Let’s talk bout Business, God!

Religion is a set of beliefs concerning the cause, nature, and purpose of the universe, especially when considered as the creation of a superhuman agency or agencies, usually involving devotional and ritual observances, and often containing a moral code governing the conduct of human affairs. Religion gives formal approval to existing social arrangements, because it gives to people the feeling of belonging, understanding and unity.

In the business’ field, religion has its implications because it is an important part of the life of workers. For Max Weber and Karl Marx, religion creates social changes, because it is beyond all human control and it drives people. And also, according to the religion people work in a specific way, because some religions are oriented to the work and to wealth creation, while others are oriented to the predestination and humility. Thus, each religion has their specific points of view that influence its believers’ work-style.

Islam: A society based on social justice, equity and moderation. Businesses that are perceived to be making a profit through the exploitation of others, by deception, or by breaking contractual obligations are unwelcome.

Hinduism: Focus on the importance of achieving spiritual growth and development, which may require material and physical self-denial

Buddhism: Focus on spiritual achievement undermines wealth creation.

Confucianism: Focus on Collectivism. Confucius taught that salvation is attained through right action based on three key teachings: Loyalty to one’s superiors, reciprocal obligations of superiors to subordinates and honesty.

Let’s make a Cultural “Sancocho”!

To understand diversity is important to understand first the behavior of groups, because those are the first instances in where diversity is seen. A group is two or more people with common interests, objectives, and continuing interaction; and its behavior is based on norms, cohesion, loss of individuality and social loafing. Thus, groups are developed by a 5 steps’ process that include: Forming (Guidance and direction), Storming (Power struggles), Norming (Agreement and consensus), Performing (Focus on goal achievement), and Adjourning (Task completion). At the same time, the groups are formed by persons that represent a specific role inside of it, which can be contributor, collaborator, communicator or challenger.

Taking this, diversity is the variation of social and cultural identities among people existing together in a defined employment or market setting. It means understanding that each individual is unique, and recognizing our individual differences. These can be along the dimensions of race, ethnicity, gender, sexual orientation, socio-economic status, age, physical abilities, religious beliefs, political beliefs, or other ideologies. It is the exploration of these differences in a safe, positive, and nurturing environment. It is about understanding each other and moving beyond simple tolerance to embracing and celebrating the rich dimensions of diversity contained within each individual.

Diversity involves several issues as culture, language, ethics, age, gender, sexual orientation, race, ideologies, among others, which make the term complex and the cause of many problems that happen in the world and in the business’ field, because in this globalized world, the boundaries are disappearing and people from different backgrounds is getting more involved, for this, knowing how to manage the diversity in a group is important in order to avoid future and serious problems as less effective communication, conflict, lower level of social attraction and lower level of commitment to the group; and also, to take advantage from it, creating a competitive advantage, because it can bring new ways of problem solving, creativity and innovation, organizational flexibility, human talent and effective new marketing strategies.

Hello! Can you hear me?

Communication involves an Emitter that send a Message, which cross Perceptual screens, to a Receiver that gives a Feedback to the Emitter. This process implies fundamental elements as language, data and information, and the success of it depends on the listening that the parts apply, in order to avoid misunderstandings or inaccuracies.

There are two types of communication, the one-way type in which one person send a message to another and this last one doesn’t reply with a feedback or any interaction; and the two-way type which represent an interaction between the emitter and the receiver. Although, the communication doesn’t just represent the interaction with words (Verbal), also means the non-verbal mode, which is divided in four basic types: Proxemics (Use of space), Kinesics (Body movements), Facial and Eye behavior, and the Paralanguage (Speech’s variations in tones and duration).

The communication presents barriers that obstacle it to flow normally as the physical separation, cultural differences, languages and generational differences. These issues have make the people to develop new ways of communicate between them, as was the creation of virtual groups in which people can work without being physically close and with the use of new technologies. These situations facilitate the cross-boundary collaboration and the work in companies with international surfaces.

