East Asia

Picture Taken From http://www.gotterdammerung.org/graphics/map-east-asia.gif

The eastern part of Asia has many cultural similarities between the countries that conform it due to the proximity they have and the historical invasions they had suffered. The countries that conform Eastren Asia are: China, both Koreas, Japan, Hong kong, Taiwan, Mancau, Mongolia. These countries represent more or less a 30 percent of the total Asian continent.
In this blog we are going to center our attention in only two countries which are Japan and South Korea.
After the reading we could see that Japan and Korea have many similarities in their managing styles due to the proximity and because during many years Japan occupied the territory of what we know today as korea. It is said that the Korean's model is basicly a copy of the Japanese model, but they have cultural managing differences. One of the similarities we could find between these two countries is the Chaebol structure, the Chaebol structure stands for a conglomerate of multinational business managed or manopolized by families in Korea. an example is Samsung. In Japan they have the zaibatsu model, that basicly stand for a conglomerate of industrial and financial businesses. Another similarity we could found is the way they negotiate, which in both sides are based in respect, are jealous protecting their people with sanitary norms and are critical thinkers before taking any decision, they won't give an inmediate answer. Now let's analyze some differences.




Korea:

* Use a hierarchical authoritarian structure where the important decisions are taken by the top managers.
* They are more individualistic
* Are traditionalist and are very attached to blood lines or family figures
* No job stability
* Tight relation between the government and the companies


Japan:


* Use a Horizontal structure where cooperation and interaction between employees is involved
* Long-term oriented who try to mantain good relationships
* Close related with the suppliers
* Try to create value on their products and maximize the profits
* Loyalty and trust are highly valued
* Tend to guide the organization based on corporate values


If you want to make a better idea of the similarities and differences between the managing styles I invite you to visit Carlos Torres blog on the following link :

http://oyc2010.blogspot.com/2010/03/east-asia-korean-and-japanese.html
He has a very interesting chart where he shows the main key points of the managing styles Korea and Japan have. By the way I recomend his blog as one of the most complete and interesting, you should take a look of it.


References:

Jangho Lee, Thomas W. Roehl, Soonkyoo Choe , What makes management style similar and distinct across borders? Growth, experience and culture in Korean and Japanese Firms.
http://www.usergioarboleda.edu.co/asia/negocios_japon.htm
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zaibatsu

Images taken from:

http://www.uni.edu/becker/japan1.gif
https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhy5x-dkBjQ6TI8kd2jb-t-rahQJB2uOtb9lG01T4rK2l0T-oXnfEC_EV9lMtGBdv1slSQvyKdXFEZYpaHWuhpy-iYYyGcuhd8VkqqRJnYBixGFjez08yMX4Gvw_WnOHZFeVc_hfOJU-nMf/s320/300px-Bandera_de_Corea_del_Sur_Explicada.png

China

As we know China used to be a closed country in terms of businesses due to the ideological thinking imposed by Mao Zedong, but in 1978 Deng Xiaoping traced a strong cultural reform which leaded China to a huge economic growth that has lsted to actual days. After this changes, China has been gaining territory in the global space thanks to the incursion of more than one billion people to the game. These people had a very powerful tool and it was the low costs of labor they offered, opportunity widely used by multinational companies due to the fact that many of them transferred their manufacturing plants to China in order to reduce costs, better known as offshoring.

After the inclusion of China to the WTO in 2001, many companies moved their plants to china, letting chinesse people gain experience and learn from the methods foreingn companies had. With this the economy began to grow, employment statistics rised considerably, etc. This is the girst thing China is doing, learning from others in the short term for later on in the long term use all the knowledge adquiered to become a superpower. A quite ambitious strategy that if it gives a good result, the world should prepare to confront a economical monster. In the long term China will pass from being a manufacturer country to a one thata can create, develop and design its own stuff, adding to it value and high standards of quality at a very low price.

To make a better idea of how businesses are working now days watch this video:

The chinesse people always want to know what your company can do that they can't , are very proactive, have great energy for businesses, are always willing to learn from others, their intecultural adaptability is rapidly improving due to the increasing demands of the global marketplace and they have a medium tolerance for change and risk. Cultural advantages that will defenitely help this country tu success and why not, become the first world power.

In order to answer the question of this blog, we have to understand what the Guanxi term stands for. The term Guanxi is related to the friendship or exchange of favors between two or more persosns. There are two types of Guanxies, The vertical Guanxie and the horizontal. The vertical Guanxie stands for the relationship between the managers and the employees, the second one stands for the relationships that can be formed in order to harmonize with the society. The guanxi philosophy is beeing implemented in chinesse culture as a way to mantain more stable relationships in business, inside of China and abroad, serching to increase the confidence in the investor. It is very important because it allows the chinesse people to mantain good relastionships with the clients for long-term periods and it also improves their world wide image as good business people. With the guanxi philosophy the chinesse people are demonstrating thata are very conservative to other people and they rather preferr to know who the person is before they do business, something thata I consider as an obstacle for China's attempt to be the first world power, but at the same time secures them against uncertainty.

