domingo, 6 de marzo de 2011

Fourth class notes

What is a documentary?
A documentary is something that represent and attempts the reality. However, in the film or in a movie the scenes are chosen without showing the scripted part as a whole. Most of the times people included are not actors. The objective of a documentary is not to develop a fictional story how movies does normally, but essentially to provide a realistic and true story by presenting facts and interviews.

According to http://portal.unesco.org/ci/en/files/24367/11757852251documentary_script.pdf/documentary_script.pdf Documentaries always try to deal with facts, not with fiction. Most importantly, documentaries show real events, real issues, real conflict, real people and real emotions. Basically, real life face all these kind of issues that a producer can present in a film as a documentary because of life existence and life actions that perhaps could be interesting for all the world.

Which is the difference between corporation and company? And make an example.

A corporation is under the law a legal person that is only concern about stakeholders to conduct business. I can argue that those corporations have some good and bad things that we as a society have to noticed and be aware of it. Corporations can make our lives better because they are very related to be responsible for human lives and other kind of issues that can make economy grows up in a wonderful way because of the big amount of stakeholders interested in invest and make a corporation the biggest one of all in a territory. However it can cause the loose of work for a lot of employees due to the entering corporation trying to buy everything and will ensure to their own people more work or even they are the only to have the right to choose their employees. Furthermore, employees can tend to be very upset and not interested in working hard because of the profit motivation; Corporation abuse most of the times of labor hand and they as a corporation take this advantage to be rich easily without care about employees.

There is a very important website that can help us understand a bit more the advantages and disadvantages of a corporation and realize better how it works. That is http://www.allbusiness.com/business-planning/business-structures-corporations/686-1.html , and I can say that since a corporation is a separate legal entity is very attractive to investors and there are a lot of advantages very interesting to carry out in being part as a corporation. Taking into account that shareholders do not participate in the operations of the corporations, they select directors who have the responsibility of managing everything. It does not mean that is easy to be part of, because it cost a lot of money to enter, and it is necessarily because of the corporation needs to be bigger everyday by investing.

The difference between corporation and company is that in a corporation the most important aspect is the limited liability (which means that shareholders has very low percentage of responsibility of managing the corporation and are not allow to make important decisions). That is, shareholders have the right to participate in the profits, through dividends, but are not held personally liable for the company’s debts, as i said before shareholders select directors to be able to manage everything. For the other hand, a company is similar a corporation but also is known as a proprietorship, partnership or other form of enterprise that engages in business. Consequently, I can say that an individual can own a company; A corporation is owned by several people, such us stockholders, business partners, group of people who has the possibility to invest, etc.
For instance Bancolombia represent a Colombian corporation due to it buys other banks in order to be more big and powerful every single day without any sort of competition around.

As a legal organizational model, how does the rise of corporations influence the aspects of culture in pursuing profit?
 Taking into account: “Organizational capital as competitive advantage of the firm. Gregorio Martín-de-Castro, José Emilio Navas-López, Pedro López-Sáez and Elsa Alama-Salazar. Departamento de organización de empresas, Universidad Complutense de Madrid, Madrid, Spain.” I can argue that  an organizational culture is a complex set of values, believes assumptions, and symbols that define the way in which a firm drives its business. The collection of values and norms that are shared by people and groups in an organization that control the way they interact with each other. Then, the rise of corporation influence a lot in the aspects of culture because stakeholders interact every single day outside the organization and since they are a legal entity they have the power to buy and make whatever they want with money investments because have the right to do so and obtain profits influenced by aspects of a specific culture and also may change a little bit the culture in a territory because of that power and the path of achieve the goals imposed at the begining. Furthermore, the rise of corporations should pursue the appropriate standards of behavior organizational members to take advantage of it and achieve the objectives.
taking into account the link, i can deduce that corporations sometimes can do well by doing good, more often they can’t. because in most cases, doing what is best for society means makes some sacrifices of profits. However, this do not happen a lot because they as a group of investors influence the aspects of culture to take advantage of it and get as much profits as possible. They try to assure good quality or effectiveness for society but at the same time the objective for them is profits at the expenses of others.

jueves, 3 de marzo de 2011

Third class notes:

Is economic retribution enough to motivate employees?.
R= No, because not only economic retribution stimulate desire and energy in people to be continually interested in and commited to a job, role, or subject, and to exert persistent effort in attaining a goal.   
Now, according to http://www.jstor.org/pss/3381267?searchUrl=%2Faction%2FdoBasicSearch%3FQuery%3Dorganizational%2Bmotivation%26acc%3Doff%26wc%3Don&Search=yes I can argue that the increasing of quality and efficiency of public management not only depends on the economic retribution, the organizational commitment create an organizational behavior of employees that makes them feel comfortable in their jobs.