Virtual teams represent one such organizational form, one that could revolutionize the workplace and provide organizations with unprecedented level of flexibility and responsiveness. But as a drawback, virtual teams are particularly vulnerable to mistrust, communication breakdowns, conflicts, and power struggles.

WorkersBusters!

There are different considerations regarding the migrant workers and the expatriates. The first ones represent the movement of people from a region to another for employment and economic reasons, and the second one, means a person temporarily or permanently residing in a country and culture other than that of the person's upbringing or legal residence. This process demands a high and complex process of integration and socialization of these people in the new society they are entering, being able to adapt in the new circles. Taking this situation as statement, Richard Florida exposed that the expatriates can be seen as the rise of a new Creative Class, which Florida describes as class of workers whose job is to create meaningful new forms. It is composed of scientists and engineers, university professors, poets and architects, and also includes people in design, education, arts, music and entertainment, whose economic function is to create new ideas, new technology and/or creative content; the designs of this group are seen as broadly transferable and useful. Also, another sector of the Creative Class includes positions that are knowledge intensive, these usually require a high degree of formal education, like health professionals and business managers, who are considered part of the sub-group called Creative Professionals and their primary job is to think and create new approaches to problems.

Creativity is becoming more valued in today’s global society, for that, employers see creativity as a channel for self-expression and job satisfaction in their employees. Although, the expatriates need to be managed by doing mentoring and training, being able to handle the socializations’ stress.

How to organize a MIXTURE?

The OC is a pattern of basic assumptions that are considered valid and that are taught to new members as the way to perceive, think, and feel in the organization, and the M&A are the mixture of two companies in one to help a firm renew its market position at a speed not achievable through internal development.

Merging implies the creation of a new identity and a powerful value, by generating an economy of scale, increasing the revenue/market share and developing a diversification and a transfer of resources and know-how; bringing profit for both companies involved. In this process are implicated to important elements: the motive for the acquisition (strategic fit and decision making process) and the process of implementation (including the “acculturation” process, which represents the adaptability of the existent groups inside the companies). So, a good making of these processes and an excellent management in the merging situations are important, because a bad running can brings cultural differences’ issues and rejections in the workforce, developing structural problems. Thus, to avoid it, managers can support for a global view of business, make a reinforcement of ethical behavior and empower of employees to excel in product and service quality.

From CHANge to GEchan

According to Kavita Singh, change is the coping process of moving from the present state to a desired state that individuals, groups, organizations undertake in response to dynamic internal and external factors that alter current realities. Knowing how to face the change is what brings success to the organizations, being able to be adaptable, flexible and responsible.

There are two types of changes inside organizations, the planned change, resulted from a deliberate decision, and the unplanned change, which is imposed in the organization. These changes generate a different impact in the institutions according to the scope they bring, which can be incremental (Small scope that causes the making of little improvements), strategic (large-scale scope which bring organization’s restructuring), and transformational (Organization moving to a different and unknown state). As consequence, changes create in the companies several situations, that can affect positively or negatively the environment on it.

CONSEQUENCES

Positives	Negatives
Developing of New ideas Brings Creativity Brings Organizational vitality Establishes identities Safety valve to new problems	Diverts energy Damaging of Psychological wellbeing Wasting of resources Creation of Negative climate Damaging of Group cohesion Creation of Aggressive behavior

And, across the time were developed different managing changes’ theories according to the situation the world was having at the moment. Between 1950 and 1970, was developed the Model of Kurt Lewin which proposes a three stage theory of change commonly referred to as Unfreeze (Creation of dissatisfaction, being able to move), Change (Moving the necessary resources to create the change), Refreeze (Driving into new ways of working). Then at 1970, the Model of Beer was exposed in which the employees' roles, responsibilities and relationships are seen as key to bring about new situations, and the management’s steps were drive the change, share a vision and foster commitment to shared vision. And finally, in the globalization’s age, the one that we are living it, the managing change is seeing as a way to seek for a competitive advantage in an open world, without boundaries and constantly technological and political changes.

