’s not the best approach when there are cultural differences electronic communication works better.

·   Myth: things go wrong because of technology.

·  Reality: things are more probable to go wrong because people lack skills and not technology.

Communication

When people communicate they are expressing an idea, there are two ways we can express an idea in a verbal way or a non-verbal way. Verbal communication refers to sounds and noises and non-verbal refers to symbols and signals. But communication is not that easy it faces a lot of barriers like the physical barrier which is related to the distance two people might be facing or the language barrier which refers to the ambiguity that can be created when people speak this is why is so important to be aware, flexible and patient when communicating to receive and give the right message.

                                                                                                          

Communication to change lives,2009 retreived on april 11/2011 from: http://www.wdavidphillips.com/tag/communication

Which ones are the main cultural differences in non-verbal communication?

The main cultural differences faced in non- verbal communication are the body movement, the posture you have an example of this is sitting with your legs cross can be offensive in turkey. The facial expressions even though the majority have the same meaning like crying, laughing, angry and many others too much smiling can be perceived as a sign of shallowness this why it’s important to research the culture your about to have a business with. Other cultural differences in non-verbal communication are the touch and the eye contact for example eye contact in the US means that you are interested but on the other hand in Japan when you avoid eye contact you show respect.

Non-verbal emotional communication and cultural differences, youtube, 2011:http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GMQsfMppz2o

Migrant workers

A migrant can be defined as someone that moves from one region to another due to violence in their home country, economic instability or simply to get a better education and find new opportunities. Migrant workers are abused and under paid this is a fact we live every day this is why the international organization for migration works hard to provide humanitarian assistant to migrant needs

Characterize one country and its main immigrants; describe the types of labor they perform and the living conditions of them?

The United States main immigrants are Hispanic and Chinese people most of them work in construction, cutting the grass, and cleaning. What is sad is that sometimes the person could be a doctor in their home country but they are discriminated and they are not given the chance of another type of work so they have to do this type of job so that their family can eat. Their living conditions are worst than their jobs in most cases they live in small trailers with around another 10 people on the floor even though is hard to believe is true. What people ask is that if they live in such bad conditions why not stay in their home country but the thing is that in the United States they are living much better compared to their home country.

                           Migrant workers in the US. Wherexmo, 2009 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AV1QifYVu14

Organizational Learning

The world nowadays is experiencing rapid changes everyday this is why organizations  have to remain flexible and continually improve to gain competitive advantage  otherwise there will be a great chance that the organization will disappear. To face the challenges an organization must gain new knowledge by encouraging innovation and news ways to compete this is also called organizational learning when an organization is constantly transforming itself. The environment is characterized by changes in the work force competency, high customer expectancy, globalization and many others, this is why is necessary for people to expand their capacities to be able to compete.

Tilburg university, center for innovation research. Retrieved on april 14/2011 from: http://www.tilburguniversity.edu/research/institutes-and-research-groups/cir/research/

How can small and medium enterprise (SMEs) benefit from organizational learning?

The SMEs can benefit from organizational learning in the way that by constantly gaining new knowledge they can be able to survive when there’s turbulence in the environment, they can also become more competitive an example of this is India which thanks to how their SMEs have adopted organizational learning they are now living a global expansion in other words they are offering more diverse services, they have increased competition within china and have gained a new market for tourism this is why so important to have a global vision and to constantly innovate.

 

Leadership

Leadership consist ultimately of aligning people with a direction as well as the organization. According to Ken CKC leadership is the “process of social influence in which one person can enlist the aid and support of others in the accomplishment of a common task”. There are many types of leaders for example there’s the charismatic which uses its personal abilities to have an effect on people and there’s the authentic which uses transformational approaches.

Leadership.2009.retreived on February 28. From: http://www.yopsicologo.com/

How does an organizational leader  should behave in cross cultural environments?

An organizational leader when working in a cross cultural environment should motivate the people he or she is working with, and understand each person’s culture so no mistakes are made. The organizational leader should also identify if the culture is a collectivist or an individualist culture this will give him tips on how to do a good job.

 It is also important that each organizational leader has enough knowledge of the foreign culture and respects it and in this way the leader will know when to act as a charismatic or authentic leader

 

WORKSHOP: Ethical Behavior

Ethical Behavior and International Business Exercise:

1.        What does the statement “all capitalism is crony capitalism” is referring to? Do you agree with this statement or not? Give an example.

The statement is saying that instead of a company being successful due to the free market, the success of a company depends on the state, in other words the favoritism shown by the government by granting their favorite companies grants and permits. I do agree with the statement because I believe the government wants to manage, control  and influence everything, to do so governments rely on companies since they are huge influential components on people’s lives. An example is what happens with the multinationals in Colombia the government grants them all of this permits in exchange for money.

2.       What is a banana republic? Why the author is comparing India with a banana republic?

Banana republic refers to an unstable country that depends on bananas or of the agricultural sector and where corruption is abundant, where the poor people get poorer and the rich people get richer. The author compares the banana republic with India because like the author said “banana republics are based on cronyism” and if India continues this cronyism it will end up being an unstable country where those of lesser power will suffer the most.

3.       Why is it problematic that in the business world “The Media” becomes a corporation?

It is problematic that in the business world media becomes a corporation because it would be the dominant corporation. Because it would have the biggest profits compare to other corporations being the envy of everybody. Also the media would acquire stakes of other corporations having influence almost everywhere also there would be very few companies representing the interest of the citizens. They would also publish whatever they want with stories that are sometime better if they are not heard.

4.       In this situation, what behaviors are considered unethical for corporations, journalist and the state?

Behaviors considered unethical include the corporation deciding what is going to be written and by who. Other types of unethical behaviors done by journalist  is exaggerating over an issue  and in this way damaging the credibility of what is  being written, also the journalist indiscretion when publishing something. Lastly the most important type of unethical behavior shown by the state is corruption like in India by showing favoritism for some corporations.

5.       What can The Media, Corporations and the States do in order to behave ethically and in the benefit of the people and not their own interest. Give at least 5 good ideas.

n  The media can start publishing only things that are true and things they are not forced to do by the state or corporations in other words always transmitting the right information.

n  The state can start showing neutrality towards all organizations and leading companies be successful based on a free market rather than favoritism.

n  The state and corporations should always show responsibility and honesty in their work.

n  Corporations can also behave consistently, not changing what they do without a reason.

n  The state, the media and the corporations can start working for the best interest of others instead of only worrying for their profits.