CORPORATION MOVIE

This documentary was produced in Canada in 2003 by Joel Bakan. It criticizes modern corporations, considering them humans and evaluating them as psychiatrists evaluate persons.

150 years ago, institutions like church and monarchy were the dominant ones, and corporations were delegated, loosing importance.

nowadays corporations are the dominant institutions in this globalized and interconnected world because of their extraordinary power and influence on our lives.

Modern corporations are like families because members tend to work together to pursue a common goal, which generally is winning large returns, that go to the owners of the enterprise. That is why corporations are oftenly seen as "monsters" trying and struggling to swallow as much as the can.

Corporations as we know them today were born in 1712 and were usually coal companies that worried about productivity (more coal per worker) because that meant more revenues.

The system and objectives remain the same: trying to increase productivity but with more sophisticated products like finished goods.

Corporations are regular members of the society because they can borrow money, sue, be sued, buy and sell and that is why they operate legally as an individual person, instead of working as a group of individuals.

Finally, After having that said, one would wonder what type of person a corporation is. The answer can be found throughout the documentary, on my opinion a corporation is a person who has not moral conscience.

MIGRATION, EXPATS AND OVERSEAS EXPERIENCES

WHAT DOES IOM DOES TO IMPROVE CONDITIONS OF WOMEN MIGRANT WORKERS?

Nowadays almost half of the migrants in the world are women and now they migrate to pursue opportunities on their own.

The international organzation of migration does the following things to improve the conditions of women migrant workers:

-Provides victims of violence with the full range of immediate assistance and protection.

-Establishes reintegration and rehabilitation schems for returning women migrant workers.

-Has trainning programmes for law enforcers, immigration officers and border officials, prosecutors an service providers.

IOM actively contributes to protecting women migrant workers from violence by implementing ideas in some areas like: promotion of legal and safe migration for women, promotion of policies that regulate the recruitment and deployment of women migant workers, research on women and interational labour migration, promotion of gender-sensitive international migration policies, fostering inter state dialogue etc.

The International Organization of Migrants also does the following things to diminish the impact of migration on women migrant workers:

1. Fostering sustainable alternatives to migration in countries of origin: the elemens implemented are improving social services, expanding economic opportunity and investing on community infraestructure in specific geographic areas.

2. Promoting legal channels of migration, inter alia, in order to deter illegal migration: one of the main objectives is to promote and facilitate legal avenues of labour migration as an alternative to irregular migration.

3. Improving women's access to meaningful and gender-sensitive migration information and education: IOM works close with countries of origin and destination to prevent misinformation through awareness-raising activities and provision of information.

Additionally, the IOM focuses on some pilars like:

-Protecting women migrant worker's Human rights.

-Protecting women migrant workers from sexual and gender-based violence, domestic violence, abusive labour practices and discriination.

-Addressing women migrant workers' disproportionate labour market discrimination.

-Addressing genderes forms of racism and xenophobia agaisnt wome migrant workers.

-Promoting the physical and mental health and well being of women migrant workers.

-Women migrant worker's empowerment and reduction of their vulnerability to abuse.

-Protecting the human rights of migrant girls, including unacompanie girls.

BIBLIOGRAPHY:

ANONYMOUS. Working to prevent and address violence against women migrant workers. (Electronic document). http://www.acnur.org

MERGING AND ACQUISITION

A merge is the fusion of two or more enterprises, in which one survives and the other looses its identity, in other words it is an absorption.

Lately, Indian companies have experienced a lot of merges with its companies. One example of that is the merge of Air India limited, national aviation company of India and Indian Airlines. The amalgamation of the previous three companies was approved by the board directors of all the three companies in New Delhi. But the process started in the 1990's.

It was decided that post merger the new entity's name was going to be "Air India". Maharaja will be retained as the mascot, while the logo will be modified to a red colorful flying swan.

The new airline operates both in the domestic and international sectors.

The process was only initiated in 2006 and the plan for the merger was finally approved by the Union Cabinet in 2007. Under the terms of the merger all the properties, undertakings and libilities of Air India and Indian Airlines were to be transfered to National aviation company.

This merger was expected to create one of the biggest ailines in terms of fleet size, which placed the company between the top 10 airlines in Asia, the top 30 in the world and India's first airline with over 100 aircrafts.

The motives for the merger were:

1. India was the fastest growing aviation market in the world.

2. The number of people traveling by air had been increasing in the country.

3. The main reason was the low cost of airlines in the country, which mae air travel possible for India's large middle class.

Since then the entry of new airlines icreased, but it cannt be forgotten that Air India, Indian Airlines and National aviation company's merger created India's first airline.

BIBLIOGRAPHY:

ANONYMOUS. The proposed Air India-Indian Airlines merger. (Electronic document). http://www.icmrindia.org/business%20Updates/micro%20casestudies/Business%20strategy/MCBs0018.htm

Image taken from: http://www.1vuelos.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/07/air-india-logo.gif

UBUNTU'S PHILOSOPHY

HOW DOES CROSS-CULTURAL MANAGERS CAN BE AWARE OF UBUNTU'S PHILOSOPHY AND USE IT FOR THE BENEFIT OF THE ORGANZATION AND ITS EMPLOYEES?

