Managing diversity+ Religions and the organizations

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Managing diversity+ Religions and the organizations

The concept of diversity means the recognition of each individual as a different human being unique in their dimensions of race, ethnicity, gender, sexual orientation, socio-economic status, age, physical abilities, religious beliefs, political beliefs, or other ideologies. All these differences should be accepted in order to live in a diverse place with all these shared characteristics growing.

Inside organizations, diversity can contribute to improve the average output of the company because the variation of social and cultural identities among people existing together in a defined employment or market setting can complement and provide new ideas as ibid said “Groups made up of diverse personnel do a better

job of analyzing and attacking problems”.

Diversity management is a way of creating an environment that will enable all people to use full potential to accomplish the mission.

Since diversity is a source of competitive advantage, what could be the recruitment strategies to effectively target to diverse groups? What would be the consequences of ignoring diversity?

Some recruitment strategies could be hire more diverse group of people in order to increase the new ideas, new perspective and understanding of the surrounding environment of the companies worldwide because diversity can be took as a value-added activity when in problem-solving situation the Creativity and innovation is enhanced by different human talent provided for plenty of ethnic groups inside the company.

Retrieved from: http://gepvida.blogspot.com/2010/05/que-es-la-religion.html

Religion.

The religion is a determinant of culture and also is very important because people has a need to believe in something to explain the inexplicable facts in life, religions is Shared beliefs and rituals concerned with the realm of the sacred is complemented with:

•Ethical Systems: Moral principles or values used to guide and Shape behavior.

•Shapes attitudes toward work and entrepreneurship and can affect the cost of doing business.

Religion gives formal approval to existing social arrangements.

Legitimate:

to justify or give official approval to

•Encourages a sense of unity

•Provides a sense of understanding

•Promotes a sense of belonging

What is the dominant religion in Colombia? What are the religious implications for doing business here? Give examples.

The dominant religion in Colombia is the Christianity being one of the most influent factors in our society but isn´t the most influent factor in the work place due that Colombians knows how to separate both world, as an example we can se that we only go to the church on Sundays to dedicate only one hour to listen the god´s word and the rest of the days we dedicate our lifes in normal work, study and other activities we normally do in normal life such practice sports, etc. however, we can differentiate organizations that in their principles shared some Christian goals and are implemented inside the company without much inconvenient.

Retrieved from: http://es.ideas4all.com/ideas/86315-historia_de_la_religion_en_las_escuelas

Bibliography:

·         Fang, T (1999) Chinese Business Negotiating Style, London: SAGE Publications Ltd.

·         Hill, C. (2007) International Business: Competing in the Global Marketplace. 7ed. New York: McGraw-Hill/Irwin.

·         Weber, M. (1958) The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism, New York: Scribner's Press.

Communication+ Virtualteams

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Communication+ Virtualteams

First, I would like to share with the lecturers this definitions as an introduction to the topic of communication.

·         Communication - the evoking of a shared or common meaning in another person

·         Interpersonal communication – communication between two or more people in an organization

·         Communicator - the person originating the message

·         Receiver - the person receiving a message

·         Perceptual screen - a window through which we interact with people that influences the quality, accuracy, and clarity of the communication.

·         Language - the words, their pronunciation, and the methods of combining them used & understood by a group of people

·         Data - uninterpreted and unanalyzed facts

·         Information - data that have been interpreted, analyzed, & and have meaning to some user

·         Richness - the ability of a medium or channel to elicit or evoke meaning in the receiver

One-way Communications	Two-way Communications
It is a verbal expression in which one person (the emitter) sends a message to another person with no feedback or response.	A form of communication in which the transmitter and the receiver interact.

Nonverbal Communication

All elements of communication that do not involve words

Four basic types:

Proxemics - an individual’s perception & use of space

Kinesics - study of body movements, including posture

Facial & eye behavior - movements that add cues for the receiver

Paralanguage - variations in speech, such as pitch, loudness, tempo, tone, duration, laughing, & crying

Virtual teams:

Virtual teams are groups of geographically, organizationally and/or time dispersed workers brought together by information technologies to accomplish one or more organization. This is a useful way to get together with different qualities of people that are far away and have different conditions and ideas to help with a common goal even though there is a huge gap that is the distance.