References:

Chun Lisa Chen and Mark Easterby-Smith, Is Guanxi still working, while Chinese MNCs go global? The case of Taiwanese MNCs in the UK, 2008
The World Is Flat by Thomas Friedman chapter 3.

Images taken from:
http://www.regent.edu/acad/global/publications/rgbr/vol2iss1/images/2008_April_Guanxi.jpg http://columnacritica.files.wordpress.com/2009/10/china-flag.jpg

Video taken from:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=brs777fdA2A&feature=related

Managing Diversity

For multinational and non multinational companies, managing diversity has become one of the key points in order to have agood environment in the company, manage good relationship with clients and suppliers, helps as a support to the internationalization process and helps the company in acieving a maximization.
Some examples of diversity are: the religion, sexual orientation, costumes, social-economic status, etc. the important thing is that employees should be managed and treated as equal and avoid descrimination or maltreatment in order to motivate and commit them. but understanding and managing diversity could also help a company to defene and understand its maket orientation, which will be translated in better profits beacause you are attacking the right point.
watch this video to make an idea of how diversity can affect, positively or negative a company.

Companies must also be cautious with the way manage diversity because if the media or the community gets to know a case of discrimination or mistreatment in the company, a bad reputation of it could affect it not only with sales, but also in the image, further businesses, profits, etc.

QUESTION: do you think the IBM case reflects a strong organizational commitment to diversity?, why?

After analyzing the IBM case i believe or support that there is an strong organizational commitment from IMB and that they are interested for diversity inside the organization. I base my statement in the example of the number of executives hired by the company that had or have dissabilities. i also base my statement because IBM want's to know the employee problems inside and outside the company, crete a dialogue, face each problem, and finally try to solve it. Always looking for a better synergy between the teams in the organization.Involving every one is the main goal IBM has, and from my point of view is a great strategy because it will translate into better profits and a better work environment and shows a long-term relationship.

References:

http://www.managingdiversity.co.uk/

Stanley F. Slater, Robert A. Weigand b, Thomas J. Zwirlein, 2008, The business case for commitment to diversity (Page 201 – 209)

Class presentation

Image taken from:

http://www.mscco.net/images/Coachi1.gif

Video taken from:
http://www.youtube.com/v/H8nKQyTQe_U&hl=en_US&fs=1&

Migrant Workers

As we saw in class, migrant workers are the ones that go from one place to another to work due to voluntary or involuntary reasons. A clear example of migrant workers is the British Empire, during the colonization age, the British people migrated to the empire's colonies searching for wealth and better opportunities. Now days the most wanted places to migrate are : The United States of America, Spain, Italy, Canada, New Zealand, Germany, Russia, and others, due to the good opportunities these countries offer and because they are developed countries.
The reasons to people migrate are due to many factors like, violence, work opportunities, improve life quality, higher income, political reasons, stability, etc. All these reasons could be summarized into two categories, the voluntary or involuntary reasons. The voluntary reasons are when the people goes abroad in order to look for better opportunities. by the other hand the involuntary reasons are when the people are forced to leave the country due to political problems, such as war or political instability, economical problems, etc. This usually happens on low income countries and its people look to the developed countries as a way of solving their problems. An example of this is the American dream many people have. But it is the other case where well educated and skilled people migrate in order to improve their income and knowledge, this must not be confused with expatriate assignments or overseas experience, now that the main difference with them is the social economical factors. people who move from their domestic land to another looking for better wages, or who move to earn more money are called immigrants.

All the migrant process is related to the push and pull factors, or the attractiveness or repellents of a country to invite people or to make people leave from a country.

If we analyze the case of Canada, we could see that this country has been highlighted as a discriminante country because they used to accept only immigrants from the UK and USA. Later on the Canadian government was focused on looking for high skilled people and educated in order to compete and fulfill the high standards the world was demanding. By the other hand the country had to prevent the migration of native people to other countries because the knowledge was leaving to other countries. Finally they had to face an aging problem, the country was managed by old people and they needed new ideas, teenagers. All these problems to be solved were a hard work to the government and they had a tough time with this. Time has showed that the quality of the poeple arriving to the country wasn't the best, reason why they had to implement the point system as a way of protecting their sovereignty and their interests. I don't consider this to be a discrimination process, I look at it a good strategy to improve, if you want to be succesful to the constant changes and challenges globalization is bringing with it, the ones that are the best qualified, and posses the best people will have a better opportunity to success. They are defending their own interests, wealth and sovereignty,I dont see anything wrong with it and I argue that migration should be regulated.