Organizations’ IQ!

The knowledge is considered one of the most important assets that people and organizations can gain nowadays, because it gives security, a great level to adaptability to change, and an overall vision of the situations. Information is a useful resource that companies have to obtain in order to be able to survive in the business world, and learning is a process in which companies can acquire it.

In the literature have been developed several analysis about how people learns and how they use that acquired knowledge. The Classical Conditioning is a typical procedure that involves presentations of a neutral stimulus along with a stimulus of some significance, the "unconditioned stimulus"; and the Operant Conditioning is a form of psychological learning where an individual modifies the occurrence and form of its own behavior due to the association of the behavior with a stimulus. These theories exampled the way how learning is seen in the academic field. Thus, Bandura (1977) states: "Learning would be exceedingly laborious, not to mention hazardous, if people had to rely solely on the effects of their own actions to inform them what to do. Fortunately, most human behavior is learned observationally through modeling: from observing others one forms an idea of how new behaviors are performed, and on later occasions this coded information serves as a guide for action”.

From this academic point of view, now, the knowledge and the know-how is seen as a fundamental asset that companies have to achieve, because it is unique and difficult to imitate, which is an important characteristic in a world where people get closer and information easy available. Consequently, organizations have to be able to take advantage from the eventual changes that occur in the world affecting the customers’ preferences, the workforce’s thoughts and the competitive approaches, and the solution is collecting valuable information, learning how to apply it (know-how), creating a high level of adaptability to change, finally, obtaining an important competitive advantage.

Learning Organizations are described as an organization skilled at creating, acquiring, and transferring knowledge, and at modifying its behavior to reflect new knowledge and insights.

Leaders are BORN and Managers are MADE, REALLY?

Leadership and management are words that stick together in the business world, but it is important to understand the differences between these two, because managers have to be LEADERS, but not always managers behave in that particular way.

To manage is a way to conduct or represent a responsibility; managers are characterized by some attitudes as: a passive and functional manner, moderate taken risk, the avoidance of solitary work, the acceptance of their life and the encouragement of team work. And on the other hand, to lead is a way to influence others and basically to guide and leaders are distinguished by an active attitude, high levels of innovation and imagination, high-risk decision’s making and the making of fresh approaches to old problems. However, both characters make a healthy organization.

Across the time, in the literature have been developed many theories and cases about how to define a leader, but few generalizations have could be done. In the early years of analysis, the leadership was defined as a relationship between leaders and followers, which seeks for a shared, and leaders’ types were classified as: authoritarian which retains as much power and decision making power as he/she can, without consulting the staff; consultative which talks to everyone involved in the situation to reach to a decision; democratic that has a participative style, keeping employees informed about the changes and shares decision making responsibilities; and laissez-faire which gives employees a huge amount of freedom.

With the years many other theories were developed, creating a huge network of information. As were the Ohio State Studies which said that the leadership behavior is based in an initiating structure (How leaders made their activities), and a consideration (The building of work relationships); the Michigan Studies that divided the leadership in two types, production-oriented and employee-oriented, similar to the Leadership Gird developed by Blake and Mouton which describe the leader behavior according to their concerns, which can be oriented by the results or the people.

Then some theories were created taking into account the situations in which the leader were involved, as the Path Goal Theory that states that a leader's behavior is contingent to the satisfaction, motivation and performance of his subordinates; the Normative decision model notes that leaders follow a path of evaluations that help determine the type of effort a decision will require; and the Situational Leadership which affirms that leaders should adapt their style to follower development style, based on how ready and willing the follower is to perform required tasks.

Nowadays, other types of leaders have been determined by the contemporary cases that are showed in the world like the Transformational, the Charismatic and the Authentic leaders, bringing ethics and moral considerations to the leadership studies.