The role of workers+ migrant workers + expatriates

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The role of workers+ migrant workers + expatriates

Migrant workers involve the movement of people from one country (or region) to another primarily for employment related reasons (IPPR 2004).

This reality that all countries worldwide are facing currently is due to the lack of opportunities in their home region or country, the both sides of the problem is that there are legal workers, who has permission of the immigrant authorities and illegal workers that doesn´t count with the permission of the authorities. Normally, the last one are used extensively for crop harvesting, mandating that they follow the

Harvest seasons, work in hotels or restaurants, food processing, fruit picking and shellfish gathering and in general some low wages jobs that only help to survive in the new region they were.

There are plenty of reason why people leaves their home region or country some of them are:

·                     Labour migration 

·                     Family reunification 

·                     security 

·                     trade 

·                     Migrant rights 

·                     Health

·                     Integration 

·                     Development.

Another reality that people in the world are facing are the expatriate which mean the exilation of one person or oneself from one's native country or cause (another) to go into exile.

Expatriate assignment

Expatriates are sent to international assignments for various reasons, particularly to initiate, expand and control international operations of the firm worldwide.

·         Professional Development

·         Knowledge Transfer

·         Fulfillment of Scarce Skills

·         Control

·         Coordination

To be an expatriate implies undergoing a socialization and acculturation process that affects their career identities (Mezias and Scandura 2005) and The expatriate assignment (pre-departure, expatriation, and repatriation) requires cycles of reskilling for the expatriate to make necessary adjustments to the host country, and home-country readjustments upon return (ibid). and in order to manage effectively this expatriate assignment this 2 recommendation should take into account:

1.    Success of personnel assigned abroad depends largely on their preparedness through training in culture, customs, and language.

2.    Recognize them for their work and potential for making contributions to the firm now and in the future (this can help shape proactive returnees)

Explain how easy is it for Colombian companies to employ expatriates locally? Give examples

Expatriates locally I going to take it as the farmers that comes to the cities due to the violence, in this cases there is extremely difficult for them to get a good job in the Colombian companies because of the lack of knowledge they have in the real sector of the economies, clear example is the farmers that stand all days in the traffic lights waiting the charity of the Colombian to give them some aid to their situation. It’s important to say that the government is trying to do their best in expatriate subjects with the creation of the OPS (oficina de atención a la población desplazada). Created to support all the expatriates locally.

Bibliography.

·         Buckley C. and Wills K. (2011) China's Wen puts social stability at heart of economy.Retrieved from March 20, 2011, from Reuters:

http://www.reuters.com/article/2011/02/27/us-china-economy-wenidUSTRE71Q07F20110227?pageNumber=2

·         Expatriate. (n.d.). Online Etymology Dictionary. Retrieved March 11, 2011, from Dictionary.com website: http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/expatriate

·         Florida, R. (2002) The rise of the creative class. The Washington Monthly, 34(5), 15. Retrieved from http://search.proquest.com/docview/213679959?accountid=45662

·         Institute for Public Policy Research (2004) Labour migration to the UK: an ipprFactFile.

·         Kram, K.E. (1985) Mentoring At Work, Scott, Foresman: Glenview.

·         Mezias, J.M and Scandura, T.A. (2005) A Needs-Driven Approach to Expatriate

Adjustment and Career Development: A Multiple Mentoring Perspective, Journal of

International Business Studies, Vol. 36, No. 5 (Sep.), pp. 519-538

·         Scandura, T.A. and Von Glinow, M.A. (1997) 'Development of the international

manager: the role of mentoring', Business and the ContemporaryWorld9 : 95-115.

·         http://www.suite101.com/content/expatriates-in-international-assignments-a94403#ixzz1MXzZGWSk

The role of organizational culture in merging process

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The role of organizational culture in merging process

Mergers and Acquisitions (M&A) is the combination of assets and liabilities of two firms in order to form a one new firm in which the term acquisition means absorption of a smaller firm by a larger one and merge means the combination between firms at the same level all this with the purpose of “transform firms, and to contribute to corporate renewal” (Angwin, 2001) and Help a firm renew its market position at a speed not achievable through internal development

(Haspeslagh and Jemison, 1991).