Managers need theories to understand the rest, employees, customers, etc. Some of the important theories that we have to take into account are: Internal (considerate individual behavior and motivation), External (elements in the environment) and Process (interaction between individual and the environment). Due to these theories above explained, there is a need in which toward an outcome or reward generate an interesting movement.

Adam Smith says that people are motivated by self-interest of economic gain. However, taking into account: http://www.jstor.org/pss/25075105?searchUrl=%2Faction%2FdoBasicSearch%3Facc%3Doff%26Query%3Dadam%2Bsmith-%2Bmotivation%2Bin%2Bcompanies%26gw%3Djtx%26prq%3Dorganizational%2Bmotivation%26hp%3D25%26wc%3Don%26acc%3Doff&Search=yes I can argue that he besides says that individuals must pursue interest both the self and society but in the economy of today because we are facing that people pursuit the self-interest economy at the expense of other. Besides he argued that in order to maximize benefits and minimize costs of a capitalist system, the interest of both self and society must be considered.

Now talking again about the first question mentioned above, the economic retribution is not only the main point to motivate employees. Exist several retributions that companies can implement in their daily activities and work, such us: economic or material form, employee recognition programs, flexible benefit packages, symbols of distinction (certificates, mugs), annual holiday parties, etc. all these sort of motivation to every employee must be implemented every month or a specific period of time.

The Maslow’s need hierarchy provide some important needs to take into account. Due to he was the father of humanist approaches to management, explain very clear what are those needs for humans and it’s a clear model as the set of needs implemented. It is important to have an interesting source like:  "Maslow's Hierarchy." Changing Minds and Persuasion -- How We Change What Others Think, Believe, Feel and Do. Web. 28 Feb. 2011. In which i can deduce from any Maslow’s need hierarchy  that: self-actualization (It’s mainly to achieve the individual objective), Esteem (It’s the power we and other can obtain), Love-social (It’s a good affection you get in a group), Safety and security (It’s the need to avoid danger), physiological (It’s the need to the health and body maintenance in a good way).

There is an important question that can be answered in a long paragraph and adding too much information but I am trying to be very specific and asserted: What combination of needs are present in the best managers?. Well, the main combination of needs that must be presented as managers are recognition, power, respect and assertiveness. Furthermore, the best managers has the responsibility to continuously improve the work conditions within their own control, and the best source of information of all the work in the company it is their employees, then managers has to listen all employees because they are the main people who knows what is happening inside the company because the managers mostly do not have time for the knowledge of everything, so, information is the key element in side of any group, institution or company. This link http://www.jstor.org/pss/40398245?searchUrl=%2Faction%2FdoBasicSearch%3Facc%3Doff%26Query%3Dneeds%2Bof%2Bmanagers%26gw%3Djtx%26prq%3Dneeds%2Bmanagers%26hp%3D25%26wc%3Don%26acc%3Doff&Search=yes explain the importance of information flow in this case by employees that are the key element of the knowledge of the daily and movement work in the company in which managers has to take into account every single word employees tell them.
Another good question to search for a good answer is: How can motivate people to cooperate with organizational goals?. This answer is very related to the last one because in order to motivate people to achieve goals is necessarily to them for example provide stock, incentives and all elements of motivation explained in the last question. Besides, if employees consider their motivation better than any other or even they can compare what they receive as motivation with others and its essential feel comfortable, will be for sure an optimum increasing cooperation to the organizational goals and very ideal for the enterprise.

Consequently, the point is that every single company must adequate some sort of motivation in order to make employees confortable in their job, and managers will realize that organizational goals will be more open, developed and visible from any angle. As everybody knows the main objective in an entity or company is increase and develop every day, so, if employees do not work well, you as a manager won´t get results. Managers has to motivate employees in different aspects and methodologies explained before in order to have a good team, communication, and hard-work inside the company in which there are some needs and procedures to follow to get the satisfaction of everybody and get the energy necessarily to carry on improving and getting better. Finally, if you take a risk of trying to get employees very comfortable in your company you probably do not fail in any issue you as a manager.

miércoles, 16 de febrero de 2011

Second class notes:

Personality, Perception& Attribution; Attitudes& Values

There are some individual differences in which attitudes, perceptions, values play an important role on the main topic we analyze in the class, and that is just because those kind of factors differ from one individual to another. Furthermore, personality means that are some characteristics that influence an individual’s behavior.
Personality dispositions include: emotions, cognitions attitudes, expectancies, fantasies.

