The rise of multinational corporations - The Corporation

Summary:

One of the biggest changes that modern capitalism showed us was the creation of Corporations. At the beginning it was just a little project and an insignificant idea but then they became into a kind of giants enterprises worried about exporting and having any kind of participation into the market, then corporation was transformed into a “legal person”. According to the law, they are just like us and this was established in order to protect owners’ capital and limit their responsibility. And today in the 20^th century is the dominant institution.

When this was just inaugurated everyone thought that this was a great idea and it would help population by increasing the creation of jobs and the fluctuation of the economy, but step by step they have destroyed nature, human dignity and attacking in many ways the humanity. The main objective of a corporation is to have success and cover their customers’ necessities and wants, but they usually lose control over their scope and cross the line which divided the general well-being and the individual interest.

Some managers don’t have any kind of concern in the causes of their acts and the only thing they really mind is how to growth and internationalized themselves. They are using all kind of methods in order to reach their goals and they don’t think on what could happen tomorrow. They are like a monster who tries to get the biggest benefit taking advantage on the orders without minding if they have to destroy or build other society.

In this new millennium our minds are focused on environmental protection and the development of nature, but corporations have forgotten about this moral responsibility and they just arrive to a place, take what it has and when there is no other resource to “steal” they immediately run to other place to destroy.

Every time they think about increasing productivity they create a method to do it and here is where “Terminator Technology” appears. They develop chemicals and products how increase productivity and according to them “they don’t damage anyone” and a clear example of this is Monsanto Company, they are focused on creating chemicals to make that animals and seeds productions become faster produced and in a big quantity.

We have to create a conscience of helping our world and taking care of our future generation. We can’t just say: “when this world arrives to his end I won’t be here” because our future family is the one who is going to face our mistakes.

Some Concepts

·         Capitalism: It is an economic system which talks about the property privatization and is focused on the profit that you can get. It is related with supply, demand, price, distribution and investment.

·         Psychopath: This concept refers to a person who has a mental and personality disorder.

·         Legal institution: It is a company that in front of the law is seen as a person or individual.

·         Externalities: This is “the cost or benefit incurred by a party who did not agree to the action causing the cost or benefit”.

·         Limited liability: It is the financial ability in which a person limits his financial responsibility and with this he can protect some of his actives.

Question:

As a legal organizational model, how does the rise of corporations influence the aspects of culture in pursuing profit?

As we know corporations are just a kind of group of people working together in order to reach a main goal that most of the times is to make richer its owners. Corporations have had the power of change history and culture and we can see it reflected in how some years ago the main objective of a business man was to create goods and services to cover customer’s their principal necessities and now those goods are created in order to create more necessities, this is the best example of how those giants have changed culture to improve their profit.

We can say that nowadays is a requisite to have a luxurious car and cell phone when you arrive to do business because it gives you status and what the other part “read” is that you have enough money so they can trust on your success and professionalism.

Another example is the parallel between the past’s and the present’s ways of working on the land. When in the fists decades people worked for land and very time they had a harvest they thanked gods for the success of the month; but now land works for population and every time farmers have the chance, they put a chemic to increase the production and modify the process of nature.

Bibliography

1.    Community Development Corporations, Participation, and Accountability: The Harlem Urban Development Corporation and the Bedford-Stuyvesant Restoration Corporation. Kimberley Johnson. Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science. Vol. 594, Race, Politics, and Community Development in U.S. Cities (Jul., 2004), pp. 109-124. Published by: Sage Publications, Inc. in association with the American Academy of Political and Social Science. Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/4127697

2.    Real Options in Multinational Corporations: Organizational Challenges and Risk Implications. Tony W. Tong, Jeffrey J. Reuer. Journal of International Business Studies. Vol. 38, No. 2 (Mar., 2007), pp. 215-230. Published by: Palgrave Macmillan Journals. Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/4540417

3.    Environmental Reporting of Global Corporations: A Content Analysis Based on Website Disclosures. Anita Jose, Shang-Mei Lee. Journal of Business Ethics. Vol. 72, No. 4 (Jun., 2007), pp. 307-321. Published by: Springer. Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/25075385

4.    Images:http://realidad-infinita.blogspot.com/2010_02_01_archive.html and ·         http://prasetijo.wordpress.com/2010/07/27/capitalism-love-story-cerita-lain-michael-moore-tentang-negaranya/

Motivation

Summary:

Motivation is the mental thought that gives effort and a kind of capacity to every person. It is how people feels and act in order to reach a goal and how they do every single thing to become their expectance in a reality of life.

