RELIGION

To begin this topic I would like to focus on Christianity basically and there is an important thought that an already deceased American comedian called George Carlin once said...

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“Religion has actually convinced people that there´s an invisible man living in the sky who watches everything you do, every minute of every day. And the invisible man has a special list of ten things he does not want you to do. And if you do any of these ten things, he has a special place, full of fire and smoke and burning and torture and anguish, where he will send you to live and suffer and burn and choke and scream and cry forever and ever ´til the end of time !.

But He loves you...

He loves you, and He needs money !. He always needs money !. He´s all-powerful, all-perfect, all-knowing, and all-wise, somehow just can´t handle money !. Religion takes in billions of dollars, they pay no taxes, and they always need a little more.”1

1 Available at http://www.rense.com/general69/obj.htm

However, not to discredit completely the fact that Religion interests Millions of people as the carrier of their faith. Let´s answer the question proposed in class.

1. How certain religion shapes the way the economy works ?. Economic rationality ?.

It is important to remark that in medieval times the act of lending money and charging interest from it was banned by the Vatican and the idea was to be as poor as possible to enter heaven according to the Gospels. Nevertheless, the Vatican accumulated as much richness as possible. It was only until the Protestant logic change the way of seen things and gave work an accumulation of wealth a go for everybody in common.

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2. Religion as a business. Whose interest do you think they serve and why ?.

I don´t believe in the Church, what I believe is that the Church shouldn´t be so opulent when there are people dying out of starvation outside them. Religion doesn´t pay taxes, at least in the USA and they serve the interest of Vatican church to enslave the minds of Billions with the fear of original sin and punishment.

To answer the following question: “Can you imagine a world without religion where everyone would be trying to get immediate satisfaction to their individual needs ?”.

This is not necessarily true. Although Religion is capable of making people refrain from satisfying their immediate individual needs; they do it out of fear and anguish. If Religion didn´t exist I believe people would have to learn how to control themselves without that fear, but I am sure that happiness would be closer for there would be no wars among religions and no fanatisms that cloud the wisdom of people and kill others just in the name of a superior being.

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COMMUNICATION

Communication could be defined as a “two-way process of reaching mutual understanding, in which participants not only exchange (encode-decode) information but also create and share meaning.”1

1 Available at http://www.businessdictionary.com/definition/communication.html

To respond to the Question proposed in class: “Which ones are the main Cultural Differences in Non-verbal Communication ?.

One must first define what verbal and non verbal communication is.

Verbal communication is “one way for people to communicate face-to-face.  Some of the key components of verbal communication are sound, words, speaking, and language”.2

2 Available at http://cobweb2.louisville.edu/faculty/regbruce/bruce//mgmtwebs/commun_f98/verbal.htm

On the other hand Non-verbal communication is “any kind of communication not involving words. When the term is used, most people think of facial expressions and gestures, but while these are important elements of nonverbal communication, they are not the only ones. Nonverbal communication can include vocal sounds that are not words such as grunts, sighs, and whimpers. Even when actual words are being used, there are nonverbal sound elements such as voice tone, pacing of speech and so forth”.3

3 Available at http://www.typesofcommunication.org/communication/nonverbal-communication/nonverbal-communication/

Therefore, “Non-verbal communication or body language is an important part of how people communicate and there are differences from culture to culture. Hand and arm gestures, touch, and eye contact (or its lack) are a few of the aspects of non-verbal communication that may vary significantly depending upon cultural background.”4

4 Available at Cultural Differences in Nonverbal Communication, Vermont Department of Health, http://healthvermont.gov/family/toolkit/tools%5CF-6%20Cultural%20Differences%20in%20Nonverbal%20Communic.pdf

As an example of the former, bowing in Japanese culture is an important way of Non-verbal communication that makes a big difference to the way westerners salute each other. There are huge differences, even within Europe only; in the way Italians touch their chin to be rude to others, English give the two fingers and the rest just flick the bird with the hand at each other.

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We also have, Communication distinctions which comprise:

- Formal: Official and proper information.

- Informal: Unofficial information exchange.

- Vertical: From superiors to subordinates in Organisations.

- Horizontal: which work among peers.

- Personal: In a situation of mutual influence.

- Impersonal: when not much mutual influence is required.

Communication is an important process for humans and animals to get information across. “Communication is easily overlooked, but the ability to communicate effectively is necessary to carry out the thoughts and visions of an organization to the people. The importance of speech and words whether through a paper or a voice is a communication medium to convey directions and provide synchronization. Without communication, there is no way to express thoughts, ideas and feelings”.5

5 Available at http://marketingdeviant.com/the-importance-of-communication/

Communication could fail if some barriers are present, such as:

- Physical barriers: Such as noise or even misdistribution of space.

