ACTIVITY ABOUT MIGRATION

1. Turkish migration to Germany.
   All oriental Europe has experienced migration process through the history. In this case we are going to discuss the Turkish migration to Germany.
   The Turkish has some decisive moments in its process migration to Germany: the first moment is after the Second World War where the migrants had high level of education and traveled to Germany to work for a limited time and they were supposed to return home after a given time.
   In 1960’s Germany implemented politics to catch labor force, non specialized, (Guestworker) from different countries, Turkey in that moment was in economic recession and political instability, for this reason there were a huge wave of Turkish migrants to Germany .
   In the 1980 the process of the unification of Germany affected the economy and the labor supply, this caused a reversed situation were the migrants diminished but the unemployment increased. For the 90’s the German economy had established and the Turkey migration could be reorganized and established.
   Nowadays in Berlin is estimated that near the 10% of the population is Turkish and in their majority are qualified workers or with its own business.
   The German government has focused its policies in younger population, trying to continue their educational process to then have an easier access to the labor market. The European Union also has a common migration policy which tries to improve the standards of life quality for migrants.
   The Turkish government is active in the way that it is cooperative to for example, implement schools for the Turkish youth but it wants that the schools regard the Turkish culture while the German government tries to make with the youth a process of assimilation of the German culture.
2. How can Brain Drain be stopped?
   Every person has its professional, familiar and personal desires. If someone feels that have better opportunities outside his/her country, he/she will look the migration as an opportunity. For that reason I think that Brain Drain can not be stopped, but managed. If the countries invest on health, employment and looks for stability, the civilians will feel that have opportunities in their home countries.
   Developed countries invest in health systems of other countries as a way to manage migration.

References

• Levent Soysal. Un recuento de la migración turca en y hacia Europa: pasado, presente y futuros. (2006)
• Habil. Karen Schönwälder. ¿Cuál es el grado de integración de los inmigrantes en la sociedad alemana? (2008) en: WWW.GOETHE.DE/GES/

MIGRATION

International Organization for Migration (OIM) is an organization estabished in 1951, its mission is to act with its partners in the international community to:

• Assist in meeting the growing operational challenges of migration management.


• Advance understanding of migration issues


• Encourage social and economic development through migration


• Uphold the human dignity and well-being of migrants

Although the organization doesnt has an especifically issue to work with women, it has recognize women as a vulnerable part of the society taking into account that almos half of the migrant population are women. Its also important to remark that it has a gender policy that is responsible to promote gender awareness and sensivity.

The Working Group on Gender Issues was established in 1955 and has a relevant position in the organization. The group has some Gender Focal Points where all the policies to support women are located.

The United Nations also has a department called Division for the Advancement of Women who also works on woman and migration issues.

References:

www.un.org/womenwatch/daw/meetings/consult/CM-Dec03-WP1.pdf

www.oim.int/jahia/Jahia/iom-gender

http://www.eacnur.org/

Mergers and Acquisitions

With the globalization that we are living nowadays, merging process and acquisitions are becoming very popular.

When big companies are interested in acquire new markets is a good strategy to look for companies that already have the market and negotiate with them.



Merger is defined as "the combining of two or more companies, gennerally by offering the stockholders of one company securities in the acquiring company in exchange of the surrender of their stock" (investopedia).



In other words is when two or more companies become one with a mutual agreement.

Acquisition is a "corporate action in wich a company buy most if not all of the target company´s ownership stakes on order to assume control of the target firm."



India has experienced an important growth of mergers and acquisitions in this decade, an example of a merger was made by France Telecom wich pays almost 2 billions dollars to get a stake in India's Aircel ( 25% of the stocks company), and Indian operator.

References:

Image source: www.aircel.com

www.bloomberg.com/news/india-pakistan

www.intomobile.com2009.06.26/france-telecom

MANAGING CHANGE AND CONFLICT

In this opportunity we are going to discuss how to manage change specially when we as people involved in international business have to confront and manage different cultures, religion and traditions.

There are many examples of companies that wanted to enter into new markets and the succes of the introduction depended in how the company managed the cultural differences.

A company or organization has its own culture wich is influenced by the external culture and indeed the employee´s culture.

In the same way when a company moves to other country it should study and try to accomodate to the culture where the company is entering in.

This happens in all levels, for example if a person is going to a foreign country with different traditions or culture; the person will be aware to try to fits the culture.

This picture is an example of a clash of cultures: Obama was visiting the Emperor of Japan and bowed the emperor trying to follow the Japanese tradition while the emperor greet in a western style.

In business, we can take advantage of the differences, is this the case of the Ubuntu philosophy.

