CHINA

Sumary
We saw all about the Human Resources Managment in China, we began this topic learning about the general aspects, the background and of course the history. After that we saw all the types of companies that exist in China and how is the process when you are doing business with them.

Also we saw all the economic deeply and how those afects China, and how that make China rise out to the world in several issues and aspects.

Question
¿How is China dealing with the world´s financial meltdown?
Is normal to see that the earlier crisis started with local worries about Thailand`s widening current-account deficit and poverty bubble in Bangkok. It astonished the world with the speed and extent of the contagion that spread to other asian countries, and emerging markets elsewhere, such as Russia and Brazil.

Research shows that China is the far better placed to withstand the present shock. Its banks are stronger, its currency regimes less rigid, its foreign-exhange reserves bigger. On the other hand, a decade of accelerated globalisation had seen every country integrated even more closely into the world economy. China may not face the sort of meltdown experienced at the end of the 1990s. But prospects for growth look much bleaker that they did even a fortnigth ago. Exports to rich countries still matter, albeit less than they did.

China leaders have complained that they were blamed for bringing the last crisis on themselves, with their misguided exchange-rate policies, opaque financial systems, profligate spending and corrupt politics. China is refusal to allow a faster appreciation of the yuan has been blamed by some for helping build up the huge global financial imbalances that now seem to be unwinding so fast.

Blibliography
NICHOLAS R. LARDY. Integrating China Into the Global Economy. Publicado por Brookings Institution Press, 2002

BARRY NAUGTHON. What is distinctive about China`s economic transition? State and enterprise reform and overall system trasformation. University of California, San Diego, La Jolla. February 15, 1994.

AFRICA

Sumary

This topic had two parts the first one was the exposition that showed the general aspects of Africa. Also we saw how the colonialism and post colonialism contribute with the actual situation of poorness and war of african´s citizens. We learned about Sierra Leone and the conflict with diamonds they have, there the guerrillas figth with the civil population, and that is a fact of why there exist the illegal trade of diamonds because of corrupt governments, trade of weapons and terrorism. Those issues are the ones that made the diamonds called “blood diamonds”.

Lorenza Fontana showed us the problem in Nigeria about the oil from the multinationals corporations existing in the Delta Niger region. We saw all the aspects influenced with a background that brings out all the aspects that made this not fair for the citizens. We saw how in front of this inequallytu came up the the movement MEND and we analyzed all the implications of them in the oil conflict.

Question

¿Why Africa being one of the richest continets in the wold in resources continue being the poorest one?
Since ever we listen and learned about Africa´s natural resources and all the mineral resources they had there. But also we listen about the war, terrorism and poorness they live in. This is contradictory and had no sence, because you can´t understand why a conuntry with that amount of resources live in the worts conditions of poverty.

But all of that have an explication,and it came from the colonialism period were the Europeans took advantage on African people. First some writter said that colonialism was a system witch functioned well in the interest of the metropoles. Also there are so much writters who said that Europeans did to much for Africans and this is complety false because the only thing Africans learn from Europeans were the words opression, explotaition and slavery.

The Europeans said that they built railroads, schools, hospitals and the like, but they did´nt noticed that the sum of these was extremely small in comparison with the damage and pain they when throug later.

That is why we can say Africa has everything to be a rich country but the develped countries never wanted to be like that, and they had been doing everything to take out the ritchness of Africa making the African population suffer and die because of the injustice of the richest ones.

Bibliography
ROY RICHARD GRINKER, CHRISTOPHER BURGHARD STEINER. Perspectives on Africa: A Reader in Culture, History, and Representation. Publicado por Blackwell Publishing, 1997

J WODDIS. Africa: The Roots of Revolt. 1962 , Citadel Press.

MODULE 3

MODULE 3


III. MANAGING DIVERSITY

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SUMARY

We saw the spheres of activity in the management of cultural diversity knowing how each one work. We also learned the differences between managing diversity and equal opportunities,

Also we learned parallel between managing diversity and the competitive advantage, analyzing each variable as cost, resource acquisition, marketing, creativity, problem solving, and organizational flexibility.

Finally we learned the components to transform traditional organizations into multicultural ones.

QUESTION

Which is the best way for a organization to manage the cultural diferences?