During the past decades there have been some waves of merge and acquisition as you can see explained in the next chart.

The integration process can implies the reconstruction of a new social identity (Alzira, Wayne, Gerald 2003) and in that way the company can create value by acquiring in the next factors:

·         Economy of scale

·         Economy of scope

·         Increased revenue or market share

·         Geographical or other diversification

·         Resource transfer

Two organizational integration variables are particularly relevant in the acquisition process (Datta and Grant, 1990; Datta, 1991) :

- the motive for the acquisition (strategic fit and decision making process)

- the process of implementation

Managing the cultural differences has been proved as a more realistic and successful strategy in integration processes than finding the “ideal culture fit” (Alzira, Wayne, Gerald 2003).

For last but not less important, there are some cultural modifications embedded in the merge and acquisition process that managers may want to focus in order to understand the business environment they want to enter, the cultural modifications are:

1.    Support for a global view of business.

2.    Reinforcement of ethical behavior.

3.    Empowerment of employees to excel in product

4.    service quality.

According to the case studies (in class and in textbook), what are the practical steps to minimize the feelings of uncertainty normally expected by employees, and also to facilitate the learning process to occur between the two groups of people in their process of cultural and behavioral integration?

In a merge and acquisition process The success of a particular integration strategy depends primarily on:

• The manager’s ability to reconcile the need for strategic interdependence between the two firms.

• The need for organizational autonomy (Elsaa and

Veiga 1994).

• The existence of cultural fit

If a corporation follows this three primarily factors that assure an effective M&A integration strategy because based on the errors that Daimler and Mercedes made in their process due to the differences they had, they didn’t took into account the cultural differences and the market share and marker orientation each company has in their home country but at the end they knew how to go ahead and avoid all the troubles that those problems brought at the beginning of the process because they realized the roots of the problems or differences and they solved them in a successful way.

Bibliography:

• Alzira S., Wayne H., and Gerald V. (2003) “Challenges and opportunities in mergres and acquisitions: three international case studies – Deutsche Bank-Bankers Trust; British Petroleum-Amoco; Ford-Volvo”, Journal of European Industrial Training, Vol. 27 Iss:6, p. 313-321.
• Angwin, D. (2001) “Mergers and acquisitions across European borders: national perspectives on pre-acquisition due diligence and the use of professional advisers”, Journal of World business, Vol.36 No.1, p. 2-57.
• Datta, D.K. and Grant, J.H. (1990), “Relationships between type of acquisition, the autonomy given to the acquired firm, and acquisition process: an empirical analysis”, Journal of Management, Vol.16, p. 29-44.
• Elsaa, P.M. and Veiga, J.F. (1994), “Acculturation in acquired organizations: a force-fieldperspective”, Human Relations, Vol. 47 No. 4.
• Gitelson, G., Bing, J., Laroche, L (2001) Culture Shock, CMA Management.
• Haspeslagh, P.C. and Jemison, D.B. (1991) Managing Acquisitions, The Free Press, New York.
• Nahavandi, A. and Malekzadeh, A.R. (1998) “Acculturation in mergers and acquisitions”, Academy of Management Review, Vol.13, p.79-90.
• Nelson, D and Quick, J.C. (2009) Organizational culture. In Organisational Behavour: Science, the real world and you.

Organizational learning

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Nowadays organizations should learn every day in order to prosper and get knowledge about the process surrounding in order to gain every day major competitive advantage and by learning investments the companies can develop future capabilities due to the skill of learning new processes and how to implement new ideas to diminish cost and risks of being less competitive in the market. According to Warren Wilhelm “Organizational learning is often used to adapt the organization to changes in its business environment. By cutting learning, we greatly reduce the organization’s ability to quickly respond to its changing environment”.

In this topic there are some theories such the classical one and the social learning theory, the classical one contains the Classical Conditioning by Ivan Pavlov that says “A condition stimulus is paired with an unconditioned stimulus”

And the Operant Conditioning by Burrhus Frederic Skinner that talks about the changes in the behavior through the use of positive or negative consequences

·         Reinforcement

·         Punishment

·         Extinction

The social learning theory Explains human behavior in terms of continuous reciprocal interaction between cognitive, behavioral, and environmental influences.