References:

class presentation

http://www.adviceguide.org.uk/e_migrant_workers.pdf

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Migrant_worker

Images taken from:
http://newsimg.bbc.co.uk/media/images/44073000/gif/_44073837_world_emig_uk_416map.gif http://api.ning.com/files/Vu7ZrXOf0c22UdUiVuFGvvGWxZ5OjpkUd*d2CuBoHuiLZbuDZ4jAaOQHqfzcbZSOdBvmmsURe3USfdhy8QVW5dMx0usfvhiC/American_Dream.jpg

Expatriates Assignments And Overseas Experience

Expatriate assignments is defined as the type of people who go to another country, hired in most cases by transnational companies, in order to work successfully in a international environment. After a period of working outside of its domestic environment, the individual might return home working with the same transnational company and share all his acquired knowledge and skills in order to improve the company at the domestic market. This phenomenon has been powered during the last years by the globalization the world has experienced during the XX century. Although, thanks to technology and internet, the number of expatriates in the world tends to reduce.

The key objective of expatriate placements is to encourage professional development. It is also used for knowledge transfer and in particular for long-term knowledge transfer, for example when it is necessary to transfer culture, values, and particular technical experiences in specific competence areas.

Expatriate assignments is not the same as Overseas experience. An oversea experience is when a individual decides to go abroad, in this case the individual isn't sent by a company. Usually the indivudual has saved money, have quitted his job, and had settled itself overseas alone. People under overseas experience usually leave and look for different kind of jobs and areas. Sometimes they look for not qualified jobs, like temporary jobs, in order to pay their needs. During their vacation they use to spend time traveling. After months or years of doing this they return to their home in order to resume their carreer.

One of the most critical processes for an expatriate assignment is the selection of the person who is going abroad. Choosing the wrong person to be an expat could make the assignment fail and will have a huge impact in the company's costs. in order to prevent mistakes in the selection process, the company must ensure a classified and punctual selection criteria. They have to look for a person that is flexible to changes or adaptable and they have to look for a person who has the capabilities learn and adjust to the environment quickly. It would be better if they hire people with traveling experience.

References:

http://www.aperianglobal.com/ped/velWino3_global1.pdf

http://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspxdirect=true&db=buh&AN=434394&loginpage=Login.asp&lang=es&site=ehos-live
http://www.associatedcontent.com/article/60305/expatriate_assignments_pay_big_bucks_pg2.html?cat=3

ImagestakenFrom:

http://www.expatriateadviser.com/images/iStock_000000394657XSmall.jpg
https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh7GgQw1l724Z9VXX5_U9XpcFABT4ICTS9wn6mXVkIvDETVEhhuDNMsdfUvulXwpy375B3g5yC4ZPWcQprhHldf49-M08hoFkC4Qv5CyUiahG4LJXot-HEhlRat9XqvCN425HTuxH-gJ4bF/s400/www.jpg

Video Taken from:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d1hL6XKyaTY

Exploring Diversity

Diversity could be defined as the differences people or groups have among the world. some of these differences include culture, language, traditions, religion, manners, etc.
Diversity could be classified into three big groups, the first ones are those that could be perceptible immediately, the ones I call the external dimensions. This are the ones you could notice more or less without knowing the other, like the gender, age, religion, dress code, ethnicity, race, etc. An example could be the differece between a jamaican male guy and a Indian lady, the differences could be seen in their skin color, age, gender, the way they dress,one beleifs in Rasta Fari the other in Induhism, and so on.The second ones are the ones you know by interacting with the other and are more related to the presonal or internal dimensions, like the study level, the personal skills that person has, his political view, wor experience, etc. Finally the last Group has to do with the deep inside personal dimensions thata are figured by knowing the person for a while and being close to it, this dimension includes the 4 classifications we saw in class that are: Personal Truths, Work Style, Character or personality, and Sexual orientation.
This is a topic that must be well knwon in order to prevent misundertandings, have better communications, accept others the way they are, prevent stereotypes, and repect the differences.
If we analyze the case of the European union we could see that this is the most integrated continent in the world, eventhough they have many cultural differences. Now days the European union counts with 27 countries and they agreed to have and mantain the multiculturalism and muti ethic costumes. So far they have integrated economically and politically, but things like the traditions, language, costumes, dances, etc. remain as each country had it long time ago, as a part of their cultural identity. I personally don't believe that this integration will lead to a homogenization and by the countrary it will help to promote diversity. It is said in the union's constitution and people will defnd culture as a part of identity adn way of differensiation over the others. The european union tries its best to mantain diversity within their countries, but sometimes the differences of ways of thinking lead to problems and fight, wich slows down the dessicion making process and it has been seen some cases of xenophobia between citizens of the union.
Watch this video:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WMNSHONoyx8&feature=related


