Managing diversity, religions and the organizations.

Group: two or more people with common interests and constant interaction

Team: this is a group of people with complementary skills who are committed to a common goal.

The norms of behavior include the standards that a group uses to analyze the behavior of the members and group cohesion is what makes the group stick together. Social loafing refers to the inability of a group member to contribute to the team, the loss of individuality is the process in which a group members losses the responsibility for individual behavior.

Tucks man’s five-stage model of group development:

Forming: guidance and direction.

Storming: power struggles.

Norming: clear roles.

Performing: clear vision.

Adjourning: task completion.

The members of a group can contribute in different ways such as, contributor who supplies information, collaborator who is the one that focuses the team on a mission, the communicator that promotes collective effort and the challenger who is the one that questions the mission.

Diversity is the variation of social identities among people or workers who coexist together in a working setting. And diversity management is just a way of making an environment that will allow people to use their full potential to accomplish goals and 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 consequence of ignoring diversity?

The strategy could be looking for people with different social identities and believes, just interviewing and getting to know the person before hiring, but there really is no defined strategy to assure that you will get a diverse group unless you hire people from different countries or at least different cultural backgrounds, the consequence of ignoring diversity could sometimes be a costly one since diversity will bring to the table different points of view and approaches ensuring a better final decision, this is why diversity can sometimes be a source of competitive advantage.

Religion is defined as shared beliefs and rituals, moral principles to guide behavior, but there is also a sociological meaning which states that every religion separates the sacred from the profane. The function of religion is to give approval to social arrangements; it also provides a sense of understanding and belonging.

Christianity: Weber states that their work ethic and wealth creation was the driven force of capitalism.

Islam: is a society based on social justice and equity. An all embracing way of life. Under Islam people do not own property.

Hinduism: focused on the importance of achieving spiritual growth.

Buddhism: spiritual achievement and undermines wealth creation.

Confucianism: interests of collectivity are more important and higher of those of individuals.

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

the dominant religion in Colombia is Catholicism which is known to be one of the most conservative ones; about 80-90 % of Colombians are guided by catholic principles.

Now days, the religious implications of doing business have come to a minimum and for the most part, religion and business activities are kept separated, however, in some cases people will act and perform according to the religious beliefs or principles that they follow, some examples are for instance during the ‘’Holy week’’ where people behave differently, buy religious merchandise, visits temples and stop eating certain products, also traveling and family trips increase all over the country, becoming a business opportunity for people involved in those activities.

information retrieved from: colombia pais maravilloso, http://pwp.supercabletv.net.co/garcru/colombia/Colombia/introduccion.html

information retrieved from: eafit interactiva, organizaciones y culturas course, contenidos.

image retrieved from: goups, goolge imagenes 

http://www.google.com/imgres?imgurl=http://www.mannchs.org.au/images/group_exercise.jpg&imgrefurl=http://www.mannchs.org.au/&usg=__g8rI6j3ezhjj5FsgDXXhrQm-a4I=&h=600&w=800&sz=73&hl=es&start=0&zoom=1&tbnid=0IeAc28CrJ2SaM:&tbnh=122&tbnw=162&ei=v9_TTZr9DM22twfd9rCUCg&prev=/search%3Fq%3Dgroups%26hl%3Des%26biw%3D1280%26bih%3D595%26tbm%3Disch0%2C36&itbs=1&iact=hc&vpx=261&vpy=101&dur=268&hovh=194&hovw=259&tx=123&ty=102&sqi=2&page=1&ndsp=19&ved=1t:429,r:1,s:0&biw=1280&bih=595

image retrieved from: goolge imagenes, religion.

Communication and virtual teams

In this chapter we start by defining a few concepts in the field of communications.

Interpersonal communication is communication between two or more people within an organization; the communicator is the person, from which the message first gets out, and the receiver is the person receiving the message, a perceptual screen is defined as a window used to interact with people that influence and affect the communication.

By definition reflexive listening is the ability to listen carefully to someone else and repeat back to the speaker the message to avoid misunderstandings this kind of listening has four level of verbal response, which are: clarify the implicit, reflective core feeling, paraphrase the expressed and affirmed contact.

When it comes to communication, here we see to ways of communicating:

One-way communication: here a person sends a message to another person and nothing follows. This is good for simple directions but less accurate than two-way.

Two-way communication: here the communicator and the receiver interact; this is actually great for problem solving.

There is also nonverbal communications that refers to any kind of communication that does not involved words. Proxemics, kinesics, facial behavior and paralanguage are the four basic types of the nonverbal communication, some of the barriers to communication are: physical separation, status and gender differences, cultural diversity and language.

