The Corporation

Should corporations be entitled to the same legal rights as individuals? Where the line should be drawn?

To the answer this question I asked my self what are the legal rights of a person and here are some rights: (United Nations, 1995)

• the right to legal recourse when their rights have been violated, even if the violator was acting in an official capacity
• The right to life
• the right to liberty and freedom of movement
• the right to equality before the law
• the right to presumption of innocence until proven guilty
• the right to appeal a conviction
• the right to be recognized as a person before the law
• the right to privacy and protection of that privacy by law
• freedom of thought, conscience, and religion
• freedom of opinion and expression
• freedom of assembly and association
• self-determination
• wages sufficient to support a minimum standard of living
• equal pay for equal work
• equal opportunity for advancement
• Freedom to form trade unions
• strike
• paid or otherwise compensated maternity leave
• free primary education, and accessible education at all levels
• copyright, patent, and trademark protection for intellectual property

If we see all the rights mentioned, from a legal position, corporations can do many of the same things that natural persons do--buy and sell property, hire and fire, sue and be sued, and so many rights can be applicable as the right to presumption of innocence until proven guilty, but I DO NOT think that corporations should have the same legal rights as individual. As we have seen in the document corporations have not adapted or penetrated as being a member of a society. Their main goal is to increase their wealth by whatever mean possible, leading to labor exploitation, environment pollution, human health for toxic or bad products etc. They are not the same as individual so they shouldn’t be treated as one, I mean can you imagine a corporation going to jell because it committed a crimes? No because they can’t they use the law and the system as if everything was permitted they just have to pay money if they make a fraud or a crime with no serious consequences. The corporation by itself can’t survive or think it must have the people in order to perform property. Corporations should have some norms and rules such as social responsibilities to ensure that the members of the corporations are not being used and have good working conditions.

Should individuals (directors, employees, shareholders) bear any responsibility for the actions of a corporation, if so, to what degree?

In general is very hard to talk about this topic because I mean so many confusions came into my mind; for the most part I think the corporations is the one that has to bear with the responsibilities for the action because for example if a person for UNE comes to your house to fix the internet connection and they still something you don’t think about that individual being the responsible, we tend to blame the company for the event and we assume that they must take responsibilities. On the other hand when a corporation has been doing something that is illegal and all or most of the members of the corporations know or were involved in taking those decisions, they should have some responsibilities for the actions, because they agreed to do harm to other for getting extra money.

International Organization for Migration

IOM works with its partners in the international community to: (IOM)

• Assist in meeting the growing operational challenges of migration management.
• Advance understanding of migration issues.
• Encourage social and economic development through migration.
• Uphold the human dignity and well-being of migrants.

According to a research done by INSTRAW: “One out of two migrant is a woman”, this number is increasing and these are women who live and work away from their countries of origin send billions of dollars to their relatives - often more frequently than men (INSTRAW, 2008). Nowadays woman are migrating more to other countries for different reason, but they also have the poorest life conditions when they arrive in the host country, they are exposed to human trafficking, abuse, they don´t have access to some jobs etc.

The OIM usually are asked to work in conflict and post-conflict situations. In the camps of refugees and displaced people, they intervene in collaboration with other United Nations agencies such as the High Commissioner for Refugees (HCR), UNICEF, or the World Health Organization (WHO) so that women can receive the required attention. Information campaigns are developed so that women can acquire more knowledge. They are given tools and equipment so that they can promote health correctly and improve their environment. (INSTRAW, 2008)
In the case of professional women who leave their home countries on their own, they demand access to decent work and proper payment, and to be able to live on their salary in their host country. One of the other requests from the majority of professional women migrants is to have the possibility of contributing to the development of their host countries, either by sending money to help the family left behind, or as investors with local associates to create employment and profit-generating activities for themselves. (INSTRAW, 2008). IOM developed credit project for women to give them access to save money for future uncertainties from their income in order to reduce poverty, while increasing self-sufficiency among women from low- income, as well as to send remittances to their home country. Since most of the times these women have large families and are single mother they don’t have the capacity to have a savings account. We tend to think about the present but barely about the future.

The IOM has a program called: "Migrant Women for Development in Africa" (WMIDA) which aims at engaging West African women migrants living in Italy in the development of their countries (International Organization for Migration). The program supports West African women migrants interested in using their remittances to establish small or medium enterprises in their countries of origin through joint ventures with Italian partners and host communities. IOM is going t chose 15 entrepreneurial projects from the ones that are presented by migrant women; which then will receive financial support as well as professional training on business development, management, marketing, and access to credit.

