The Coorporation

The Corporation, retrieved from
http://factoryjoe.com/blog/2006/11/23/the-corporation-released-on-bittorrent-for-free/

CORPORATION......sounds like a serious name......well maybe because it is........according to Michael Moore, in his documentary "The Corporation" he describes this entities as bunch of lies, he pretty much describes them as psychopath, yet people keep depositing all of its trust on corporations and see nothing wrong with them.

I been a big fan of all of the documentaries Moore has done, my favorite one definably is Fahrenheit 911. I like the way he says the true up in the front telling what he believes without caring the outcomes. And in this last documentary I saw "The Corporation" he didn’t let me down, The documentary truly outlines the "all-pervasive" role the corporation has taken as the "world's dominant institution". Unfortunely the world now a days are run by a few and we are definably not one of those………. And who are these people..Well just some bad apples.

But maybe these apples don’t really have a shape of a fruit after all, maybe more like the actual corporation since this legal entities are now classified as actual “people” this was all thanks to the signing of the fourteenth amendment, this was done long back, between the years 1890 and 1910 in the name of free slaves. But this defend less little apples took advantage of this and tangle the amendment to include all corporations as individuals, thus allotting the rights of a person to a corporation.

The corporation seems smart,  now I think they don’t really have a soul. The documentary shows us all true behind the brick walls of the corporations, such as the bad operational environment employee’s work under, harms to the environment in the form of dangerous production methods, toxic waste, pollution, synthetic chemicals, even getting to the point of accusing corporation for the cancer epic in United States.  I know Moore intensions is to show the world what the corporations have done….but can they be undone?

OMG!!!!  the most shocking thing I thing corporations have done in today’s world is not how they influences us grown people, but now they are taking over children little minds, Take
for instance the case of toys enthusiastically being advertised in
televisions all the time . It is not a hidden fact that toy
manufacturers expend a lot of money$$$$$ in publicizing
their products… I think this is so influential for kid’s minds, speaking from personal experience (my 5 year old sister)….

Well, in conclusion. CORPORATION wins………………. The rest looses.

In this documentary, corporations are defined as "legal entities" and they meet the clinical definition of psychopathic behavior. Do you agree, why, or why not?

I do agree, I think corporations are taking over Little by Little over this world, and since they are classify as a person, I think know what type of people they are……psychopaths. Some of the labels the film uses to describe psychopath are “callous disregard for the feelings of other people,” “the incapability to maintain human relationships,” “reckless disregard for the safety of others,” “deceitfulness,” “incapability to experience guilt,” and “failure to conform to social norms and respect for the law.”

 I agree with most of this labels, for example   “callous disregard for the feelings of other people” corporation don’t care what or who they have to harm in order to get to the top, its only purpose is to create wealth for its shareholders.  “reckless disregard for the safety of others,” definably true, because all this famous brand we see on our everyday life puts on a front on how they are giving back to the community if we purchase their product, yet most of their products are made abroad paying their employees 10cents an hour in risky working environment and selling the same products for over 100 dollars a and like most  psychopaths , the corporation manipulates everything  in order to get what they want. But I think is a little harsh to judge all corporations an classify them all as psychopath I disagree on this part, because I think there are corporations that do work under good ethics decision making.

BIBLIO

*  Abbott .Jennifer & Achbar Mark, (Produceres). (2003). The Corporation [documentary]. Big Picture Media Corporation.

Ethical decision making in organizations

“Even the most rational approach to ethics is defensless if there isn´t the will to do what is right”

-Alexander Solzhenitsyn

Many times we use our decisions to solve problems, to judge something or someone, to choose between hing etc, but the thing is that many ime we don’t use the right tools or the righ time to make our decision correctly but many times is because we don’t actually know what are the step we need to take. In this blog entry I will explain all about decision making and how sometimes the best option is to make ethical decicions  in an organization.

A significant part of decision making skills is in knowing what good decision techniques to use. One of the most practical decision making techniques are broken down into the following steps:

1. Identify the purpose of your decision.
2. Gather information.
3. Identify the principles to judge the alternatives.
4. Brainstorm and list different possible choices.
5. Evaluate each choice in terms of its consequences.
6. Determine the best alternative.
7. Put the decision into action.
8. Evaluate the outcome of your decision and action steps.

After having the right techniques, here sare some models the give us ideas to follow when we are making decicion making:

·         Rational model: like its name is trying to do what is more rational, what is more logical when it comes down in making a decision, this  model refers to the best decision in maximazion the organizational benefits.