In order to understand the human motivation, there have been created some theories that explain why the motivation exists. The main theories say that the motivation explains the behavior of a person (why a person behaves of some way), also that motivation predicts behavior (how a person will behave with certain motivations) and that influences behavior. 

As human beings each one has two kinds of needs in order to reach his goals and feel good with him, those are Internal needs and External needs. The first one was developed by two thinkers: Max Weber and Sigmund Freud. Max Weber said that the work was necessary to achieve satisfaction; and Sigmund Freud, who said that the motivation was part of the unconscious nature of the humans. The second one says that motivation is developed by his own interest and economy. Thos second way of motivation was developed by Adam Smith, who thought that human was motivated by his economic necessity and Frederick Taylor, he said that people acts in order to move from conflict to cooperation.

Some of the main motivational theories are: 

1.    Maslow’s Need Hierarchy:

2.    Theory X and Y: Theory X explains the lower needs, it means that people dislike working and the only motivation is the economic remuneration and the security and the theory Y explains the higher needs, this is where the people like to work and the only motivation is his own satisfaction and achievement of commitments.

3.    McClelland’s need theory: This theory says that there are three main needs for a worker, the achievement, in which the motivation is the challenge and feedback; the affiliation, in which the motivation is the cooperative and harmonious environment; and the power, in which the main motivation is the chance to manage others.

4.    Expectancy theory: explained by Vroom (1932) in which he said that the motivation is the result of the effort, performance and reward.

We can say that motivation is a kind of motor that moves each person in order to reach their goals and feel alive. A company should be focused on this aspect, we can understand this like the second language of work because if his members are motivated, results would have a better quality.

Motivation is a variable which depends on the culture of every region and the way how the person was educated. Every person has different ways to feel the necessity of development but according to some specialists, external motivations are a kind of dangerous, because they don’t depend of each one and the day that this person doesn’t find a reason to do his job, his life is going to be stuck.

Question:

In multicultural organizational contexts what could be a good strategy to keep people motivated towards a common task?

A good strategy to keep people motivated into a multicultural organization could be to give recognition and remunerations which include their families and make them to feel part of a family. Motivation isn’t only to give them money (cash) but give them a trip with their families or some discount coupons.

I think the real problem nowadays is that companies don’t know how to motivate their members and the economy and capitalism have done they (The workers) just care about have more assets.

We need to change this thought and try to satisfy not only our pocket but our relations with others and the time we spend with family.

Bibliography:

·         Rijal, S. (2010). Leadership style and organizational culture in learning organization: A comparative study.International Journal of Management and Information Systems, 14(5), 119. Retrieved fromhttp://search.proquest.com/docview/818852610?accountid=45662

·         Waack, B. L. (2010). Motivation of second language learners: The influence on culture acquisition. ProQuest Dissertations and Theses, , n/a. Retrieved from http://search.proquest.com/docview/845279288?accountid=45662

·         Ke, W., & Zhang, P. (2010). The effects of extrinsic motivations and satisfaction in open source software development. Journal of the Association for Information Systems, 11(12), 784. Retrieved fromhttp://search.proquest.com/docview/846782844?accountid=45662

·         Culture and CEO Compensation, Henry L. Tosi, Thomas Greckhamer. Organization Science Vol. 15, No. 6 (Nov. - Dec., 2004), pp. 657-670.