I AM WHO I AM BECAUSE THE OTHERS AROUND ME

Ubuntu can be defined as humaneness pervasive spirit of caring and community, harmony and hospitality, respect and responsiveness—that individuals and groups display for one another. (Mangaliso, 2001)

In this article they talk about several thinks that make part of Ubuntu philosophy and that if taken into account by the managers and implemented in the company can become a competitive advantage for the company. I´m going to explain one by one the concepts and then I’m going to explain why these things are important and should be acknowledged by cross-cultural managers.

• Relationships with Others: for the Ubuntu philosophy human interdependence is very important, as well as collaboration among member. Extended family is very important and individuals are part of a group, and have relationships with the entire member in their group, clan, family etc. Teamwork and solidarity are key concepts in Ubuntu. If a manager know that they workers are very collective than the best thing he can do is to encourage teamwork, reliance on the other to increase the outcomes since collective work will be better that individuals work. It’s also important to be tolerant to workers when dealing with death of clan members, ceremonies and reunions. In projects workers will be able to cooperate and have a positive working environment, (responsible, committed members, synergies etc.)

• Language and Communication: merely oral communication; communication is primarily for reinforcing the relationship of the members not necessarily about efficiency of information transfer. The manager must allow workers to establish relationships, even when not required by the task structure, improves effectiveness and decreases antagonistic feelings toward the organization (Mangaliso, 2001). If the workers are prohibited to communicate during their working hour this are going to create resentment for the organization and their superior and less concentration and encouragement to achieve the task. Another thing a manager can do is give them a lunch break where they have time to communicate with the rest of the staff, as well as have seasonal or periodic meeting, ceremonies, parties etc. a space where workers can reinforce their relationships.

• Decision Making: decisions are made by consensus, different and opposite opinions are encouraged. Dispute resolution is always effective to restore harmony. Even though this process is long because is made by consensus it can be more effective. The manager must include the employees in some decision making process in order to not only increase the trust but to motivate the workers to do their best for the company and that their opinion counts. It’s important to have face-to-face meeting to dispute resolution and to reach decision. The decisions are going to be more efficient and targeted to long term because the commitment and the involvement of different parties of the organization.

• Time: time must be used wisely, but there is no time limit for things or to reach decisions. Managers must be patient and encourage their workers to reach high quality standard rather than having time limits where they feel pressured and rushed.

• Productivity and efficiency: Must be optimized. Solidarity and social harmony are important. Rewards are shared, so is suffering (Mangaliso, 2001). As I have mention Ubuntu is based on collaboration so this variable is always present in the daily activities. A manager must know that workers must be rewarded as a group not as individuals, and their collaboration is the key to achieve and efficient production if the manager can manage to motivate as a group to achieve the same goal. The company is like a family and each member has a task but the rest are willing to be supportive and soldiery when a worker needs it. The manager must be very supportive with the staff and also show that he is willing to cooperate and discuss all the issues.

• Age and Leadership: Age is an ongoing process of maturing and acquiring wisdom. Older people are respected. Gray hair is a sign of wisdom (Mangaliso, 2001). This means that for Ubuntu followers the best option for a manager will be an older person, because he has had the necessary experience and has recollected a lot of wisdom throughout the years. So if a young manager is at charge things are not going to be so easy, he must build a relationship with the workers and gain their trust, in order to set the example and be followed. On the other hand if an older person is the manager than he will start off with more acceptances from the workers, but he must show the capabilities to maintain the status.

• Belief System: when a manager is faced with belief I think this is one of the toughest things to manage but it’s not so involved in the working area. The manager must understand and respect all the diversity of cultures that work within the same company and he must be creative in handling the situation regarding belief. For example if an employee is asking for permission because he must attend a special ritual of his religion the manager must be flexible. He can also use those beliefs in his advantage as mentioned in the example in the article.

Individual Ethical Decision-Making

This week’s task was to give an example that included all the four components of an individual’s ethical decision-making. I’m going to start by giving brief explanations of each of the four stages and then I’m going to give an example that I found about Software piracy in China regarding the consumer’s ethical decision-making process and the cultural dimensions that we can see in this process.


ETHICAL ISSUE RECOGNITION:

The person must first recognize that the issue has an ethical component. He/she must be aware of an ethical dilemma. Some individuals are likely to be more sensitive to potential ethical problems than others.

ETHICAL JUDGMENT:

After recognizing the ethical dilemma then the person will create some judgment about the rightness or wrongness of the issue. What is the right thing to do?