Virtual teams are groups of workers brought together by information technologies to accomplished organization activities and tasks. Here information technology is given what is needed for the development of new organization forms, virtual teams can be geographically dispersed and driven by a common purpose, and some team members might be part of other companies, these kind of team differ from traditional teams, here all team member are communicate face to face while in virtual teams the communications takes place through asynchronous means. Not everything is good about virtual teams as mistrust and communication break downs are a mayor draw back.

According to Kuruppuarachchi (2009) what benefits and problems arise as a consequence of the creation of virtual team? Identify five each. Based on this, explain how to make the transition from a more traditional team structure to the more distributed team structure.

The main benefits that arise from virtual teams are: cost and money saving, the great flexibility that will allow members of the team to work together even if they are not in the same room or place, another benefits are time savings as it cuts down on the excessive and expensive travel, it also help to build local and global presence faster.

This kind of teams presents problems as well, among those we find,  a constant failure to see emotional aspects of the team members, misunderstandings present themselves as communications is not face to face, and also technology constrains, it is important to notice that not everyone can perform well in a virtual team environment, members should be able to work separate and independently.

When it comes down to making the transition from traditional teams to a virtual team structure, the best way to get this done with the lease amount of trouble possible is by simply mentoring, teaching, and couching because is not the same thing leading a team in person than it is virtually, you also need to have the people willing to work separated from other team members, this also has a certain degree of self motivation of the members.

image retrieved from: communication, http://www.google.com/search?q=communication&hl=es&prmd=ivnsb&source=lnms&tbm=isch&ei=k8vTTdGjKIb20gGoiKzmCw&sa=X&oi=mode_link&ct=mode&cd=2&sqi=2&ved=0CBIQ

image retrieved from: virtual teams, google imagenes.

information retrieved from: eafit interactiva, oraganizaciones y culturas course, contenidos.

information retrieved from: The Benefits and Liabilities of Virtual Teams: Six Things Managers Need to Know

information retrieved from: virtual team benefits and challenges, http://www.time-management-guide.com/virtual-team.html

The role of workers, migrant workers and expatriates.

Migrant labor refer to the movement of people from one country to another primarily for employment reason, crop harvesting is one of the main activities that these migrants workers are used for.

China has a big number of migrant workers with about 153 million a big portion of this number works in export zones in the making of cheap goods for the rest of the world. Expatriate means to exile oneself from one’s native country, and expatriate assignments is basically not bounded to a single organization and consists of sequences of experiences across organizations and jobs, these assignments requires cycles of reskilling  for the expatriate to make adjustments for the host country and readjustments for the home country upon return.

Integration is a process that needs both, adaptation of the newcomers and the host society. For the newcomer to established himself he must perform the following tasks:

Negotiate and effective psychological contract which is an agreement between an individual and an organization that states what each party is expected to give and receive in the relationship, it also needs to manage the stress of the society and gather as much information as possible, undergo a change and acquisition phase, and make the transition easier.

Mentoring: the international manager should view the development of a mentoring network as an important activity and be open to learning from any source available, the mentor functions are career couching and social support.

When it comes to managing expatriate assignments, the success or failure of these personnel depends for the most part on how well prepared through training in culture, customs and language they are.

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

In terms of immigrations is relatively easy because Colombia does not have a very restricted policy letting people in from other countries, but in terms of labor cost it might just be a little higher than those local employees,  in some commercial areas Colombia might look to hire these expatriates if they come from places or companies where the knowledge and technology are superior to those available in Colombia.

An example is Sofasa, which assembles cars; here a few number of employees and mechanics specialists train people on how to do a better job, another case is Haceb, here the company looks for good engineers from other countries to help improved the production process. 

information retrieved from: que rol desempenan los tranbajadores expatriados en las empresas, http://www.noticias.com/que-rol-desempenan-los-trabajadores-expatriados-en-las-empresas-noticias-com.92601

information retrieved from: eafit interactiva, organizaciones y culturas course, contenidos

video retrieved from: canadian experience class, http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XWmr2vh2FNs

Merging organizational culture.

Organizational culture can be seen as a pattern of assumptions that are somehow valid and might encourage new members to think is the right way to perceive and feel within the organization, this collective programming of the mind is what identifies the members of one organization and sets them apart from members of the other companies.

Mergers and acquisitions are good ways to help a firm renew its market position a lot faster than internal development, merging as an integration process requires building a new social identity, and this integration process is the real source of value creations in acquisitions, this value can be created by economies of scale, economies of scope and resource transfer.

Acculturative process is defined as the ways in which two groups adapt to each other and work to solve future or incoming conflicts, this occurs when this groups have cultural differentiations and also when the organizational forces reject integration as a strategy, The success of an integration strategy depends mainly on the manager’s capability to reconcile the necessity for strategic interdependence between the two companies, and also managing the cultural differences has been a very successful strategy in integration process.