Taking into account Source: http://www.business.unr.edu/faculty/simmonsb/mgt486/amjjobattitudes.pdf i think that the most important role of personality dispositions are attitudes because if it is performance well enough, it can endure in individual-level organizational very well constructed. But not only like that, attitudes represents a capability that represents good competencies  with the purpose of responding to change dynamics into an organization development or even in every single society that every person is involved in. this is for sure a key of behavior and adaptability that make a combinative capability. Consequently, attitudes is a tendency in which is expressed by evaluating an entuty with some degree of favor or disfavor. I think that our tendency to look only for one path doesn’t allow us to progress in a specific point without paying attention to the others.

Now, talking about personality in organizations we can analyze first a very common issue that is the Core self-evaluation (CSE): is a broad set of personality traits that refers to self-concept. It is comprised of: locus of control, self-esteem, generalized self-efficacy, emotional stability. The most important ones for me to pay more attention as an individual tendency to accentuate the positive aspects of himself or herself are:
·         Locus of control: An individual’s generalized belief about internal control (self-control) versus external control (control by the situation or by others). Now according to source: http://www.jstor.org/pss/25123901?searchUrl=%2Faction%2FdoBasicSearch%3Facc%3Doff%26Query%3Dwhat%2Bis%2Blocus%2Bof%2Bcontrol%26gw%3Djtx%26prq%3Dlocus%2Bof%2Bcontrol%26hp%3D25%26wc%3Don%26acc%3Doff&Search=yes
Locus of control play an important role on ethics and the education we have got during the whole life and also the behavior control we have in a specific case.
·         Self efficacy: An individual’s general belief that he or she is capable of meeting job demands in a wide variety of situations. Source: Retrieved from January 2011: http://www.eruptingmind.com/what-is-self-efficacy-self-respect/
You have to believe in yourself in order to do things right and to be confortable in what you are doing. That will make you a big advantage faceing the issues or problems in live.

Attribution Theory:
•A theory that explains how individuals pinpoint the causes of their own behavior and that of others.
•Internal attribution (something within one’s control)
•External attribution (something outside one’s control)

There is an ABC model as an attitude wich means Affect ( like I don’t like my classmates ), Behavioral intentions ( like I want to go to another university ) and Cognition ( I belief that my girlfriend cheat on me). This is a model in wich we can analize the common attitudes people make.

A job satisfaction source:http://www.egestionar.com.ar/HR%20Job.htm is when people is confortable and very pleasure on a job experience or something made that caused a lot of emotion. The point is that is due to a work attitude that every person experiments during the whole live. Besides in order to get the success its neccesarily to have a good organizational commitment that consist in: affective commitment, continuance commitment and normative commitment. Taking into account source: Gregorio Martin-Castro, Jose Emilio Navas-Lopez, Pedro Lopez-Saez and Elsa Alama-Salazar. Departamento de organización de empresas, Universidad complutense de Madrid, Madrid, Spain. “ Organizational capital as competitive advantage of the firm”: I can complement that depending on delegate in a company and distribute the employees regarding their capabilities, the structure will be for sure a good complement to work in group and have a good organization to achieve the expected goal. That is a competitive advantage for the company or the organization.

Source: Gregorio Martin-Castro, Jose Emilio Navas-Lopez, Pedro Lopez-Saez and Elsa Alama-Salazar. Departamento de organización de empresas, Universidad complutense de Madrid, Madrid, Spain. “ Organizational capital as competitive advantage of the firm”: talks about values and it is good explained there that values is the utility of the resource for successful competition in a certain industry, I think value interacts with the relation of the capabilities and resources and that makes a good strategy for the conditions in the organization to fulfill. However exist a work values that are presented and has some sort of interaction with a good quality of values, those are achievement, concern for others, honesty and fairness. Consequently the work will last for a lot of time as a good strategy to carry on their daily activities.
Question:
To what do you attribute the success of JICA?
JICA: Japan International Cooperation agency. It is a part of the government in order to reduce poverty and protect the people who really need help. Japanese government really helps a lot to these kind of people with their own volunteers that are sent to different countries for make their contribution to get the world peace. Those volunteers do not get any earnings or salary, its their motivation to help and teach people who really need a hand. For them it’s a pleasure to go to different villages and cities only for help the others. Japanese government provides to these volunteers only a few things to get by in those places they go, such us: food, accommodation, tickets for their transportation, etc. Just only to survive and do well their commitment. In fact, that is a good attribution and motivation for those voluntarees to make a good job. JICA exist since 30 years ago and has carried on just because the felling that every volunteer has to get improve those people who really need help. Volunteers like in a completely way to go to those places and collaborate with the social environment because if people like that doesn’t help, who will?. I think JICA will continue increasing a lot of success because there are a lot of people waiting for help to get better in any aspect of poverty, education, etc.


jueves, 10 de febrero de 2011

First class notes.

