Managing Diversity & Religions and the Organizations

Summary  (Managing Diversity)

A group must have four basic behavioral aspects in order to be an effective group, these are: the standards that a work group uses to evaluate its member’s behavior, the cohesion of the group, the social loafing (waste of time and effort from a group individual) and the loss of individuality in which a member of the group loses its self awareness and his individual behavior.

There are many ways in which a member of a group can collaborate to solve a problem, he can be the contributor (the one who supplies info), the collaborator (the one who sees the big picture), the communicator ( the one who facilitates and promotes the collective effort) and the challenger ( the one who questions everyting).

For this a manager must provide an environment that enables all of the members of the group to use their full potential to perform any given task.  

Retrieved on May 2011 from http://www.thefreemanonline.org/wp-content/uploads/2010/02/Diversity.jpg

Topic Question

What could be the recruitment strategies to effectively target to these diverse groups and what would be the consequences of ignoring diversity?

- Having a diverse group means having an advantage against other groups, because of this diversity the group can have various ways of seeing and approaching any problem the group may run into. In order to create a diverse group, the leader must first analize what is that he wants in the group a as whole and when the time for recruiting comes, he can analyze what can each of those individuals can provide to the group. 

Ignoring diversity is a flaw that any group can have because it won’t have the different points of views and will only focus on one way to approach, missing the big picture.

Retrieved on May 2011 from  http://www.equalitiesinhealth.org/library/images/jigsaw.jpg

Summary (Religion ans the Organizations)

Religions are a set of culture, values and norms of a large group of people, also involves a huge amount of attitudes and share beliefs concerned with the realm of the sacred.

These are the larger religions around the globe, and their main philosophies:

• Christianity: “If one works hard, one will ultimately succeed”
•  Islam: Based on social justice, equity and moderation
• Hinduism: Importance of achieving the spiritual growth and development
• Buddhism: Spiritual achievement undermining wealth creatio
• Confucianism: The salvation is attained through the righteous actions based on three key teachings, Loyalty, Reciprocal obligations and Honesty.

Retrieved on May 2011 from

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Topic Question

What is the dominant religion in Colombia and what are the religious implications for doing business here?

- The dominant religion in Colombia is the Roman Catholicism, 93% of the Colombian population is registered as Catholic; but this does not have any major implications when doing business in Colombia unless the religion is explicitly insulted in any way. But most Colombian people does not make religion as an influence when doing business because religion in Colombia has been losing strength because all of the scandals and poor management of the high rank representatives of it.

Reference article: 

http://www.colombiaya.com/seccion-colombia/religion.html

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Communication & Virtual Teams

Summary

Communication is a basic instinct of al humans, and it’s a mean to express what we theink or need to another person. But communication not only consist on the sound and the voice, there’s another kind of communication called, non-verbal communication that consist in four basic types; the proxemics, that are the individual’s perception and use of the space; kinesics, the posture and body movements of the person; facial and eye behavior gives cues to the receiver, and finally the variations in the speech such as the pitch, loudness, tempo, among others.

Due to the new trends in technology, a new kind of work group has been created, the virtual team, which consist in a group of people working in a common task but not necessarily located in the same space or time as the others, this makes easier the cooperation of new and different kinds of knowledge, but this can became also a setback because the concluding of the process or task may take a very long time.  

Retrieved on April 2011

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Topic Question

How to make transition from a more traditional team to the more distributed team structure?

-In every transition process one of the primarily components is the way of thinking of the individuals of the team in which the leader must provide enough information and points in order to make their individuals embrace the team structure and for it to perform well.

Retrieved on May 2011 from http://tapuniversity.files.wordpress.com/2011/01/virtualteam.jpg

The Role of Workers, Migrant Workes and Expatriates

Summary

Due to the needs of improving economically and as a person, a lot of people leave their home countries to work and provide their knowledge and services to the other country.

But most of the time this situation leads to the person to a process of new socialization where he must “start over” on a completely new environment to which he is not familiarized with, and this adjustment sometimes is very hard to achieve. 

Retrieved on May 2011 from http://www.cartoonstock.com/lowres/ndi0739l.jpg

Topic Question

How easy is it for Colombian companies to employ expatriates locally?

-The Colombian laws and work regulations are not inclusive for foreigners, there are many reasons but he most notable are the high rates of unemployment Colombia has (12.9% at the end of 2010), so for is hard for Colombian companies to employ foreigners when there’s an internal jobs deficit; in addition to this the internal armed conflict Colombia has been suffering since the last 40 years doesn’t help in case foreigners find any kind of desire to settle in Colombia to work and make a life.

 Article reference: http://www.elpais.com.co/elpais/economia/noticias/tasa-desempleo-en-colombia-cerro-2010-en-118

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Organizational Culture in Merging Process

Summary

In a globalized world, many companies success and grow to improve, but some others who are not doing so well must look for a “helping hand“ in other companies; when this happens it’s called a merger between those two companies.

This helps both companies to create economies of scale and scope, a higher revenue on the market share, diversification, among other things.