ETHICAL INTENTION:

Once an individual reaches an ethical judgment about a situation or issue, the next stage in the decision-making process is to form a behavioral intent, the person decides what he or she will do (or not do) regarding the perceived ethical dilemma.
ETHICAL ACTONS:

The final stage in the four-step model of ethical decision-making is to take on a certain behavior according to the ethical dilemma. Not always how the person interns to act and how it actually behave are the same, but most of the times their intentions influence their behavior.

The example was taken from:
http://www.allbusiness.com/management-companies-enterprises/1174467-1.html

Software piracy refers to consumers' knowing involvement in illegal software usage. Software piracy may include a number of related practices such as illegal copying of programs, counterfeiting and distributing software, purchasing pirated software and renting unauthorized software. A counterfeit product is one which a manufacturer produces with the intention of deceiving customers by leading buyers to believe that they are purchasing the genuine article. A pirated product is one where consumers are aware that the product is pirated (McDonald & Roberts, 1994).

China is one of the countries with the most severe piracy problem. According to the International Intellectual Property Alliance (IIPA), US businesses lost an estimated US$2.86 billion in revenues in 2003 due to copyright violations in China. China has one of the highest software piracy rates in the world.

Many factors influence software piracy. At the national level, macro factors such as culture, economic development, law and legislation and enforcement (Husted, 2000) are important in determining the prevalence of software piracy in a country.

The Chinese macro-environment leads to the high software piracy rate. China is a developing economy, and financial benefit from software piracy is high. Copyright legislation only started recently and enforcement mechanism is under development (uncertainty avoidance toward copyright laws). The collectivist culture of China is found to be correlated with high piracy rates (Marron & Steel, 2000).

Step 1: From recognizing a legal problem to recognizing an ethical problem

Recognizing an ethical problem is important since software piracy is an issue with more legal content than ethical content. When you as the consumer buy a product that is pirate, you should know that there is an ethical problem behind that. The consumer must first have some legal knowledge about piracy in order to recognize the ethical problem. A legal problem appears when laws are violated while an ethical problem appears when an individual perceive a situation posed to him as having ethical issues. Software piracy is first, and most importantly, a legal issue. However, a perception of a legal issue may not successfully transfer to an ethical issue (Swinyard et al., 1990). Many consumers think software piracy is low in moral intensity (Logsdon et al., 1994) or not an ethical problem (Glass & Wood, 1996). In other words, consumers are ethically insensitive (Thong & Yap, 1998) on this issue. This is the case of the Chinese consumes they are ethically insensitive.
Step 2: From recognizing an ethical problem to moral behavior

A Chinese proverb "He who shares is to be rewarded; he who does not, condemned." is widely cited to refer to the impact of the collectivist culture on software piracy (Swinyard et al., 1990). Consumers in the collectivist culture not only like to share software, they also like to share responsibilities. A Chinese proverb "the law cannot apply if everybody breaks it".

In the ethical intentions where the consumers decides whether to buy the software or not since the research observed that many Chinese have negative attitude towards copyright laws , and Chinese legislation and enforcement of intellectual property laws have been developed during the past two decades in response to the demands coming from developed countries, especially US. They would probably find that buying that software is totally ethical accepted in their society. The final stage is that they buy the product and their behavior is seen as acceptable in their culture but seen as unacceptable in other parts of the world.

Task #5

It shines like the sun but colorful as the rainbow, where you can find the flavor that enlightens your heart.

This week’s task was to create a metaphor for a Colombian product that was going to be sold in a foreign market. The product I chose was the gummy candy which I absolutely love. There will be various flavors according to the fruits that we produce and the color that they have. I’m going to explain the metaphor by parts. Shining like the sun means that they are very shine and have a crystal clear look, you can see through the gummy. Colorful as the rainbow because the variety of colors and flavors that they have (mango- yellow, lemon-green, strawberry-red, mandarin-orange, blackberry-purple, guanabana-white, pineapple-yellow etc.). Also because each package of gummies has all the colors with which you can make a rainbow, and when you eat them they have such a delicious taste that they make your day happy.

For my foreign partners involved in the business I would recommend:
• To do various food tasting in different malls so people can get familiar with the flavor of some fruit that they probably have never hear of like Guanabana.
• That an objective is that the customers experiences new flavors of colorful gummies that are made from fruits and not artificially.
• Find a distributor in the foreign market to take the gummies to the candy stores.