KNOW-HOW:

In general terms, know-how is a knowledge obtained by a company or organization over the time on how to get something done or some processes developed that is a little bit difficult to transfer to other person or corporation.

Teece in 1998 said that “the development of any types of new markets has made know-how increasingly salient as differentiation, and therefore as a source of the competitive advantage of firms”. And there should take into account the Importance of property rights, Technological innovation, Organizational structure, Management strategies and Resource allocation.

Why learning organizations?

Primarily, there are at least 15 reasons to implement learning inside an organization and these are:

• Sustaining performance momentum (A pause in learning results in a lack of developed employees in the future)
• Driving employee engagement and commitment in tough times (Learning  is a proven factor in engaging and retaining your best employees)
• Seizing the slowdown as a time to build capability (As the pace of business slows in the downturn, there may be greater opportunity to provide employees with time for learning, without sacrificing productivity.)
• Building the new skills and capabilities needed for success in challenging times. (Unusual economic challenges may require specific training in how to meet them)
• Maintaining knowledge, skills, and capabilities in the face of extraordinary turnover caused by downsizing (Employee turnover without training new employees can result in loss of basic organizational capabilities that risk becoming extinct over time.)
• Sustaining organizational culture (Certain training, for example on boarding, is essential to acculturate employees.)
• Sustaining organizational values (Corporate values are often transmitted through organizational learning)
• Providing essential messages through the downturn. (Without learning, the organization has fewer vehicles for transmitting vital information and communicating desired culture)
• Reinforcing one of the most powerful change resources (Organizational learning is often used to adapt the organization to changes in its business environment)
• Ensuring continued employer attractiveness (A recognized learning organization more easily attracts desired job applicants)
• Shortening time to effectiveness (If we reduce the amount of learning provided, new employees take longer to learn, or never really learn, how to do their jobs)
• Building leaders who can teach leaders. (Many companies use their leaders to teach other employees)
• Ensuring a robust leadership pipeline. (If you cease to develop your leaders internally, you are forced to hire future leaders from outside.)
• Driving alignment. (Learning is a primary way to align your employees, and especially your leaders, around your organizational vision and strategy)
• Encouraging continued innovation and external orientation. (Learning expands your employees’ minds outside the boundaries of their day-to-day jobs, allowing for innovative thinking)

What would be the relationship between cross cultural environments and organizational learning strategies?

The relation between both would be the necessity for the corporations to learn as much as possible the different cultures that are spread over the world in order to be successful in market abroad and prosper in wherever the corporation goes taking into account all the reasons explained earlier in why implement learning inside a corporation.

Bibliography.

• Cooper, Cary L. The Blackwell Encyclopedia of Management. Blackwell Publishing, .Blackwell Reference Online. Retrieved from13 January 2011:

http://www.blackwellreference.com/public/book?id=g9780631233176_9780631233176

• Learning Theories Knowledgebase (2011, January). Social Learning Theory (Bandura) at Learning-Theories.com. Retrieved from January 12th, 2011:

http://www.learning-theories.com/social-learning-theory-bandura.html

Makridakis, S (1991) What can we learn from organisational failures ?, Long Range Planning, 24(4), 115-126.

• Nelson, D.L. & Quick, J.C. (2010) Organizational Behavior: Science, The Real World and You. South-Western College Publication, 7th. Ed.
• Nystrom, PC and WH Starbuck, (1984, Spring). To avoid organisational crisis, unlearn,Organisational Dynamic@, 53-64.
• Senge, P. (1998) Sharing Knowledge. At Society For Organizational Learning. Retrieved from January 12th , 2011: http://www.solonline.org/res/kr/shareknow.html
• Shukla, M (1994) CORPORATE FAILURES: Why Organisations Fail To Learn. Productivity, 34(4), 629-639.
• Teece, D. (1998) Capturing value from knowledge assets: The new economy, Markets for know-how, and intangible assets. California Management Review. Vol 40 No 3. Spring 1998. Retrieved from January 2011:

http://apps.business.ualberta.ca/mlounsbury/techcom/readings/teece.pdf

• “sustaining organizational learning” by Warren Wilhelm.