Lord of War Comment

The movie showed some criminal organizations such as the weapon traffic organization, the middle east guerrillas, the african RUF (Revolutionary United Front), the Ucranian and American corrupt governments, the Latin American drug organizations, among others. These organizations work against the law and subsides armed conflicts where the most affected are innocent people. They do this in order to generate fear among the population so they could maintain their power. They kill sometimes just for pleasure, recruit children to work with these "blood armies" and support irracional wars even with their compatriots.

Colombian country have had some strong criminal organizations nearly since 50 years ago. These organizations, most commonly called "guerrillas and paramilitares", have been implementing some severe tactics such as the ones seen in the movie, they also recruit small children and women and compel the goverment to follow its demands. They need to be fully supplied by weapons, so they trade them illegally and finance its activities by the kidnapping money, drug traffic and land stealing. These kind of organizations are found all around the world and still function because of the growing government´s corruption, the acceptance of bribes, the high profitability of these type of businesses (smuggling) and the little care by blood spread.

Canada and Brazil Presentations

CANADA

Is a country situated above The United States, in the North part of the American continent. It has a lot of diversity and its capital is Toronto. Canada has many influences from France, specially in Quebec. Its organizational culture is the mean to get a competitive advantage, they value the team work, the communication in the organization, the employee satisfaction and the apropriate training in each process of the company. They like to invest in leadership and human capital; their skills, experience and creativity conform an important part of the employee force. Canada has a population that is growing old very fast, so their need of younger immigrants has become an important aspect for the country; also the women discrimination has to decrease, because they are putting barriers on the raising of the women's charges and this removes the possibility of incorporating a labour force that has become more educated and could be very productive for the industries. The country has a lot of cultural diversity and they try to give equal opportunities to all in the workplace.

BRAZIL

Is a country located at the South American continent, is the biggest country of that region and has a lot of biodiversity and cultural diversity. Its capital is Brasilia and its main cities are Rio de Janeiro and Sao Paulo. The subordinates at the company have to limit themselves to what they are told to do. They highly valuate hierarchies at the organization, meaning that decisions are made by top senior managers. They prefer the oral communication over the written one, they use a lot of body language and have many labour unions, which represent a large part of the population. Their corporate culture allows delays, interruptions in meetings, physical contact and the use informal communicaton. The importance given to the person they're dealing with is bigger that the one given to the company.  

Germany, New Zeland and Israel Presentations

GERMANY

It is a developed country, member of the European Union, wich is considered as one of the largest economies in the world. It is higly populated and have a lot of immigrants. It has been recognized for their great machinery and car industries, wich make exports to many countries around the world.

Germans like to plan everything and have control over the time spent in their activities, they manage power distance relationships at work (hierarchy), they are very strict and have many rules and regulations, they are very ethnocentric (don't like to change), they like the group work, they are very distant in their treatment, selective in their close relationships and very individualistic, they are very educated people, formal and punctual in business, they highly valuate contracts and implement some organization learning´programs in order to be integrated and have positives changes made by new contributions.   

NEW ZEALAND

This is a group of islands situated next to Australia, in the Pacific Ocean. They implement Total Quality Management (TQM) strategies in their companie's structures. They are individualistic people and very serious when it comes to the organization's rules and regulations, they have little power distance and a high level of masculinity, they like the punctuality and honesty when doing business, they are very direct people and take their time to make an agreement, they are more open to change and valuate a lot their economic resources.

ISRAEL

It is a mostly jewish country which exports technological equipment, software, chemicals and factories. Israel has trade relationships mainly with The United States, Belgium, Germany, Swiss and The United Kingdom. They have a lot of respect for the Sabbath (or saturday) becasue is the official day of rest from work. Almost all its population lives in urban centers. They deeply appreciate the kosher regulations, which stipulates that eating some kinds of animals is forbidden (such as cows, carrion or rapine birds, among others).

China & Japan Presentations

Both presentations focus on the management styles of the organizations in each country and teach us about some interesting things to have in mind when doin business with a Chinese or a Japanese entrepreneur. They share the belief that you must keep your "face" in all moment, that is, to maintain your dignity first, also they are very stricts in terms of the punctuallity you must have, they should know all the information in order to make an agreement, both cultures are very collectivists, they consider that social meetings are very important and they avoid the "no" answer, but it doesn't mean that when they say "yes" they completely agree.

Chinese people consider harmony as a primary goal, the leading role in a meeting is given to the person that has a higher hierarchical status, they have a long-term vision of things, they tend to avoid conflict by all means, you should take into account that they don't like colors as white and black in presents and they avoid visual contact.

Meanwhile the Japanese are very respectful people, they care about the group they're working with (team work), they consider important to make a bow.You should generate trust in order to build strong relationships, you should give and reaceive the business card with both hands and read it before putting it away, and you should give them little presents (details that mean something). Japanese people tend to discriminate women in the work environment, but in the house, women are the head and they are the ones that take care of the raising of the child and of the family finances. 

Both cultures are influenced by many cultural (Japanese Samurai) and religion factors (Chinese Confucianism), so you must be very careful when building any kind of relationship with them.