- Language: It is not only a different language spoken, but the process of receiving the message itself.

- Emotions: Such as fear or hostility could make unclear the message.

- Lack of Subject knowledge: If the other person doesn´t really know what the first one is talking about, it is impossible to get the work done.

- Stress: It could lead to communication distortion.

All of these above are considered filters to an effective communication and should be dealt properly by listening carefully and improving the work sound environment.

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Finally, one must recognise that within the organisation, communication is essential to achieve the goals of every day tasking.

EXPATRIATES

Any person who undergoes a process of living abroad, immersed in a different culture than his own one, is by definition, an Expatriate. The main difference between the term Expatriate and the term Migrant is, basically, the fact that Migrant seek to stay for good in the other country meanwhile Expatriate just stay for some time in the other country carrying some kind of task or purpose. Therefore this process is temporary, even if it takes long.

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It is not just a Fancy word. It is a way to describe the experience of living abroad and trying to adapt to the foreign culture which brings a lot of effort to be done.

In order to answer Question number 4 of the Discussion proposal: “Characterize one country and its main immigrants; describe the types of labour they perform and the living conditions of them”.

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One could argue the case of the USA, where Mexican and Central American immigration is massive and basically everyday everybody from these countries depart on an uncertain journey in which reaching and crossing the border is a huge task. Once they reached the USA, especially all of those US States bordering Mexico, majorly agricultural jobs await them in hard conditions of labour. No Social security and also the fear of being deported everyday runs through their environment.

But this goes mostly for these communities in particular. However, on the other hand, Expatriates, especially the ones send by their employees abroad to foreign subsidiaries in which they must adapt to the existing conditions of well remunerated labour, must also undergo a process of adaptation which is difficult and in many cases traumatic.

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Salaries must compensate the Purchasing power parity of the countries and the company must not only send their most experienced workers in the field to avoid Cultural shock, but also support and pay for the adaptation of their families abroad.

Expensive International schools and special activities to lessen the impact of foreign culture in family members are in order, when kids and wives must find a way to adapt and not damage the whole expatriation process for the worker.

There are several advantages in expatriation for companies, such as getting a broader global perspective and getting closer control. However, the disadvantages could be the high costs and the adaptability process.

“In 2010, more than 200 million people will be living abroad. While the number of worldwide expatriates increases, it is hard to quantify the exact size of the worldwide expatriate market.”1

1 Available at http://www.justlanded.com/english/Common/Footer/Expatriates/How-many-expats-are-there

http://www.justlanded.com/english/Common/Footer/Expatriates/How-many-expats-are-there

Finally, one must say that due to Globalisation, the world is seeing more and more Expatriates for there is a huge market in need of these skilled workers.

Outsourcing, among others, for example, demands the use of expatriates to coordinate and organise the process of internationalisation of the product.

Students, most of them of languages, form part of the Expatriate group, their decision to take time off and go abroad to learn another language and culture is enriching and valuable.

MERGING ORGANISATIONAL CULTURES

If one wants to have a strong Forced-growth corporate strategy that implies basically going for your competitor to achieve a:

- Merge: “Classified as a reorganization, in which one corporation absorbs the corporate structure of another, resulting in liquidation of the acquired enterprise. After this, only one company retains its identity.”1

1 Available at http://www.allbusiness.com/glossaries/merger/4944560-1.html

- Acquisition: It is when “one company takes over controlling interest in another company. “2

2 Available at http://www.telecomitalia.com/tit/en/corporate/investors/glossary.html

- Takeover: “Form of acquisition usually followed by a merger. It can be hostile or friendly. The public tender offer is a means of acquiring a target firm against the wishes of management.”3

3 Available at http://www.allbusiness.com/glossaries/takeover/4942168-1.html

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Now, resulting from the interaction of these merging, acquisition and takeover processes, the merging organisational cultures sees itself affected by all of these changes and tends to change, adapt or move to a better functionalism.

International Business professionals can play an active role in these processes, analysing and looking for strategies to minimise their impact on the Organisational culture. This has to do a lot with Change, and basically changing can attract reluctance if the changes are negative and acceptance if they are positive and good for the organization and its inner environment.

In the Case paper of “Challenges and opportunities in Mergers and Acquisitions: three international case studies- Deutsche Bank-Bankers trust; British Petroleum-Amoco; Ford-Volvo” by Salama, Holland and Vinten, basically they talk about the lessons learned after these processes and point at a very important fact which is the Acculturation process.