We saw the spheres of activity in the management of cultural diversity knowing how each one work. We also learned the differences between managing diversity and equal opportunities,

Also we learned parallel between managing diversity and the competitive advantage, analyzing each variable as cost, resource acquisition, marketing, creativity, problem solving, and organizational flexibility.

Finally we learned the components to transform traditional organizations into multicultural ones.

When an organization is involved with different cultures it must educate their employees towards an understanding and tolerance in these differences. There is a process that can make things easier for an organization.

This process is call Holvino’s Multicultural Organizational Development model and it provides a useful support of the stages of an organization moving from a monoculture, that is characterized for exclusionary issues into the organization where the values of one group, culture or style are dominant, to multicultural organization who are inclusive and where the values of diverse people are valued and contribute to organizational goals and excellence.

According to this, an organization must development approach to designing and implementing a diversity initiative follow a five-step process: 1) preparing for the initiative; 2) assessing needs related to diversity; 3) developing a vision, goals and a strategic plan; 4) implementing the interventions selected; and 5) monitoring and evaluating progress and results.

These steps are something basic and very easy to accomplish by an organization, the key is that it must focus on the strengths of the organizational development approach to diversity, because this will provides a clear focus; it is similar to other planning processes.
If every organization take this into account, the problems with the cultural differences will be easier to accomplished, and will make the workplace a better place for the employees and a more successful company because is clear that a happy worker make happy costumers.

Bibliography

• DEBORAH MERRILL-SANDS, EVANGELINA HOLVINO WITH JAMES CUMMING (2000). Working with Diversity. Center for Gender in Organizations (CGO) SIMMONS Graduate School of Management Chaos Management, Ltd.
  

MODULE 4

MODULE 4

IV. INTERNATIONAL LABOUR MIGRATION

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SUMMARY

We learned about migration having into account some important concepts as the origins, history and important dates of migration in our society and others.

Also we emphasized in the fact of the brain drain, specially the ones that happens here in Latin America, because of the lack of opportunities and support from government to the education and many other factors.

In class this case and other related were discussed, taking into account the conflicts, consequences and issues that something like this can bring, also the image that the migrant has of another country as a opportunity to improving lifestyle for the migrant himself and the family. We talk also about the consequences for each country, the one that loses a citizen and the one that receives the migrant, evaluating every problem and discussing it. Some of these problems were the brain drain, remittances, the population increase, the decrease of the jobs.

QUESTION

What are the social or political impacts of migration to the cities?

There are a lot of impacts in those two issues and in several more, some of those impacts are positive and some negative. The key is to understand the impacts and manage it in the right way.

First we can analyzed the political impacts, because is important to show that there are more positive migrant policies in cities, but it has taken a long time. Migrants always try to achieve urban benefits and amenities like access to schools and housing, but the problem is with governments who don’t see this as possible as they want to.

Even though now is common to see a shift at the highest levels of government towards social policies addressing inequality and disparity. Differential treatment of migrants is now becoming to be a potentially explosive issue, because the migrant population is growing.

In the latest days there are growing up second-generation migrants, who are the younger migrants, they are studying and working searching a better future for them and their families. But is common to see that in the cities they are not treated in the same way as the local kids.

Gradually there have been small changes in all of those aspects and the positive policy changes have been happening slowly, because the principal importance for governments is the welfare of the citizens and the migrants who are also important citizens as well.

Governments must educate all the society to understand and respect the migrants, because everybody must know that they are human beans and deserve the same rights as the citizens.

Bibliography

• Stark O (1991), The migration of labor. Cambridge, Massachusetts/Oxford, England, Basil Blackwell.


• Douglas S. Massey, Joaquín Arango, Graeme Hugo, Ali Kouaouci, Adela Pellegrino, J. Edward Taylor (1998).Worlds in motion. understanding international migration at the end of the millennium. Oxford. Oxford University Press.
  

MODULE 2

MODULE 2

II. Exploring Diversity

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SUMMARY

Here we learned and understood that everybody are different in several ways and also knew how those differences affects individuals’ values, opportunities and perceptions of self and others at work and at society. Also we saw important concepts about this topic as race, discrimination and racism.

We went deeper with the concept of racism, looking at important issues as the personal, the cultutal and the institutional racism.

To understand better the diversity we saw the theories underpinning of diversity, and also we learned how to understand the multicultural diversity in every of it issues.


QUESTION

Why there are differences and conflicts, between people of different cultures in workplace in some organizations? ¿Is this problem related with the cultural diversity?