Ubuntu: According to Chinkada (1990) is a "particular form of African Humanism. it involves alms-giving, being sympathetic, caring, sensitive to the needs of others, beong respectful, considerate, patient and kind".

In this philosophy there are several aspects that are well defined and that can be taken as competitive advantages for any organization:

• Productivity: In the ubuntu context, "the emphasis is on the social being rather than on technical racionality" this means efficiency and solidarity. Rewards and suffering must be shared and the harmony is very important.
• Relationship with others: they see each other as family members. They are collectivistics.
• Decision making: decisions are taken by consensus and when a problem exists, a resolution is looking to restore the harmony.

These are just some aspects that can be involved positively in the organizations and can be taken as competitive advantages.

References:

1. Image source: www.grandrants.wordpress.com

2. E.D. Prinsloo. 2000. "The African View of Participatory Business Management". Journal of Business Ethics, Vol 25, No 4, pp 275-286.

3. Mangaliso, Mzamo. 2003. "Building competitive advantage from Ubuntu". In Thomas, David Clinton Editor, reading and cases in International Management: A cross cultural perspective.

COMMUNICATION AND TEAM WORK

Virtual Teams:

It can be defined as "a group of geographically and/or organizationally dispersed coworkers assembled using a combination of information and communication technologies for accomplishing an organizational task".

Virtual teams can be efficient and can have many benefits if they are well managed and directed by one member that is able to assign roles and functions.

Some of the benefits are: flexibility in work schedule, reduced costs, elimination of time-money consuming travel, etc.

Task #5

Colombian Metaphor:

The "sombrero vueltiao"or vueltiao hat is the metaphor that a Colombian company is going to use to internationalize a software service.

The company has chosen the hut because :

Is flexible and can support hard work

Can get wet and doesn't lose its form

Is suitable to the client's needs

It represents the colombian culture of good service and good workers

It can be found from the cheapest form ($20.000 Cop) to the most sophisticated form ($600.000 Cop)

The strategy that the company will use is to try to correlate the software with the benefits of the hat and in this form make a unique marketing development.

References:

Michael Spencer. "If Intercultural were a sound... what would it be?". Journal of Business Strategy, Vol. 31. Iss: 4 pp 39-46.

Image source:

www.chinu-cordoba.gov.co

ATTITUDES AND VALUES

Resources and Capabilities: Resources are understood as basic units, elements, inputs or factors (Grant, 1991). Capabilities arise from the combination and coordination of different resorces (Grant, 1996). Both resources and capabilities are involved in an organization.





Intellectual Capital: It is known as the intagible assets or knowledge that has the organization (Stewart, 2003) and can be classified into five components (CIC, 2003):

1. Technological capital


2. Human capital


3. Organizational Capital


4. Business Capital


5. Social Capital

The technological and organizational capital are at the same time part of the structural capital while the business capital and the social capital are part of the relational capital.

In the Diagram below is graphicated the Stwart Model of Intellectual Capital

References:

Gregorio Martin-de-Castro, Jose Emilio Navas-Lopez, Pedro Lopez-Saez, Elsa Alama-Salazar. (2006) "Organizational Capital as a competitive advantage of the firm", Journal of Intellectual Capital, Vol 7 Iss:3, pp 324-337

Image source:

www.10xfactor.com/bookstore_ten_best_book4.html

Task #4:

I left 5 comments in the following blogs:

http://organisationsandculturesintheworld.blogspot.com

http://jsierral.blogspot.com

http://angelicacapon.blogspot.com

http://organisationsandcultures2010.blogspot.com

http://organizations-and-cultures.blogspot.com

UNDERSTANDING RELATIONS WITHIN AND BETWEEN ORGANIZATIONS

MOTIVATION
There are many theories that explain the importance of motivation in a company or in any situation of the personal life. In this time we are going to focus in the Pygmalion Effect.


The Pygmalion Effect tryes to explain how the perceptions of an outcome or expectative (positive or negative) can affect the outcome itself or the target performance. If there is a positive expectative, the person will do everything trying to accomplish the goal and this is materialized in the achievement of the goal.
In conclussion: Perceiver's expectation will affect perceiver's behavior towards target, an this at the same time will affect the target behavior.

Image source: http://inwiki.pabo-inholland.nl/pygmalion-effect

Task #3:

A common example of the Pygmalion Effect is applied in the schools: When the school makes for example intelligence tests and the performance of the student in the exam is good, the student will feel that he is intelligent and his performance in other school activities will improve.

The same situation is applied when an employee is congratulated by his boss, the employee will feel that is doing well his activities and will have a positive attitude towards the goals he has to accomplish.

Image source: http://libertadhumana.wordpress.com/

References:

http://ampliandocultura.blogspot.es/