Because of the current business environment that we live in now days, Managers might want to focus on three different cultural modifications such as the constant support for a global view of today’s business, reinforcements for ethical behavior and the empowerment of employees to be better in terms of product and services quality.

According to the case studies, 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?

the steps to make this happen are: to create a positive and well designed atmosphere for ability an capability transfer before beginning consolidation of physical assets, when it comes down to integration, the appropriate strategies and the right implementation eases the learning process and thus minimizes the uncertainty that the employees expect, the strategy must be carefully chosen and implemented by the same standards with both groups to avoid greater uncertainty and low cooperation. 

image retrieved from: organizational culture, http://www.google.com/search?q=organizational+culture&hl=es&prmd=ivnsbl&source=lnms&tbm=isch&ei=csLTTaq5OorL0QHWwu3XCw&sa=X&oi=mode_link&ct=mode&cd=2&sqi=2&ved=0CBkQ_AUoAQ&biw=1280&bih=595

information retrieved from: eafit interactiva, organizaciones y culturas course, contenidos.

information retrieved from: organizational culture: corporate culture in organizations, http://humanresources.about.com/od/organizationalculture/Organizational_Culture_Corporate_Culture_in_Organizations.htm

Organizational learning, change and conflict.

In this reading, knowledge is defined as power and the capacity for effective action, and learning as the process of acquiring knowledge or a skill. The social learning theories explain how human behave in continuous interaction and some environmental influences.

Learning organizations are those places where people expand their abilities to get the result that they really want, these organizations are important because they conduct new ways of doing business in order to stay alive in competitive markets, the organizations must continue to learn these new ways to prevent going out of business, this is due to the fact that new technologies and business practices will eventually catch up to those organizations that don’t try to improve, and to be able to obtain competitive advantage these organizations must be able to learn really fast from their mistakes and failures as well as from the success.

Organizational learning works if the company has the capacity to collect new information and put it into action.

What is the relationship between organizational learning and individual satisfaction?

There is a direct relationship between these two concepts as individual satisfaction is a sense of fulfillment due to a job well done or a goal that has been achieved, if there is individual satisfaction, learning will take place as each individual is part of the organization, this will untimely help the company and make organizational learning much easier to be implemented.

Change is the process of going from a present state to a desired state, this process has become very important within organizations as flexibility and responsiveness are key factors in order to succeed, Change can affect different aspects within an organization, things like strategy, technology and structure, organizational change is composed by planned change that results from deliberate decisions to alter the organization and unplanned change that is imposed on the organization, there are also some scopes of change  such as:

Incremental change: making small improvements.

Strategic change: organizational restructuring.

Transformational change: the organizations move to a different state.

Conflict has some positive consequences as it often lead to new ideas, stimulates creativity and motives change but it also has negative consequences such as diverts energy from work, wastes resources, and creates a negative climate. 

The model of Kurt Lewin has three stages; number one is unfreezing that creates a level of dissatisfaction, then changing which requires organizing the resources to bring the change, and finally the refreezing stage which is embedding the new ways of working into the organization.

Is it possible to change corporate culture? If so, how?

Yes it is possible, culture within a company can be define as an specific collection of values or norms that are share by people in the organizations, this corporate culture can be changed by altering the way the corporation treat employees, this is basically the main way to achieve this change, employees are the most important factor here, as the model of Beer shows us, enforcing new ways of thinking, attitudes and behaving on the employees is a good way to make the change, but this depends on how they respond to those new concepts, which is why the organizations must begin by changing the way it treats its employees in a positive way, making them feel good about working for that particular company.

Information retrieved from: a good way to change corporate culture: http://blogs.hbr.org/bregman/2009/06/the-best-way-to-change-a-corpo.html

Information retrieved from: eafit interactiva, organizaciones y culturas course, contenidos

Image retrieved from: managing change, http://www.google.com/searchq=change+and+conflict&hl=es&prmd=ivns&source=lnms&tbm=isch&ei=Ey_TTZKRO9G2tweDhpmsCg&sa=X&oi=mode_link&ct=mode&cd=2&sqi=2&ved=0CBoQ_AUoAQ&biw=1280&bih=595

Leadership and Management styles.

First the two concepts are defined as: Management is basically maintaining order which also means to have responsibility for something, and leadership refers to producing change and guiding in direction, these tow concepts differ because they focus on different activities, management on things such as vision and judgment and leadership on activities of mastering routines.