First we should know there are a lot of differences and low tolerance for people from other cultures in actual society, because everybody feels afraid of the unknown issues, that’s why in this cases the lack of information and education about other cultures or behaviors make people reject those other person who are different.

Even thought there are some investigations and research that shows how these differences are taken between different culture people, especially in workplace. E.T. Hall developed the concept that there are three important concepts about cultural differences. These are time, context, and space. He also established that is important to understand the differences between monochronic time and polychronic, because time is essential to success, especially in workplace.

Is important to understand monochronic time is characterized as linear, tangible, and divisible. In monochronic time, events are scheduled one item at a time and this schedule takes precedence over interpersonal relationships. Monochronic time focuses on the time is money approach and is couched in terms such as time spent, time wasted, time lost and so on.

Otherwise polychronic time is characterized by the concurrent happening of many things and by a great involvement with people and is more focused on completing human transactions than it is on the holding on of schedules.

That’s why we saw that those cultures that are monochronic do one thing at a time and concentrate on the job at hand, and take commitments seriously. They are more likely to value promptness and are accustomed to short- term relationships. And in the other hand polychronic cultures focus on doing many things at a time, are more distractible and are likely to base their promptness on the strength of a relationship, so keeping strangers waiting is far more acceptable than family.

The other issues that Hall exposed were the high and low context, it refers to the amount of information that a person can manage. This can vary from a high context culture where background information is implicit to low context culture where much of the background information must be made explicit in an interaction. In consequence people from a high context cultures often send more information implicitly, have a wider "network," and thus tend to stay well informed on many subjects. The people from low context cultures usually verbalize much more background information, and tend not to be well informed on subjects outside of their own interests.

Here we can understand why there are differences in work, because not everybody has the information of this, and in some cases this causes serious problem at work, some of them unsolved ones. We should understand that in every place there are a lot of different attitudes and behaviors in people, some of those are characteristics of their cultures and knowing those differences life in work can be easily and peacefully if we understand the cultural diversity.

Bibliography

• 
  
  Hall, E.T. (1990), Understanding cultural differences, Intercultural Press, Yarmouth, ME


• 
  
  Hall, E.T. (1985), Hidden Differences: Studies in International Communication, Gruner & Jahr, Hamburg

THE CORPORATION

THE CORPORATION

The directors Mark Achbar and Jennifer Abbott showed in this film how the behavior of many large corpotation of the world can affect the society. They did it by giving the corporation characterist of a person and they evaluated them from a psicologic point of view. This fim was created in 2003 and is a Canadian documentary.

QUESTIONS

1. What role should the corporation play in our lives and society, if any?
The corporation must be see as a part of the economy of the world and not as a part of our life, because there is where it becomes into a "psycho monster" that affects those who don't have economic resources to defeat themselves from the attack of it. I think there is where the governments of every country must take a part, because they must make corporation respect the cultures of the country they’re trying to enter and make citizens understand that every corporation even thought it is from the country or foreigner are just a part of a economy and don’t give the corporation values of a person.
They must have more social responsibility and not focus on the economic issues; the role they should play is to take the cultural diversity of some countries to others to show how different cultures are.

2. Should corporations be entitled to the same legal rights as individuals? Where the line should be drawn?
No, as I said before the corporation must be seeing as a part of an economy and not as an individual, that’s why they should be entitled to legal rights designed especially for these institutions because if not there is were they do illegal things that not have the fair punishments. Every person must understand a corporation is just something of an economy that in several cases makes our life easy, but they must

3. How can we ensure corporations are held accountable for their actions? Should individuals (directors, employees, shareholders) bear any responsibility for the actions of a corporation? If so, to what degree?
The corporation will be held for their actions if the directors take total responsibility of they acts, because they are the ones that take important decisions in the corporation, the shareholders have also huge responsibility because they also manage, in certain way, the corporation actions, and the employees also have responsibility but not in a high level because they make part of it and are the ones that hold it, I mean, the directors have the biggest responsibility, the shareholders medium, and the employees low.

4. What are the benefits of the corporate form? Could an alternative model offer these as well?
This form has some benefits, but it depends of the way corporation manage all the things. Because depending of the way things are this form could be positive or negative for the corporation it self and the society that surround it. A corporation must now what benefit it self will also benefit everyone in the society.

