THE CORPORATION

Corporations and their legal status are a mixed blessing and hard to discuss. Nevertheless I will try to point out my opinion. Especially interesting for the topic is the movie shown in class, called "The Corporation". I'll show some important extracts in this article. The rest is available on Youtube.

To structure my thoughts clearly I will change the order of the questions given in class a little bit. Let's start with an interesting definition of what a corporation is: 

[I wanted to include the video, but it seems to big for the blog, so just click here:

The Corporation - Part 3-- A "legal" person]

1. What are the benefits of the corporate form?

 

One of the benefits this model offers is that the people founding or working in this corporation are not liable with their private property. This means, that people are more likely to start a business because the risks are minimized. It also means that the business might be more dynamic because managers are more likely to take risks (which can have good and bad impacts on the organization itself). It also regulates heritage issues and also provides that contracts etc. are not dependent on a single person (if a person quits or dies, the contract is still in action between the corporation and a second party). It also simplifies conclusions of contracts itself, because they are made between two direct parties, giving some security by the property of the two business entities and are signed in the name of the business. It also regulates taxation issues, although here corporation are not really treated as individuals.

In terms of legal issues, customers know who to press charges on (because sometimes things might also happen unintentionally which is the risk of any firm and cannot be covered by single persons in the top-management) and on the other hand corporation can accuse each other as a whole.

As stated in the movie “The Corporation”: “People make mistakes.” We are not machines. Managers have a great responsibility and are usually under a lot of pressure. They have to make decisions and the decision might be wrong once in a while. They are also just human beings. Therefore, I think, it is ok to take some of the pressure away from them. But I also think, we are in big trouble, if the fortune and well-being of a manager is not at all related to the business he is working for. We also have to take into account, that at least the managers with some morality try to do the best for their employees and that they also feel responsible for their well-being and the future of the company. It’s a shame that not all of the managers are thinking like that.

2. Should corporations be entitled to the same legal rights as individuals? 

In my opinion Corporations cannot be completely treated as individual persons! Why not?! Because they are not a real person! They are just an entity of different individual persons and driven by those. And how should it even be possible to treat an organization as one single person? In case of violation of human rights for example, how could you possibly condemn such an agglomerate of people to prison? Well, the answer is you cannot. Judges mostly don’t have other opportunities than to impose a fine on the corporation and even though this might be a huge one, the people guilty of the case can just leave the firm and start over somewhere else, most of the time!

I have already covered some of the advantages of this legal form under question 1 and will therefore concentrate in this point on the boundaries of this concept. The line should be drawn where it comes to serious crime of a handful of leaders that can be definitely named. I should probably give some examples: If companies are bought with the purpose to destroy them, if corruption is part of day to day business, if human rights are violated (for example in plants in developing countries, but also in our hemisphere etc.), if products are knowingly a thread to health or environment, if the pollution of ecosystems is intentionally or not prevented and so on. This list might be endless. The problem is that we might not have the chance to find out who exactly is  responsible for this or that decision in the management. Well, I would like to solve that problem by making the whole management sphere responsible because they should enforce close communication between each other, knowing that they are all responsible for the action of their company. I am talking about knowingly criminal decision made by the management here. I know that it is very hard to sue this but I am lacking the juridical background to really develop a concept for this.

As stated in the movie, the problem with “corporate citizens” is that they are only created to serve the interests of their shareholders. They are considered to be bodies without morality, consciousness or social awareness. That is a huge problem by judging them as normal human beings. But there are people who are responsible for the actions of a corporation and we have to find ways to press charges on them if they are harming the community. 

 

3. Where should the line be drawn? How can we ensure corporations are held accountable for their actions? Could an alternative model offer these as well?