Task #4

For this week the task was to comment our classmates blogs, i thought this task was really interesting because we had the opportunity to share our opinion and see our classmates creativity and their progress. By doing this you also can tell a lot about the personalities and the things that each person want to transmit. You can also read the comments that your classmates have left you which kind off encourages you to do a better job.

I choose ramdon classmate and left a comment in each one of them, here are the blogs I saw:

1. Angelica Capon O & C blog
http://angelicacapon.blogspot.com/
Her blog was really cool and the example she gave was clear, and was an example that I had heard of, but had never associated with the task, in this case the pymalion effect.

2. Simon Londoño's Organizations and Culture blog
http://organisationsandcultures2010.blogspot.com/
This was also a pretty good blog, I also read the task on the Pygmalion Effect, I really liked that on the contrary of my blog entry, he focused on the perceptions that you have about yourself and how are they transmited to others, he also recommened that once in a while we must do a check up of ourself to improve our behavior, and to always stay positive about things.

3. Ricardo Garzón's Organizations and Culture blog
http://theoandc.blogspot.com/
In this blog I read the task about the coference of Nick Mayers. Ricardo wrote about uncertainty avoidance index for which he gave a short but clear definition and then came up with an excellent example based on real facts, that refelcted the importance of cultural differences when making business deals.

4. Luisa Mejia Organizational and Culture blog
http://organizatiosnandcultures.blogspot.com/
I loved the page desing of this blog, I wish mine was like that. Anyways I read the task of the conference of Nick Mayers, she also focused on the uncertainty avoidance index. I liked how she begun the entry and the example that she gave. And I totally agree with her that culture is not only importance when making business but in any activity that requieres the involvement of different cultures.

5. Daniela Marmolejo Organizational and Culture blog
http://organizationsandculturesdaniela.blogspot.com/
I liked the desing of this blog it was simple but really pretty. I read the task about the pygmalion effect, I liked how she told the story behind the effect and the example that she gave because even though the were short they were clear. I also liked her opinion as to what a supervisor should do and the conclusion " you get what you expect".

6. Daniel Velasquez actual, interesting and controversial topics blog
http://danvelis.blogspot.com/
The trust is that when I opened this blog I didn´t think I was going to like it so much , but I was wrong it was very interesting and showed a lot of clear and creative examples . I was shock at how long my comment was at the end, but they were all things I wanted him to know about the entry. I like the structure of the blog: definitions in own worlds with questions and the rest examples. I mean the example varied a lot and were very interesting.

Pymalion Effect

Taken from http://findabundance.blogspot.com/2010/04/pygmalion-and-self-fulfilling.html

Goethe said, “Treat a man as he is and he will remain as he is. Treat a man as he can and should be and he will become as he can and should be.”
http://hubpages.com/hub/Motivational-Theory

The Pygmalion Effect occurs when you believe that someone is capable of achieving something, then that person will indeed achieve it (your positive expectation in someone makes that person unconsciously believe in them selves). In other words, believing in the potential someone has simply makes it happen. The Pygmalion Effect not only occurs when someone else expect a person to do something good or bad, but it can also occur when a person think they know their capabilities and flows and act according to them. For example a positive feeling or emotion about your self will create a positive outcome on the other hand a negative feeling will create a bad outcome. In other words you always have to be positive to achieve anything that you put you mind on.

1. If you believe that your boss does not like you. Than you would react by working poorly, not showing enthusiasm in your assignments, and being afraid of saying something to you boss because of his reaction. This can lead to you getting fired.

2. You believe your going to fail my exams because the subject is really hard and you do not understand it or you are to dumb. You react by being late for class, not handing in you homework, not paying attention to your teacher and just quit studying. Guess what just as you thought you do poorly and fail the course.

3. You believe that you can never lose weight and get fit and as a result you do not bother to give it a try. So you quit the gym, don’t change your eating habits and never try to exercise.

4. If your boss believes that you are very smart and that you have great ideas for the company and he always has a positive attitude around you. You react by trying your best at everything you do, and proposing great strategic ideas that lead you to a better salary.

5. If somebody tells you that certain person is a trouble maker. Then your perception about that person is attached to what the other person told you, and you cannot surpass that. For example if the person said to be a trouble maker actually makes a mistake, you see it normal because that’s how they supposedly are. On the other hand if that person does something good, since that is unexpected than you try to justify his actions. Saying for example he is probably having a good day, or maybe he’s trying to change.

6. The media can also play with the Pygmalion Effect, on the news you usually see the story as being positive or negative and that influences how you perceive certain situations. For example if they say that certain product is the best ever seen in the market, that you will react by buying it and probably sharing their thoughts about the product.