North Korea vs. South Korea

Both in South and North Korea existed parallel scenarios in terms of their political regimes. Even the fact that South Korea is now a democratic republic, more than 2 decades ago, it was guided by a despotic regime and a political repression, which generated a lot of dissatisfaction among the population but contributed to the economic and technological growth and development they have today. In contrast, North Korea still continue having a socialist regime in which all their citizens must follow a lot of rules in order to serve the leader and do what’s best for their country; they cannot have any kind of private property, their main transport is the bicycle, they must help in all the dances and artistic demonstrations if they are asked to, they must translate their homes to far places if they’re requested to… So, in order to maintain the regime beliefs and to preserve their people acting according to the leader’s teachings, they are threatened by the government in the way that if they do improper comments or if they “misbehave”, they will be taken to distant places to make hard work in some fields (to cultivate food) and think about what they have done and reeducate them in the leader’s teachings.

This is a tyrannical way of living that North Korea still has, and I think that even when they are so radical in its beliefs, they still have a chance to make a difference because they have the entire infrastructure to become a potential country in the world. They just have to look at their closest neighbors.     

The Micro-Sociology of Religion and Social Organization in India

Micro-sociology is a way of understanding the realities of various religions. It provides techniques to define and make an analysis on religious aspects, not based only in people's comments but also in what religion actually means and experience. Micro-sociology try to see all the aspects of every religious event as closely as possible and in the precise moment when they are taking place.

There are some rituals that could be divided into formal and interactive ones. The first one is related with good manner and to give importance to social rank. The second one cause a strenghtening on emotions, relationships, and a respect for all symbols, it includes mutual focus of attention and a strong collective emotion. All religious rituals provide emotional experiences and have symbolic contents.

The social organization in India is divided into 4 recognized castes and 1 that have not been recognized yet. These castes emerge from the Brahma and each of them is supposed to heve born by one part of Brahma's body. In order of importance, the castes rank from the Brahmin, Kshatriyas, Vaishya, Shudra and the lowest one (not even considered by the society) the Dalit or Outcaste. This castes give people a place in the society.

There are many religions in the Indian culture, such as Hinduism, Islamism, Jainism, Sikhism, Zoroastrianism and Budism. Some of them coincide in the beliefs of samsara, which is a reencarnation cycle ruled by dharma (good things) and kharma (bad things that you should correct), and of nirvana, which is the ultimate goal to achieve (the perfect state) in Hinduism. These Indian religions are divided into monotheistic and polytheistic and implement different kinds of behaviour in order to avoid suffering and temptations.

A JOB CHRONICLE

To everyone that could matter, this is a story of what I've been experiencing:

I'm a 20 year old woman, worker at a Bangladesh factory in the shoes industry. I have worked here since I was 15 and I have been hidding some things about the treatment we are receiving by this No-Name American Enterprise. I usually have to work from 15 to 18 hours a day and having a salary of just 12 cents an hour, wich can hardly cover my room in a crowded dorm. Besides we have to make our job in a 40 degree environment and it could pass two months before a day off. The space between people' workplace is minimal and abuses are clearly defined. We have not even been provided with the adequate implements to the shoe making, as masks and gloves to protect us from chemicals such as glue and other materials employed, and some workers have been hurt.

I think currently we are not having any job securities at work, bacause when some co-workers of the factory complaint about being mistreated, after a short period of time, they were fired with the excuse that there were quality control reasons and that they have to let them go, even knowing that our company has been used for producing this american products for almost 10 years. Maybe if that would happen before the complaints were made we could think that was reasonable, but after this event, workers at the factory fear for telling something about what is happening internally, because they need their job in order to survive.

By this, I only wanted to create some consciousness about what is happening in many developing countries around the world and make people know that it is required that these transnational companies abandone this negative practices such as ruthlessly exploited workforce, civil liberties denial, poor wages, and start to give the right to work in dignity in healthy safe environments, because big companies know that sooner or later this stories would begin to appear in many cultures, generating an extreme bad image to their brands and eventually reducing their profits.  

Organizational Culture and Cultural Diversity

The Organizational Culture is some sort of group in which different people could relate with each other. For example, in a company there is a "sub-culture" where their employees feel that could be identified as members of that organization, sharing beliefs, customs, rules, goals and ways of behaviour.

In order to be accepted, people would do whatever they need to belong to one particular group, even showing the best or worst qualities of them. They have to be careful in the power management, because it is not easy to have the others by my side and this could turn into bad consequences. People need to feel that they are an important part of the organization, they need to be respected and have always in mind the common thoughts and decisions of the group, because they should be integrated and coordinated in all of its work. 

They should also have in mind that there are differences at the inside, that everybody must respect the others' culture and understand their attitudes in order to strenghten the organization an achieve the common goals. 

¿What can we do to improve the way corporations behave?

As globalization changes the way we see corporations and the market itself, we find harder every day to make contributions in terms of changing some companies' behaviors ethically speaking. I mean, when some global companies do things innapropriately (for the environment, for their employees, for the costumers they're selling...) is very difficult to just demand them and have sufficient power to change that.

So, I think that in this situation, first we can speak with some people of the company involved in order to let them know we are worry for some of the things they're doing and try to make them understand that their costumers (we) are not going to continue aquiring goods or services from them if they keep behaving like that. Second, we can promote and publicize those wrong actions in our personal networks (as facebook, twitter, mails, etc.) and spreading them around the people we know to create a powerful voice to make corporations react and take some action.

By this, I just want to let the people know that if corporations feel threatened by anybody that could create a "bad voice" from the company's name, they would probably take some action on the issues and try to correct their behaviors in order to keep having a good image and satisfying their costumers.