As already mentioned above I neither have the juridical background to develop such a system, nor do I think this could be developed in an hour or two. It is a very complex problem we are facing here and we are not the first thinking about it. What can be seen in the recent past is that more and more corporations care about what they call Corporate Social Responsibility. This is becoming more and more an issue because the media and the society are putting more and more pressure on the corporations. Even though many of those campaigns might be driven by populist interests it gives us a clue how to deal with the new reality: Put public pressure on companies! If consumers for example start to link their buying decisions on whether a company is doing something for the environment or for the community, companies who are doing that would have a competitive advantage: THE MAGIC WORD in business! Another new key word in marketing is SUSTAINABILITY!  which mostly goes along with the concept of CSR. We could at least make every company write CSR and sustainability records, but the guidelines and controls should be more concrete and precise as they are right now. And the possibility of sanctions or penalties should be included if companies do not reach the before established goals. 

It is also the duty of the media to investigate what goes wrong and show it to the public. So, in order to make our world more fair we should all change our behavior and try to point out what is going wrong and how we want our world to be. We are all living on the same planet and hence share the responsibility to make it worth living at.

Concept of Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) [click for more information]

Migration - Problems and Chances: The role of tthe IOM

This weeks task was to comment on the IOM and their role in improving conditions for migrant females.

Migration seems to be an evergreen in internationals discourse. And it should be, because it definitely is an issue in our globalised world and probably always will be. At least as long as we have huge differences in living conditions in different regions of the world, there will always be migration flows in order to look for better a better living. This does not necessarily require bad living conditions in the first place. For example, a lot of people from the so called "Western World" also migrate to other countries, because they are looking for different goals in life. But the main flows of migration will problably be from the poor, restrictive or (civil) war countries to supposably safer countries of which the migrants expect better living conditions. 

As the text read in class  and very often also reality shows that is not necessarily the case. The host countries might have poor laws to protect the migrants of any kind of abusion, may it be economically or even worse physically or mental. A lot of countries rule the labor force for their own citizen and forget and ignore the problems of foreigners entering their countries. 

As seen in the text, especially live-in workers, for example housekeepers, may especially be in trouble because of this lack in laws. If they are only allowed to stay when having a  job they are highly dependent on their employers which puts them in a really bad negotiation position in all terms. The text discusses many state-level regulations that are influencing the working conditions of migrants, especially of women.

The International Organization of Migration, or in short IOM, was founded formerly in Europe, to assist both, the immigrants and the nation-states to establish rules and ways of getting along and integrate the new comers in the system. It is "committed to the principle that humane and orderly migration benefits migrants and society." and works together with governmental (nation states), intergovernmental (f.e. NATO, EU, OAS) and non-governmental partners (Human Rights watch etc.). On their website they state their mission explicitly in 12 points. Here you can see, that they are not specialized on improve working conditions for women. 

Nevertheless, they have already realized, that gender issues become more and more important in migration contexts and hence built a project group working on this: "The Gender Coordination function is responsible for the development and implementation of policies and programmes on gender issues, and for promoting gender awareness and sensitivity throughout the Organization" (source: see website)

While visiting the page, I got the impression that they are rather trying to identify gender related issues so far than actively implementing strategy. Although they already analysed and recommended strategies, these cases have been really specific!

In my opinion, what they are basically doing right now is to shape an awareness for the importance to integrate these immigrant women into the system and don't forget about them in migration issues. They take into consideration both the host country as well as the country of origin (see here)

The Gender Coordination is still doing a lot of research about problems women in general and in migration contexts in specific are facing. You can tell that by looking at the liste Key Documents or by reading some of the cases.

For me, the next step would be to actively develop strategies and programs to help migrant women or to go for laws to regulate some situations. But I also liked the idea sensibilize societies for those issues, such as gender equality, by using medias close to the people they want to reach. (Check this out: Radionovela: Tiempos de huracanes) Fascinating communication strategy, don't you think?!

Mandela: " We can make a difference" - With ubuntu

umntu ngumntu ngabanye

= a person is a person through others

We have just seen another interesting (management) concept in class: The South African concept of ubuntu. I do not want to call it a management model, because I feel like it is a lot more than that. It is a concept of life, of shared values and understandings within the South African society (that had already suffered a lot in the past)!