·         Bounded rationality model : assumes that actors

are goal-oriented, but bounded rationality takes into account the cognitive

limitations of decision makers in attempting to achieve those goals. In other words, this means that there is limitation to our rational decision making.

·         Garbage can Model:  explains that sometimes decision in organizations are arbitrary and chaotic, like a garbage can, all mix in one

Now, when it comes down to decision making in an organization, the decision are mainly in the hands of the manager, so it is highly important that our manager fits a good profile when he I taking the decision. He can either be a risk taker meaning, being able to take bigger challenge without being afraid of is out comes because it has higher tolerance to uncertainty or  he can be the total opposite and be a Risk aversion, a more traditional everyday manager.

Ethical Organization
http://www.captainintegrity.com/branding.php

Poor manager!!, can we really put all the weight in his shoulders in the decisions of the organization? …..many times decisions can be made as a group, or as an organization, since most of the tie organizations are run by many people. According to Sin kit, Groups who work together for longer periods of time outperform the more competent members 70% of the time. So many times decisions can be mad with more than one brain. But like most of the things in this world, group decision making has its ups and its downs. Let me exceedingly review its downs, so we ought to make the best choice. The group limits its discussion to only a few alternatives, the group fails to reexamine those alternatives originally disfavored by the majority and the overall result of groupthink is defective decision making.

A factor that influences our decision is ethics. Ethics, refers to standards of behavior that tell us how human beings ought to act in the many situations But should this ethics be used in organizations?

The vast majority of successful organizations believe the high ethical standers and integrity are exceptionally important to long term success.

Making good ethical decisions requires a trained sensitivity to ethical issues and a practiced method for exploring the ethical aspects of a decisions so let’s consider these 3 theories:

·         Consequential Theory. a theory that explains the consequences or results of behavior.

·         Rule-based Theory: this theory that takes a deeper look at the character of the act itself rather than its effects.

·         Character Theory–an ethical theory that emphasizes the character, personal virtues, and integrity of the individual.

How does attribution theory explain mistakes that can be made as managers and employees work together to explain why the problem occurred?

Attribution theory indicates that it is the subjective perception of causality, not necessarily reality, which influences outcome behavior (Heider, 1958; Jones and Davis, 1965; Kelley, 1973; Weiner,1985a, b, 2000; Weiner et al., 1971). The main focus Attributing theory has is that individuals blame  their  performance failure on to other things  and credit themselves  for success  in things. This may ound a very reasonable thing most humans being would do. But it is nt always the best thing to do when we are involved in team work and in an organization, it may cause conflict in groups and organizations.

Now, if a mistake is done in the organization, who is to blames? I think individuals will try to blamed the problem onto others making their hand clean,  because according to the Attribution theory, individuals seek to gain favorable judgments or to avoid unfavorable judgments in the eyes of others specially in the eye of the manager. The most reasonable thing they would do is to blame to those with a higher passion at work then to those with a lower position. I think the solution comes to the individual’s ethics and doing the right thing being to take responsibility for its mistakes and take the blame it is theirs. Our ethical decision making gives make wiser prudential and ethical decisions.


BIBLIO

 

Bryan D. Jones- BOUNDED RATIONALITY.Department of Political Science, University Washington, Seattle, Washington Retrieved from Esmerald.

http://www.unf.edu/~gbaker/Man6204/Decision.PDF

Patricia D. Schwarber- LEADERS AND THE DECISION-MAKING PROCESS ; Kepner-Tregoe, Inc., Princeton, New Jersey, USA Retrieved from Esmerald.

http://www.princeton.edu/~smeunier/JonesBounded1.pdf

Nathan C. Whittier, Scott Williams and Todd C. Dewett EVALUATING ETHICAL DECISION-MAKIN MODELS: a review and application; Raj Soin College of Business, Wright State University, Dayton, Ohio, USA . Retrieved from Esmerald

Motivation



MOTIVATION. RETRIVED FROM
http://www.artlex.com/ArtLex/m/motivation.html

 What is motor inside our head that gets us going??? What is our drive to so things in life? this two simple question can be answer with one simple word.........MOTIVATION.

motivation is the driving force which causes us to achieve goals. Motivation is said to be  intrinsic and extrinsic. in other words, is the little voice we hear inside our body telling us "yes you can do it, go for it, this is the best thing......." pretty much we need a good motivation to get us to do that things we do in our everyday life, but most importantly i we humans need a good motivation when it comes down to work.

 what inspires people to work hard? What energizes them to perform at high level of effort and productivity? What encourages them to apply their creative talents to solving work related problems? These questions have created an interest in motivation theories as they apply to business and industries. The theories can be divided into 3 internal, external, and motivation theories.