·         The Legal Environments of Organizations. Lauren B. Edelman, Mark C. Suchman. Annual Review of Sociology . Vol. 23, (1997), pp. 479-515

·         Effect of Cultural Differences on Motivation of Analysts and Programmers: Singapore vs. the United States. J. Daniel Couger. MIS Quarterly . Vol. 10, No. 2 (Jun., 1986), pp. 189-196

·         Image: http://arellevalla.com/2009/07/30/5-levels-of-a-mans-needs/.html

Personality, perception and attribution + attitudes and values

Summary:

At first we have the “Pygmalion Effect”, which explains how the perceiver’s positive expectation may enhance the target’s performance and who through history, relationships among members of a company have taken many changes, when in past times it was less important human capacity, nowadays it is one of the most important assets a company can have.

We have 3 important concepts that influence in today’s business and relations:

·         Personality: It is the individual’s characteristics that influence the behavior depending on the situations on which the person is involved. It’s determined mainly by heredity (family) and the environment (society). There are some theories about the personality; one is the Trait theory from Gordon Allport which says that there are five main traits: extraversion (sociability vs. reservation), agreeableness (warm vs. antagonistic), conscientiousness (assiduous vs. untrustworthy), emotional stability (tranquil vs. anxious) and openness to experience; the Psychodynamic theory from Sigmund Freud which says that the unconsciousness is the one who determines the behavior of a person; and the Humanistic theory from Carl Rogers, which says that the basic human needs which are the self-actualization and the positive regard are achieved by growth as a response and improvement as a result.

The most influential personality characteristics of the Core Self-Evaluation are:

· Locus of control, which is the ability to manage to the events of a person, whether internally or externally.

· Self-esteem, which is how a person feels about him/herself.

· Self-efficacy, which is the personal conviction about one’s capabilities.

· Self-monitoring, which is how a person behaves when guided.

·         Perception: it is how a person perceives the environment in order to understand the world and the self. The perception is influenced by three main things: the perceiver (with its familiarity, attitudes and mood), the target (perceiving the appearance and the verbal and non verbal communication) and the barriers (such as stereotypes and judgments). The perception has some principles which are: the selective perception (which maintains the perceiver’s point of view), the stereotypes (which are the prejudices), the first-impression error, the projection (how estimated the person is according to ones beliefs), self-fulfilling prophecy and the impression management. The attributions are originated mainly by external (outside the person, the situation) and internal factors (inside the person, the personality).

·         Attitudes are the feelings about certain situations or people and it’s highly related to one’s behavior. The ABC model explains the three main components of the attitudes, such as the affect (the feelings and verbal statements), the behavioral intentions (how the person behaves and the verbal statements about the intentions) and the cognition (attitudes and beliefs). The attitudes are created mainly by two reasons: direct experience and social learning (by family, organizations and groups).

On the other hand need to take into account that a company has other important elements which are: Sources and Capabilities.

·         Sources: They have some characteristics like: Independent, simple, static, easier for being commercialized into the market, easy to identify and the can’t be evolved by themselves.

·         Capabilities: They are collective, complex, dynamic, they are the combination and coordination of different sources, complex to identify and can be evolved by themselves.

However if a company wants to growth it has to create value into its capabilities and sources, and have some characteristics like: inimitability, value, apropiability, durability, insubtitutability and non-transferability.

Question:

To what do you attribute the success of JICA?

I attribute the success of JICA to its good control of members around the world. They have a humanitarian goal and its structure is based people who want to help other people. They are focused on labor hand and the relationship among the members of this group.

Its compromise with society has been one of the most important activities in Colombia because this guarantees the good relations among our country and Japan, and the success of this project is the support of both countries.

JICA is spread around the world and the study on each country and the facility to move from one to another increase its knowledge and the experience to solve problems in other countries who has been crossing by a hard moment.

Bibliography:

·        Steenkamp, J. M., & de Jong, M. G. (2010). A Global Investigation into the Constellation of Consumer Attitudes Toward Global and Local Products. Journal of Marketing, 74(6), 18-40. doi:10.1509/jmkg.74.6.18 – Data Base: EBSCO

·        Alishev, B. S. (2010). Social Attitudes and Values. Journal of Russian & East European Psychology, 48(2), 11-30. doi:10.2753/RPO1061-0405480202 – Data Base: EBSCO