The Acculturation process is basically “a process in which members of one cultural group adopt the beliefs and behaviours of another group. Although Acculturation is usually in the direction of a minority group adopting habits and language patterns of the dominant group, acculturation can be reciprocal - that is, the dominant group also adopts patterns typical of the minority group. Assimilation of one cultural group into another may be evidenced by changes in language preference, adoption of common attitudes and values, members hip in common social groups and institutions, and loss of separate political or ethnic identification.”4

4 Available at http://www.rice.edu/projects/HispanicHealth/Acculturation.html

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This goes not only for the corporate world, Acculturation is term derived from social studies and it also states that “there are several dimensions of Acculturation which include use of language, country of origin, length of residence, and contact with country of origin, parental expectations, and food preferences.”5

5 Available at http://geriatrics.stanford.edu/ethnomed/latino/fund/acculturation.html

Finally, it is the ones who actively enforce integrative responses to the process of merging and acquisition, which will make good and strong new corporate solutions for nowadays business.

People can react well to this if proper research and methodological approach is done to the merging process, this will reduce the impact of change in the Organisational culture.

CONFLICT

As same as physics in which two pieces of matter cannot occupy the same space at the same time, two divergent or even different interests cannot occupy the same decision and therefore conflict arises.

In the Organisational level, these interests could also be needs and values that come to a state of discord. In class we saw a definition that could be valuable to understand conflict.

When one encounters “any situation in which incompatible goals, attitudes, emotions or behaviours lead to disagreement or opposition for two or more parties”1; then one comes to see conflict.

[1] Available at http://ir.polytechnic.edu.na/bitstream/10628/200/1/Wambui.%20Conflict%20management.pdf

The biggest conflict ever seen by mankind, apart from the war of the sexes, of course, is the Israeli-Palestinian conflict in which two groups of people see as holy a land which they are reluctant to share. This goes so deep that nobody has been able to bring about a solution which will grant effective and satisfactory decision making and solution to the conflict. This is due the fact of being a win-lose situation anyway.

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Conflict could be divided into:

- Functional: when it is a constructive disagreement, which could bring a better solution.

- Dysfunctional: when it is a destructive disagreement, which aggravates everything.

There are also 5 forms of Conflict, which deal with the individual and the group:

1. Inter-Organisational: Two or more organisations could argue about mergers and acquisition or takeovers. Inter means from one to another.

2. Inter-Group: There could be a raise a conflict of interests when they are not dealt properly between teams or groups.

3. Intra-Group: It happens when within the group itself a conflict is formed.

4. Inter-personal: Between two or more people.

5. Intra-personal: Within the individual himself.

Luckily not all is lost, for that there is the field of Conflict resolution, which is a variety of ways of managing conflict before resorting to attacking which include several forms, such as:

- Negotiation: “is a problem-solving process in which two or more people voluntarily discuss their differences and attempt to reach a joint decision on their common concerns. Negotiation requires participants to identify issues about which they differ, educate each other about their needs and interests, generate possible settlement options and bargain over the terms of the final agreement. Successful negotiations generally result in some kind of exchange or promise being made by the negotiators to each other.”2

2 Available at http://www.au.af.mil/au/awc/awcgate/army/usace/negotiation.htm

- Mediation: “is an informal and confidential way for people to resolve disputes with the help of a neutral mediator who is trained to help people discuss their differences. The mediator does not decide who is right or wrong or issue a decision. Instead, the mediator helps the parties work out their own solutions to problems.”3

3 Available at http://www.eeoc.gov/employees/mediation.cfm

- Arbitration: “Arbitration is a dispute resolution process in which the disputing parties present their case to a third party intermediary (or a panel of arbitrators) who examine all the evidence and then make a decision for the parties. This decision is usually binding. Like court-based adjudication, arbitration is adversarial. The presentations are made to prove one side right, the other wrong. Thus the parties assume they are working against each other, not cooperatively. Arbitration is generally not as formal as court adjudication, however, and the rules can be altered to some extent to meet the parties’ needs.”4

4 Available at http://www.colorado.edu/conflict/peace/treatment/arbitrat.htm

Finally, one must remember that men by nature are territorial and would fight among each other if resources are scarce, therefore one should implement a proper way of Conflict resolution to achieve a better status-quo for everybody.

Convergence

Ever since Marco Polo travelled the Silk road Globalization has been present, Globalization, by definition, “is a process of interaction and integration among the people, companies, and governments of different nations, a process driven by international trade and investment and aided by information technology. This process has effects on the environment, on culture, on political systems, on economic development and prosperity, and on human physical well-being in societies around the world.” 1

1. Available at http://www.globalization101.org/What_is_Globalization.html

Globalization brings the tendency of Convergence in which it states that the more a country develops, the more it will tend to be similar or converge to a Managerial model that can be found in the developed nations, especially in the west, and as a role model the USA. Nevertheless, nowadays with the rise of China´s powerful economy, things are not clear in whether management styles will converge to the the East or to the West.