References:

Gabriel N. Toggenburg. 2005. Who is managing ethnic and cultural diversity in the European condominium? (Page 717 – 738)

http://www.univie.ac.at/diversity/dimensions.html

Images Taken from:

http://leaningtowardsjustice.files.wordpress.com/2006/06/diversity.jpg

Video Taken from:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WMNSHONoyx8&feature=related

National y Oraganizational Culture

Organizational culture is the social management study that focus on the psychology, attitudes, experiences, beliefes, and values of an organization. It is the way the people and groups inside of an organisation interact and share specific values and norms. It could be also focused to the way the people of the organisation interacst with the people from the outside or stakeholders.
The organization usually developes guides, norms and expectations in order to describe the correct behavior an employee must have in particular situations and the appropiate manners employees must have betweeen each other. These guides and norms encourage the organizational goals they pretend to persue between the members, and are determined as a clear definition of how succesfully a company is.
The organizational culture is different fron the Corporate Culture. A Corporate culture are the values, traditions, meanings and costumes as a whole or total, that determine the uniqueness of a company. Corporate culture focuses more over the vision the founder have and reflects which are the company's objectives.
We must differentiate this because when we talk about organizational culture, we are talking about an "x-ray" of the national culture, since as it has been studied, the way people behave is more or less the way the have been raised, educated and influeced by the culture.
In this order of ideas, we could say that there is a corporate culture in each organization since they give the parameters the company has in order to identify itself. It gives more or less an idea of where the company is going and how they will achieve it, it helps the organization to organize and define the tasks employees and the company must fulfill.
Allthough, this corporate culture has been facing during the last years a hudge transformation due to the globalization, companies have had faced the need to addapt to world constant changes, new emerging countries and cultures (china - india) and must addapt to a very agresive competitiveness. Reasons why the companies have had to develope new strategies to survive and comfront these challenges that globalization brings.

watch this video that gives an example of how misunderstood employees are with the organizational culture.

References:

http://managenthelp.org/org_thry/culture/culture.htm">http://managenthelp.org/org_thry/culture/culture.htm

http://www.soi.org/reading/change/cultures.shrml

Images taken from:

http://adea360.files.wordpress.com/2009/04/Organizational_culture2.jpg

Video taken from:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H9-Wc6Z0-Yc

ETHNOGRAPHIC RESEARCH

Ethnographic research is the social science that studies the personal experiences or social behaviors of a community, wehre the researcher gets involved through observation. It is the way a culture gets described through specific information in terms of costumes, behaviors and beliefs.

The observation could be done in different ways and they vary depending on each situation or the specific object to study. In some cases the researcher has to get deeply involved on his case study and make it as if it was of his own group, he feels as a part of the group. we could also have the case where the researcher has to do the research, but not get involved with it directly, he has to step a side and not get directly involved with the case study. It is important to mention thata the researcher must search for the aspects that could affect a certain group from the inside or deep thoughts and the outside or superficial things. in order to gather good and complete information, the researcher must interview, collect data, analyze documents and observe carefully each case of study, always making its resaerch the most objective posssible. if he does well in this, the better information he'll have to work and analyze nad the better results he'll get.

Ethnographics gives us tools to understand others ways of life from two important points of views, the way the group of study sees the world (Emic) and the way the world sees the group (Epic). These tools are widely used now days in order to understand cultures, the way they behave, things they like, etc. Important information that could be used in areas such as marketing, psichology, anthropology, etc.

The cleares example for ethnographic research to be done is on marketing. in order for a multinational enterprise to lauch a new product all over the world, this company has to do a very exhaustive research of the different ways cultures behave, consume, differ in terms of beliefs, what they like, etc. They have to do a quantitative and qualitative research of the different cultures, gather a lot of information from these cultures, and finally with all the information decide whether to launch or not the product in specific countries or cultures.

In order to make myself clear watch this video:

References:

http://faculty.chass.ncsu.edu/garson/PA765/ethno.htm

http://www-rcf.usc.edu/ñgenzuk/ethnographic_research.html

MICHAEL GENZUK, A SYNTHESIS OF ETHNOGRAPHIC RESEARCH (Page 1 -10)

Images taken from:

http://designthinking.ideo.com/wp-content/uploads/2008/08/6-billion-others.jpg

Video taken from:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0fM_CJ5vDK4