5. Do you think corporations are the root cause of the problem, or is it consumerism, capitalism, or all three?
The problem is the consumerism and capitalism, also big part of the fault is from the governments because they aloud corporations to do “illegal” things to employees, environment and society, and not make them pay for the mistakes, countries must make respect themselves from the corporations, there’s were the problem from my point of view born.

6. If corporations weres more reflective of the world’s population (poor, women, ethnically diverse, etc) would that help?
Maybe, but not in a huge level because as I said in the fifth question the problem will be solve if governments take part in this and make rules and rights to defeat the negative influence that a corporation could have on the citizens, even though the corporation must also have social responsibility toward issues like poorness, women, ethnically diverse, children among other important issues of the society.

7. Do you agree with the film’s diagnosis that the corporation is a psychopath?

I totally agree, because the film gave a lot of arguments to think so. And even in our environment we can see that type of behavior where the corporation just care for the positive proffits without looking the problems that they can cause on society.

Bibliography

• 
  
  www.thecorporation.com/


• 
  
  www.imdb.com/title/tt0379225/


• 
  
  propiedadprivada.blogspot.com/2005/05/la-mentalidad-anti-capitalista-del.html

MODULE 1

MODULE 1

I. Introductory module: Culture and International Business & Ethnography

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SUMMARY

In the introductory module we learned about the importance of the culture in international bussines,

we did it by having into account terms as ideology, nationality, social class and gender.

Also we learned the importance of knowing the meaning of international organitational behaviour, that consist in the study of the cultural differences and the cultural diversity that can affect work-related behaviour. We saw some mistakes we can have by not having a correct cross cultural comunication as stereotyping, selective perception, projecting similarities.

Is to important to know how cultural diversity works, that’s why we learned about some positions or views about this issues, those are, parochial view, ethnocentric view and synergistic view.

Finally we saw how to do the ethnograpic research and all the methods, principles, fieldwork guidelines and the ethics you must follow to do it in the rigth way.


QUESTION

How national culture impacts behaviour at work in developed countries like the ones in the United Kindom?

To understand better this issue is important to have into account some of the Hofstede’s knowledge as the cultural dimension he proposed according to the United Kingdom.

First by analysing the Power Distance that is the first dimension, we can see that people in high power distance cultures are much more comfortable with a larger status differential than low power distance cultures. Here climate is measured by geographical latitude, because cultures in high-latitude climate (moderate or cold climates) tend to have low Power Distance Index (PDI) scores and cultures that have tropical climate tend to have high PDI scores. In order to this United Kingdom have low degree of Power Distance and there is multiple research that shows the United Kingdom as a owner of a tigther hierarchy. There is also likely to be more mechanisms to allow feedback from the lower order to the top of the management order.

The second dimension in the Uncertainty Avoidance and this refers to the extent to which a culture feels threatened by uncertain situations and then tries to avoid them by establishing more structure. In the United Kingdom we can see that cultures with low Uncertainty Avoidance Index tend to have reached the level of modernization and have more stable or predictable in their rate of change.

The third dimesion is the Individualism-Collectivism that describes the degree to which a culture depends on and has allegiance to the self or the group. One of the main predictors here is economic development. Is surprising to know that cultures in colder climate are more individualistic and the warmer climate more collectivistic. In order to this the United Kingdom is an individualistic culture and it tends to do not perceive a large psychological distance between in-group and out- group members. They value self-expression, see speaking out as a means of resolving problems, and are likely to use confrontational strategies when dealing with interpersonal problems.


The last dimension is Masculinity-Feminity and It basically refers to expected gender roles in a culture. Is important to have into account here that climate is a predictive factor, because masculine cultures tend to live in warmer climate near the equator and feminine cultures are likely to locate in colder climates away from the equator, that’s why we see that members of high Masculine cultures believe that men should be assertive and women should be nurturing. In United kingdom this do not happen very offen, but there is still some low degree of this.

In conclusion we can see how Hofstede’s theories help us understand some of cultural behaviour in United Kingdom, but also is important to have into account that often the development of a country depends on these and other factors such as level of education of its population which may be just as indicative of why differences between work cultures exist.


Biliography

• Hofstede, (1991), Cultures and organizations: Software of the mind, McGraw-Hill, London




• Hofstede, (2004), Cultural Dimensions Explained: http://www.geert-hofstede.com/hofstede_india.shtml