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But culture itself brings enough differences that it will be a change-resistant force that will make new Managerial styles emerge and be unique in its kind.

Dominant economic powers bring dominant cultural models by region and in the world, for example in the case of Asia; Japan plays an important model for fashion, China for business ethics and culture. In the West we have the dominant power of the USA, which transcends the hemisphere and goes global, almost telling that it will become the universal role model of the world. So we talk about the term “Americanization”, which says that everything will end up being as in the USA.

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But once again culture is strongly rooted in each individual´s mind and will make Resistance or at least divergence to the trend or global tendency. Therefore Divergence is a strong fact.

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But anything has its pros and cons and Convergence and Divergence is no exception.

One positive thing about Convergence is that Standardised methods of quality will be implemented also in developing nations. One negative thing is that Converge sometimes is blind when respecting local cultural customs and just for the sake of profit it could run over some established human patterns.

One positive thing about divergence is that it makes the cultural identity more respectful in front of business. One negative thing is that could impose a blocking pattern to the development of a country.

One example of Organisation or business structures lie Chaebols in Korea or Keiretzus in Japan in Colombia could be the GEA (Grupo Empresarial Antioqueño) which manages its activities from a conglomerate perspective and is the owner of the same leverage instrument that it needs, such as Banks and Insurance businesses.

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Leadership and management styles

There are two ways of approaching the Organisation´s boss level. Leadership differs from Management in several ways. Meanwhile Management only plans, organises and controls, it seeks to maintain the Status quo based on stability. On the other hand, Leadership looks for innovation in approaching the challenges an Organisation faces by motivating people.

Author Alan Keith, says that “Leadership is ultimately about creating a way for people to contribute to making something extraordinary happen.” 1

1. Available at http://www.moneymatters101.com/books/launch.asp

So we could go with the following sentence from the same source... “Leadership is the influence of others in a productive, vision-driven direction and is done through the example, conviction, and character of the leader.” 2

2. Available at http://www.moneymatters101.com/books/launch.asp

Now we must ask ourselves, what a Leader is and how he can work with this framework. The answer jumps quickly and stipulates that a leader should be an inspirer or the people around him, also being well spoken and well prepared; they not only manage the personnel but also encourage and lead them into finding better solutions for the labour environment and the process problems of an Organisation. This facilitates greatly the advancing of the Status quo into improvement.

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We must talk now about the different styles and the different aptitudes that leadership has and what a leader must be made of.

Authoritarian style

Somewhat autocratic, where most of the decision making process is centred on the leader. It is what he says and nothing else fits in the answer equation.

Democratic Style

It is participative; it goes in favour of dealing with the group in order to achieve an answer in the process of decision making.

Laissez-faire style

It leaves everything to the group and practically the leader doesn´t block any decision. It is not a good style, I say, because the train can get off track.

I would choose the second style, the Democratic one, in which a leader can show its value without stepping on the group´s initiative. Also, we saw in the slides that a leader must be charismatic, to have great skills, especially in mass speech to persuade or motivate the worker or the person who listens to him.

Don´t forget that leaders can mislead as well, if not, take a look at the following picture...

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But let´s stay focused on the Organisational level and let´s assume that every leader is fairly good. They must be authentic and must have, before all a great spiritual and mental peace to achieve good results. Therefore “leaders will find it hard to sustain energy and commitment within the organization unless they systemically restore their own energy (physical, mental, emotional, and spiritual), as well as create the conditions and serve as role models for others to do the same.” 3

3. Available at "How centered leaders achieve extraordinary results. Authors: Barsh, Mogelof and Webb, McKinsey Quarterly, 2010, Issue 4, p78-88, 9p, Data base: Business Source Complete".

That is why the Organisations must take care of their leaders and treat them nicely, sometimes even pampering them, in order to achieve their personal stability to be able to lead the rest of the workers to healthy business environment conditions.

Finally, let´s jump into introducing two terms that can be seen as a form of leadership Organisation.

Chaebols

It is a South Korean form of business conglomerate. They are also family controlled big corporations which have become world known.

Ex: Hyundai, LG and Samsung.

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Keiretzus

It is a Japanese form of business conglomerate. They are companies interlocked together in powerful relations. For example, they own the same big banks from which they loan money from. They have helped to the “Japanese economic miracle”.

Ex: Toyota and Mitsubishi.

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