When it comes to personality dimensions a leader believes that goals arise from desire while a manager thinks that those goals arise out of necessity, leaders seek high risk positions at work as oppose to managers who look for moderate risk, another interested dimension is the relationship with others as leaders feel comfortable in solitary work, manager on the other hand avoid this kind of solitary situations.

It is said that the management process reduces uncertainty and provide stability while the leadership process creates uncertainty and change, even though this tow concepts are different, they could be complementary systems of action, and having an effective leadership combine with a good management can result in a healthy organization.

The fundamental act of leadership is to induce people to be aware of what they feel; this is because leadership is an everyday way of thinking and acting. Some of the early trait Behavioral theories of leadership are:

Authoritarian: managers retain as much power and decision making authority as possible.

Consultative:  the leader will consult to everyone involved in a task to get their ideas.

Democratic:  keep employees informed about things that affect their work.

Laissez-faire: managers give employees as much freedom as possible.

There are some leader that inspire followers to transcend their self interests and achieve exceptional performance, these leader are called ‘’transformational leaders’’ a charismatic leader would use personal abilities to have effects on followers; there are also authentic leaders who operate at high levels of moral integrity.

Do you (or would you want to) work in an autocratic, democratic, or consultative work environment? What might be the advantages and disadvantages of each?

I would like to work in a democratic work environment, this is because as an employee you get informed of the things that affect your work and the responsibilities of decision making and problem solving are equally shared. Some of the advantages are that this environment enables you to focus more on the task at hand and concentrate better on getting your job done properly, also not being entirely responsible for the decision making might be good for the employee should something go wrong, workers get the sense that their opinion counts for something and because of that they become more committed to achieving goals  and performing better for the organization, a disadvantage is definitely the inability to have significant freedom making decisions and doing your job. A clear down side is that collaborative decisions take time, and things will run slower.

Information retrieved from: democratic leadership, http://www.money-zine.com/Career-Development/Leadership-Skill/Democratic-Leadership/

information retrieved from: eafit interactiva, organizaciones y culturas course, contenidos.

Image retrieved from: the endless and useless debate, http://trendsupdates.com/the-endless-and-useless-debate-on-leadership-vs-management/

Video retrieved from: Desi williamson – leadership vs management, http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Smwn-cvxop0

Decision making, Ethical behavior in international business.

Here we see two types of decisions; a program type is simply a decision that is already established for the manager to make, while a nonprogrammed kind is an entirely new decision which requires creativity, there are some models of decision making, the rational model which defines how persons should behave to optimize the outcome, the bounded rationality models that states some limits about how rational someone making the decisions can actually be, and there is also a garbage can model that suggests that the decisions within an organization are random.

Risk aversion: individuals who chose options with low risk, there are also risk takers who accept greater potential for loss. Escalation of commitment is “the tendency to commit resources to a failing course of action, this occurs due to optimism, personal pride and others.

Participative decision making is basically making choices in which persons that are affected by decision, influence the making of those choices, when it comes to making decisions is not fair to say that is better to do it individually than in a group, or vice versa, because for the most part this depends on what kind of task or problem you are up against.

Techniques for group decision making: ‘’Brainstorming’’: generate as many ideas as possible on a subject, ‘’Nominal Group Technique’’: generating alternatives and choosing one. ‘’Delphi technique ‘’ experts knowledge in decision making, ‘’devil’s advocacy’’ preventing group think. ‘’dialectical inquiry debate of opposing sets.

Ethics are norms and rules people belief to be the right things to do on the other hand morals could be seen as principals to determine what is right or wrong, ethical behavior is defined as ‘’acting in ways consistent with one’s personal values and the commonly held values of the organization and society, there are some ethical theories. One is the consequential theory that emphasizes the outcomes of behavior; another one is the ruled based theory which is more about the act and not the effects, and there is also the character theory about personal virtues of the person.

How can organizations effectively manage both risk taking and escalation of commitment in the decision-making behavior of employees?

Risk decision making and escalations commitment can be managed by training employees to identify the negative effects that can occur when they make a decision, also encourage them to notify the decisions they want to make so the managers can make a considerations of the risk, some risky moves can pay off in the future but this has to be well monitored to avoid a potential harm to the organization. Another way to manage this is by forming work groups to evaluate the decision making beforehand.

image retrieved  from: http://www.google.com/imageshl=es&xhr=t&q=decision+making&cp=13&um=1&ie=UTF8&source=og&sa=N&tab=wi&biw=1280&bih=595

image retrieved from: http://www.google.com/images?um=1&hl=es&biw=1280&bih=595&tbs=isch:1&sa=1&q=ethics&aq=f&aqi=g2&aql=&oq=
information retrieved from: http://interactiva.eafit.edu.co/ei/
information retrieved from: http://www.ehow.com/about_5438007_risk-management-decision-making.html