Internal motivation theories focuses in giving  primary consideration to variables within the individual that give rise to motivation and behavior, let me further explain this with one of the most influent theory, the Maslow´s Hierarchy of need. This is the pyramid below.

Maslow’s Need Hierarchy.
Retrieved from February 2011:http://www.akri.org/cognition/motivate.htm

This theory proposed by  Abraham Maslow in his 1943 paper A Theory of Human Motivation classifies people’s needs into five categories. Physiological needs, needs of security and safety, social needs (sense of belonging), needs of self esteem and the need of self actualization. He believe that once of the blocks from the pyramid is accomplish the next step is to make the next level dominant.

It might seen  a little  add that our needs are divided into levels since we are all different, meaning we all have different needs, now let’s break down each level and see if we agree with Mr Maslow. The first level of motivation is the desire to satisfy physiological needs, pretty much  what we need to survive (Air, water, and food), The next level of motivation that man seeks to satisfy is that of safety. In relating this need to the work situation both personal safety and personal security concepts must be considered. l - The third level of motivation is social. In the work context this level includes the need to belong to the organization, to the work group, or to a local clique. - The fourth level of this hierarchy is the esteem or ego needs. To satisfy this a man must feel that other people respect him, that others think he is someone. Satisfaction of this need leads to self-confidence, strength, and a feeling of adequateness. - This is the highest level of the hierarchy. The level represents the need to be what one potentially is.

Moving on from these theories let go back to out 3 categories of motivation theories and examine the external ones theories that take into account the elements in the environment. We can take a look at the two-factor theory to understand a little better this concept.

The two- factor theory, develop by Frederick Herzbrg, talks about how  there are certain factors in the workplace that cause job satisfacion, while a separate set of factors cause dissatisfaction. This theory is distinguish in two factors, like the name says: motivation  and Hygiene factors.

Two facor theory. Retrieved from March 2011:

http://www.all4espresso.de/images/page.php?yiuDRPp=example-of-herzberg-two-factor-theory

Nevertheless let’s talk about the final motivation theory category and that is the Process , this theory categorizes the motivation theories  on emphasizing the nature of the interaction between the individual and the environment.

I will be explain this with the expectancy theory or VIE (Valence, Expectancy, Instrumentality) was initially elaborated by Vroom in 1964 later on by Porter and Lawler. This theory establishes  a connection between the employees´  motivation and the certitude of their expectancies.

In multicultural organizational contexts what could be a good strategy to keep people motivated towards a common task?


In a multicultural organizational context leaders need to recognize and cope with innovation, taking risk, and responding quickly but most importantly a good strategy that can be apply in order to motivated all employees towards a common goal , is of course being able to respect, recognize and  understand each employees culture. This strategy is important because this way the manager is able to know how each person works and how they develop each task, having in mind each person background, mainly because this is going to make the employees feel understood, important, and value for what they are. As a result he manager will be giving them the motor they need in order to feel motivated to work in a good and relax working environment. Having a good climate in the working environment would motivate and induced them to high performance results, the ability to understand there teamwork, the relationships among tasks and between the leader and its employees.



BIBLIO

*Haasen, Adolf Y Shea, Gordon F . A Better Place To Work : A New Sense Of Motivation Leading To High Productivity. New York : American Management Association, 1997. 95p. ( ). Isbn 0814423639.
 *Steers, R. M., Mowday, R. T., & Shapiro, D. L. (2005). Response to "Meaningful Motivation for Work Motivation Theory". Academy of Management Review, 30(2), 238. Retrieved from EBSCOhost.

*Timmons, Jeffry A Y Spinelli, Stephen . New Venture Creation : Entrepreneurship For The 21st Century. 8 Ed. Boston : Mcgraw-Hill/Irwin, 2009. 666p. ( ). Isbn 0073381551
*Viorel, Lefter, ManolescuAurel, Marinas CristianVirgil, and PuiaRamona Stefania. 2009. "Employees Motivation Theories Developed at an International Level". Annals of the University of Oradea, Economic Science Series18, no. 4: 324-328