How will knowledge of organizational behaviour make a difference for you?.
R= just about technology make the difference in a company trying to keep the right info, and manage it well. We also study organizational behavior because to learn about yourself and how to deal with others, for example I can eat fruits at the breakfast and mi brother would rather eat bread. It also provides a set of tools that allows: people to understand, analyse and describe behavior in organization.

There are some levels: individual process, group process and organizational process.

*The context:
Opportunities: ( favorable times or changes for progress and advancement).
Change: ( the transformation or modification of an organization and/or its shareholders).
Challenge: ( the call to competition, contest, or battle).

*Understanding human behavior.

*Internal perspective ( considers factors inside the person to understand behavior), for example if you are in China you will act different.

*External perspective ( focuses on factors ouside the person to understand behavior).

*The challenge of change: the crisis, complaining staff, new competitors, decreasing profits and sales, demanding customs, merger of recognization

*How do you view change?
Threat( decreasing), opportunity ( increasing).

*International competition in business:
Driving forces creating and shaping change at work: globalization, diversity, ethics, technology.

Success will recquiere:
. positive response to the competition in the international marketplace.
. responsiveness to ethnic, religious, and gender diversity in the workforce

*Costumer focused for high quality:
A potential means for giving organization in viable industries a competitive edge in international competition ( what customers wants and what they are expecting).

*Quality: cannot be optimized ( always in changing), is not a fad ( shor time), is not an end in itself.

Questions in evaluating quality-improvement ideas:
. does the idea improve customers responde?
. does the idea accelerate results?
. does the idea raise the effectiveness of resources?

*TQM: total quality management
The total dedication to continous improvement and to customers so that the customers needs are met their expectation exceed, ( development and maintainance of the system).
*Sig sigma: a high performance system to execute business strategy that is customer driven enphasis quantitative decisions making and places apriority on saving money.
Each student must accept responsibility for his/her own behavior.

Source: http://www.kellogg.northwestern.edu/faculty/savaskan/opnsquality/mot_six_sigma.pdf: according to this source I think is very important to take into account the six sigma versus the total quality management inn wich is very good described and presented.


Six sigma
Total Quality Management
Executive ownership
Self-directed work teams
Business strategy execution system
Quality initiative
Truly cross-functional
Largely within a single function
Focused training with verifiable
No mass training in statistics and quality
Return on investment
Return on investment
Business results oriented
Quality oriented



Challenges to Managing Organizational Behavior.
Increasing globalization of organizations’ operating territory
2. Increasing diversity of organizational workforces
3. Continuing technological innovation with its companion need for skill enhancement
4. Continuing demand for higher levels of moral & ethical behavior at work

Source: Gregorio Martin-Castro, Jose Emilio Navas-Lopez, Pedro Lopez-Saez and Elsa Alama-Salazar. Departamento de organización de empresas, Universidad complutense de Madrid, Madrid, Spain. “ Organizational capital as competitive advantage of the firm”:
I think the best description of organizational culture is presented in this document in wich is explained that organizational culture is defined as a complez set of values, belifs, assumptions, and symbols that define the way in wich a firm drive its business.

What are the practical applications for Geert Hofstede's research on cultural differences?

For those who work in international business, it is sometimes amazing how different people in other cultures behave. And I think is true because always We tend to have a human instinct that 'deep inside' all people are the same - but they are not. Therefore, if we go into another country and make decisions based on how we operate in our own home country - the chances are we'll make some very bad decisions. Consequently before going international we have to learn more about that country´s culture in order to be more effective when interacting with that sort of people.
 Hofstede (1984) defines culture as:
… the collective programming of the mind which distinguishes the members of one human group from another… Culture, in this sense, includes systems of values; and values are among the building blocks of culture (p.21).
Source: http://www.studentpulse.com/articles/180/decision-making-factors-that-influence-decision-making-heuristics-used-and-decision-outcomes
Every single day people have decisions, even if those are big or small and we have to be aware oh those decision making. Most of the time decisions are very complex and we have to be quite carefull about those decisions before to implement them. Here, are some of the main decisions we take evry day and has to be presented in order to let people understand the different ones that exist and be aware that before to approach them we have to be patient and think before make the final decision:
Decisions made by competitors; suppliers; customers
Labor markets, Technology, The national, regional, and world economies, Financial markets, Local, national, regional, and international politics, Law and regulations, Infrastructure factors (transport, power, etc), Trade unions, Consumer groups, Ethical and religious systems, Factors in the green environment, INDUSTRY INTERESTS, NATIONAL CULTURE.