 Ubuntu is a Zulu word for something like humaneness, and that is also what it is based on. It is the "spirit of caring and community, harmony and hospitality, respect and responsiveness" as the text read in class states. Ubuntu means, that individuals only become important in the relation with others, no matter where these "others" come from. But, who could possibly express the meaning of ubuntu better than the "icon of freedom" Nelson Mandela himself:

In the following, I will explain the main aspects regarding companies who are trying to do business in South Africa.
It is inevitable to understand the concept of ubuntu, when launching a business in South Africa. Therefore, the overall perspective has to be its emphasis on the comunity and the importance of the relationship with the others: "A person is a person through others." Once you've got this, the concept is not to hard to understand.

Companies mainly need to understand:

1. Relationship with others
This includes kinship ties which should be taken in consideration in varios aspects (work environment, hiring etc.) but also the notion of teamwork. Under the concept of ubuntu, teamwork will probably achieve better outcomes if left alone by western managers, because ubunttu already includes synergies, as to say a "creation of the whole that is larger than the sum of the individual parts"

2. The need for communication and language
"Comunication is to the organization as blood is to the body." Even though this statement should be true also for western organization  it is not yet comparable to South Africa. It also includes an open environment for the people to communicate non-job-related subjects within the working environment or even asks for comany-hold events to socialize. Although a lot of western companies (see statement of P. Drucker) have already realized the fact, that satisfied workers do better jobs (and even  invite to company events) their main dogma still is efficiency in financial outcome which mostly includes oppressive working environments for them.

The aim is to achieve satisfaction for both company AND people. This leads us to the next point

3. Decision Making on basis of consensus
The only way to get support for a decision or change within a South African company is the way of consensus, even though it might take a while. Therefore, not only the BEST decision is taken but the one with most support.

4. Time
"God gave the African time, and the Western a watch." There is not a lot left to say. Time for South African is something highly valued, to be treated with respect and spent wisely. Westerns on the other hand have a saying: Time is money!!!


5. Productivity vs. efficiency
Whilst Western reduce workforce in order to be more efficient (outcome on products compared to invested money) ubuntu strives for a different outcome: the employees well being!!

6. Age and senority in Leadership and Beliefsystems
Age is considered to be good indicator for leadership skills in ubuntu. People trust the elderly and are willing to fulfill their tasks more likeli.
Another aspects is the varios belief systems, which should be taken into account when launching in South Africa. Don't underestimate their importance.

The text in the class' reader is giving explicit guidelines how to deal with the ubuntu concept. I would rather comment on the whole concept of ubuntu than recite these guidelines.

In my opinion, ubuntu is a great way to see the world. Although I would not agree with all of ubuntus dimensions most of them are great. For example the concept of unity: We rather accept lesser salaries than loose some of our co-workers. I really like the emphasis ubuntu takes on humanity and humaneness. We, the westerners, are always to busy with ourselves to look out for others. Germany already ranks high in individualism and masculinity in Hofstedes dimensions and all the Colombia is considered to be a collectivist country it scores high is masculinty, which implies high competitivness. Although competitivness might be a driver for progress we should never forget our surroundings. And I am not only referring to other human beings or countries but also to nature etc. I think, the concept of humaness as ubuntu proclaims should be told in other parts of the world to.
I cannot really agree to the importance of kinship ties in working environments. Even though it might work in South Africa and is a highly valued issue over there I would not start to implement that f.e. in Europe. I also have a critical opinion on the selection of leaders by senority rather than by qualification.
But the concepts of communication and decision making could also attribute value to western company out of the South African sphere, even though this value might not have a financial output from the very beginning. At least we could learn from ubuntu to pay more attention to the well-being of employees. We all have just one life, at least that's what I believe, so let us not spent it with complains, worries and anger :)

There is another very interesting video about Ubuntu, that you can look at if you are interested. They are presenting a lot of problems South Africa is facing nowadays and show the programm to "teach" ubuntu in South Africa and develop leadership and business skills in South Africa:

 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pNZ4KsihQPQ