Ubuntu's philosophy is summarized in his famous phrase: "I am what i am because of who we all are". Throughout his philosophy it is evident tht this cultural philosopher focuses on people's allegiances and relations with each other.

Cross-cultural managers can use this philosophy promoting team work in order to create a much more united group work with the objective to increase competitiveness, quality and to waste less time, because "a single staw of a broom can be broken easily, but the staws together are not easily broken".

Good and efficient team work can be achieved creating bonds between employees, providing environments for them to relate outside work, giving monetary incentives, creaing continuity in their work tasks, etc.

The organization can benefit lot using Ubuntu's philosophy because as team work improves, the time used in every task diminishes, which represents lower costs for the organization.

Finally, on my opinion a good cross-cultural manager should be able to implement Ubuntu's philosophy and promote a healthy and effective team work for the benefit of the organization.

A FLAVOR FROM HEAVEN BROUGHT TO YOUR MOUTH

The task consisted on thinking a metaphor for a Colombian country that is going to be internationalized in foreign market.

The metaphor wants to describe the taste of the product as unique and it also wants to emphasize that when you eat it, the flavor creates an unknown feeling into your mouth that makes you feel beyond ecstatic.

The product is a candy made with a mixture of unique Colombian flavors such as arequipe, guava paste and a dash of tartaric acid.

This "piece of heaven" should be sold on charcuteries and specialized stores in order to maintain the exclusiveness of the product.

The target market are demanding consumers that care about quality and belong to the upper middle class or to the high class because it is not going to be like any candy.

The quality is reflected on the price and since it is hand made, the expenses raise a little bit more.

People with taste, who love and enjoy good things in life will also love these candies!!

Image taken from: http://www.countryliving.com/cooking/about-food/food-gifts/homemade-sugared-jelly-candies

COMMENTS ON BLOGS

The task was to comment in 5 blogs, i commented on the following:

Juliana Martinez Betancur
http://oyceafit.blogspot.com/

Manuela Castillo
www.manuela-castillo.blogspot.com/

Natalia Toro Maya
http://natyrorom.blogspot.com/

Juan Fernando Ramirez
http://juanramirez00.blogspot.com/

Carlos Roldan
http://croldanv.blogspot.com/

THE PYGMALION EFFECT

Basically the pygmalion effect affirms that a team does well as the leader and the team think they can. it is also known as the "self fulfilling prophecy".
It refers to the phenomenon in which the greater expectation placed upon people, the better they perform. These theory has been proven, there is enough experimental data to suggest that the self-fulfilling prophecy is true.
The implication of the pygmalion effect for leaders is massive, it means that the performance of your team depends less on them than it does on you.
In my opinion, the pygmalion effect is applied to Leonisa. On that enterprise it can be seen that leaders or managers are responsible for the results, they dont have to show the whole process and they try to put really optimistic goals on workers, making them believe they can do it.
that method has worked in that enterprise for several years and as long as leaders keep on putting great expectations upon workers and motivation them it will continue to work.

BIBLIOGRAPHY:

(2005). The pygmalion effect. Canadian manager, 30(2), 20. Retrieved from MasterFILE premier database.

Oechsil, M. (1994). Pygmalion revisited. (cover story). Managers Magazine, 69(3), 16. Retrieved from business source complete database.

IMAGE: http://procecomerciales.blogspot.com/2010/04/leonisa.html

QUESTION

The second task was to answer the following question:

DESCRIBE THE MAIN ROLE THAT INTERNATIONAL BUSINESS MANAGERS PLAY IN THE NEGOTIATION ARENA AND THE IMPORTANCE OF DEVELOPING CROSS CULTURAL MANAGEMENT SKILLS:


The role of international business managers or IB managers is to organize, plan, delegate and control projects for organizations with international connections.

Since they are responsible for all the organization's projects, they also have to deal with the negotiation prior to the accomplishment of them. IB managers are in charge of meeting the other party, negotiating their interests and finally reaching an agreement that works for both parties but also accomplishes the organization's goal.

So as stated before, international business managers are the ones who represent the organization and its interests, and therefore they are the ones who deal with cultural issues.

As said in the article "The role of Affect in cross-cultural negotiations", there are three cultural factors that affect negotiations, which are: individual differences, cross-cultural differences and contextual factors. That includes cultural aspects.

Additionally i have to add that IB managers are the ones who have face-to-face or any other type of communication with the other party, so they have to be aware of cultural differences and they also have to take them into consideration when the negotiation process takes place in order to conduct ir successfully.

Since negotiations are often cross-cultural, International Business managers can influence it a lot with their character, values, personality, etc. so they have to develop cross cultural management skills in order to know how to deal with some cultural issues that are essential for the other party. Good IB proffesionals know how to use their managerial skills in their favor to create a good relation with the other and they also know how to deal with cross cultural issues to create a good relation.

In conclusion, International business managers should care a lot more on developing cultural management skills because in a globalized world like the one we live in, cross cultural negotiations are too common and cultural issues can influence the course of the whole negotiations and its outcomes.

BIBLIOGRAPHY:

George, J., Jones, G. and Gonzalez, J. (1998). The Role of Affect in cross-cultural Negotiations. Journal of International Business studies, 29(4), 749-772. Retrieved from Business source complete database.

Image: http://www.amajapan.co.jp/e/the-21st-century-global-leader.html

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