But in order for a merger to happen, some cultural modification must be made such as the reinforcement of the ethical behavior and service quality.  

Retrieved on May 2011 from http://www.mspmentor.net/wp-content/uploads/2010/01/managed_services_merger.jpg

Topic Question

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 cases of merging, the managers and high ranked executives must provide security and integrate every individual of their company and guide them throughout the entire process of the merging to avoid uncertainty and thus making the company less efficient and productive in that particular event of the life of the company; in addition to this the managers must integrate both groups slowly so when the complete merge occurs, they won’t feel as they are working with complete strangers.

Retrieved on April 2011 from http://www.cartoonstock.com/lowres/jfa0121l.jpg

Organizational Learning & Managinig Change

Summary  (Organizational Learning)

As humans we are in a constant search for knowledge, and so are the organizations in order to improve themselves and be more competitive.

In an organization all kind of knowledge useful to accomplish any given task is called “Know How”, this could be the right of some product, any kind of thechnological innovation, strategies and so; all of these become an asset to the company and gives it a differentiation and an advantage before their competitors.

Organizations must be acquiring through time, more and more knowledge in order to survive in a competitive market, to avoid any kind of uncertainty, fulfill customer’s expectations and keeping up with the trends of globalization.

Most of the times this knowledge is acquired through one person who masters the subject and then shares it with the others in order to apply it in the process that is being developed by the group of work. 

Retrieved on May 2011http://pad2.whstatic.com/images/thumb/5/54/Teammeeting1.png/250px-Teammeeting1.png

Topic Question

What is the relationship between organizational learning and individual satisfaction?   

-When an organization gains knowledge, the processes or tasks it must perform, become more efficient and useful for the organization and if this kind of knowledge helps in the end to perform an efficient task, ultimately the individuals that form the organization and were a part of the process, gain a satisfaction of a well done task.

Retrieved on May 2011 from http://virtual.contabilidad.unmsm.edu.pe/weblog/files/administrador_E_Learning_I.jpg

Summary (Managing Change)

In order to success in the corporate world, organizations must be constantly changing and improving.

There are some changes that result from the decision of the organization but also exist some changes that are unforeseen and must be done as fast as possible to keep improving and avoid having a bigger problem in the future.

But most of these changes need a “spark” to ignite them; this person is called a change agent and is the one who is in charge of introducing them to the whole organization and explain how to make it happen.

The general structure of a change consist in three basic steps; the first one, unfreezing, consist on a disruption on the status quo in the organization and create the proper conditions to allow a change; the second one, is the change, where the organization rearranges and brings out resources to make it happen, finally the refreezing stage, in which the changes are already implemented and embedded to the company’s regular functions. 

Retrieved on April 2011 from http://herd.typepad.com/.a/6a00d83451e1dc69e20120a516b74a970b-800wi

Topic Question

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

-Anything in this world can be a subject of change, specially the way someone or something act; corporate culture has been changing throughout the years and it will keep doing so, but the issue regarding this change is that most of the times it has been boosted by only an economical factor; nowadays we live in a society whose moral and ethical values are fading away and in addition because of our reckless act we are destroying the place we live in, so the corporations being the most “powerful” and influential entities must help to do this, and to perform it an internal perspective and way of thinking must change within them. 

Ladership & Management

Summary

A compamy could not hang on to the business without a proper manager and/or leader, this person or people have the special task of running a successful company or just to perform a specific task; but according to the role played that person is either a manager (someone who takes care of the general aspects of the process or task that is being made) or a leader (the one who directs the change and proposes different approaches to perform the needed task). The manager and the leader must complement each other in order for the company to be effective through the leadership to produce a useful change, and effective to manage the controls complexity.

There are some theories that explain the approaches used by both managers and leaders to act within the organization. An authoritarian leader is the one who holds total control and power over the whole process and gives all the orders expecting that his workers obey at all cost. A consultative leader is the one who involves every individual of the organization involved in the performing of the task and gets their ideas and points of view. A democratic leader is the one who has a participative style taking into account the views of all his workers and shares both the decision making and the problem solving responsibilities. Finally the leader who has a –Laissez Faire- style, which is a style where the manager provides little direction and gives the employees as much freedom as possible.

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Retrieved on April 2011  from https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgI5wyTcetqum3o_FKP2nX0SnRKRC_m_whTbluY8bNozQPMaCAOwqN-gnU6b6cpFY8ihAXJHRUufsvSJClA9bZF5A_HrBiCs0N89_MU5nz_PEKVH1uHdsXtOnZCTEoqwuFWV62c1etRHZM/s1600/leadership.jpg. 

Topic Question

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?

Personally I’d rather working on a democratic work environment, because of the fact that the decision making process is more efficient but also takes into account most, if not all, of the proposals and suggestions everybody on the group has to make, and the ultimate decision is made democratically by all of the individuals that conform the group. An autocratic work environment has the advantage that the decision making process is quicker but has the disadvantage of having mistakes due to the lack of group contentment.