·        Edwards, M. E., Plotnick, R., & Klawitter, M. (2001). Do attitudes and personality characteristics affect socioeconomic outcomes? the case of welfare use by young women. Social Science Quarterly, 82(4), 827. Retrieved fromhttp://search.proquest.com/docview/204357320?accountid=45662

·        Kakhnovets, R. (2011). Relationships among personality, expectations about counseling, and help-seeking attitudes. Journal of Counseling and Development : JCD, 89(1), 11. Retrieved fromhttp://search.proquest.com/docview/839829328?accountid=45662

·        Thomsen, C. J., Lavine, H., & Kounios, J. (1996). Social value and attitude concepts in semantic memory: Relational structure, concept strength, and the fan effect. Social Cognition, 14(3), 191. Retrieved fromhttp://search.proquest.com/docview/848897579?accountid=45662
Image: http://blogs.exitos939.com/holly/category/encuestas/page/2/

Organizational behavior + national and organizational culture

Summary:

Each organization needs to make some decisions and it would be taken by external and internal factors. External factors are those that don’t depend on the group and the internal factors are directly related with the organization like: Sources, labor hand, administration, etc. However those factors are influenced by culture.

But…What is culture?

Culture can be defined as all the values, understandings and goals that we have learned from our oldest generations. Those teachings become, little by little, in common attitudes and codes that guide the behavior of the society and tell to every single member of this how is supposed that he or she must act.

The organizational cultures are all the norms and goals which are common to a group inside an organization, which might vary from one organization to another, depending on some factors as: Culture, Region, Geopolitical influences, etc. We can see how “Organization and cultures are important factors that influence the development of learning organization”[1] and depending on this, every group have a point of view and a way of acting different to another.

In our working environment we can distinguish 4 different types of culture:

·         The Clan Culture: This is defined as a place of work where every person can act like a family, each one support the other and have common goals which makes them to share more than in other situations.

·         The Hierarchy Culture: Here every single member has a position on the company. The power is divided on groups and levels.

·         The Adhocracy Culture: It refers to a dynamic place of work where people feel fry to work and create.

·         The Market Culture: This is a place where the most important goal is to do the best on the shorter time and competitiveness is “the motivation”.

It is important to understand the organizational culture, since it can provide a competitive advantage to know a company behaves, also how to influence the decision making and to gain the respect of the employees of the organization. In this way many studies say that in order to make a decisions managers need to take into account making ethical choices and respect the culture of all of their members, so doing it we can see that the two main functions of the organizational culture are to create an internal integration in order to know how to relate with the members inside the organization, and the external adaptation in order to help the organization to adapt to the environment.

Question:

Why is managing organizational behavior in changing times challenging?

As every single day the customs and cultures are changing, it is very difficult to an enterprise to maintain a constant managing behavior. A company needs to adapt itself to all the changes that this globalized world has with it.

Bibliography:

·         Rijal, S. (2010). Leadership style and organizational culture in learning organization: A comparative study.International Journal of Management and Information Systems, 14(5), 119 – Data Base: ProQuest.

·         Jung, T., Scott, T., Davies, H. O., Bower, P., Whalley, D., McNally, R., & Mannion, R. (2009). Instruments for Exploring Organizational Culture: A Review of the Literature. Public Administration Review, 69(6), 1087-1096. doi:10.1111/j.1540-6210.2009.02066.x – Data Base: EBSCO

·         Nelson, D.L. & Quick, J.C. 2010: Science, Te real world and you. South-Western College Publication, 7^th. Ed. Chapter 1.

·         Mead, Richard. 2004. International Management: Cross-Cultural Dimensions London: Blackwell Publishing. Chapter 1.

·         Elango, B. B., Paul, K., Kundu, S., & Paudel, S. (2010). Organizational Ethics, Individual Ethics, and Ethical Intentions in International Decision-Making. Journal of Business Ethics, 97(4), 543-561. doi:10.1007/s10551-010-0524-z – Data Base: EBSCO 
Images: http://blogs.exitos939.com/holly/category/encuestas/page/2/
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[1] Rijal, S. (2010). Leadership style and organizational culture in learning organization: A comparative study.International Journal of Management and Information Systems, 14(5), 119 – Data Base: ProQuest.