VIRTUAL TEAMS

 VIRTUAL TEAMS

Because of globalization, barriers and distances are no longer an issue at the moment of making business. The world we live in is changing and demands us to do things more efficiently than in past times. That is why, have been created many tools to make this happened (e.g. e-mails, celphones, airplains, etc). 

Virtual teams -a group of individuals who work across time, space, and organizational boundaries with links strengthened by webs of communication technology [1]- are becoming  increasingly important for business today since:

·         They allow the reduction of transportation cost and time

·         The location of the partners may be anywhere in the world.

·         The flexibility it allows

But there are also some bad aspects of virtual teams such as the loss of the face-to-face contact that may enhance distrust and fails in the communication.

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Basic Types of Virtual 

Networked Teams consist of individuals who collaborate to achieve a common goal or purpose; membership is frequently diffuse and fluid.

• Parallel Teams work in short term to develop recommendations for an improvement in a process or system; has a distinct membership.
• Project or Product-Development Teams conduct projects for users or customers for a defined period of time. Tasks are usually non-routine, and the results are specific and measurable; team has decision making authority.
• Work or Production Teams perform regular and ongoing work usually in one function; clearly defined membership.
• Service Teams support customers or the internal organization in typically a service/technical support role around the clock.
• Management Teams work collaboratively on a daily basis within a functional division of a corporation.
• Action Teams offer immediate responses activated in (typically) emergency situations.

References

Why Virtual Teams”.

Gould,D. (June 05, 2006), Virtual teams. From <http://www.seanet.com/~daveg/vrteams.htm>

Virtual team benefits and challenges, from <http://www.time-management-guide.com/virtual-team.html>

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[1] “Why Virtual Teams”.

MANAGING DIVERSITY

http://www.abortoinformacionmedica.es/wp-content/uploads/2009/12/diversity.jpg

From the appearance of the first multinational corporations, diversity in work teams has become a major component inside the companies these days. It is possible to find in a Colombian company for example, a Brazilian manager, an American engineer and a Colombian advocate.

http://reasontostand.org/wp-content/uploads/2010/11/diversity.jpg

This diversity may bring many benefits to the company, as well as many problems. That is why to know how to handle diversity is so important.

According to Dougherty (1992) emotional conflict is likely to occur in a heterogeneous team. This usually happens due to the social and cultural differences are very strong and interfere in the performance of the team. 

On the other hand Slater, Weigand and Zweilein (2008) think that diversity is a source of competitve advantage. They also argue that in order for this to happend it is necessary to have inside the organization a commitment to diversity. Here the role of the managers is crutial: they must enhance team work, treat human capital as a source for competitive advantage and specially show their employees the benefit of diversity. 

This video shows the advantages of Diversity in teams.

References

Slater, Stanley F., Weigand, Robert A., Zweilein, Thomas J., 2008. "The business case commitment to diversity". Business horizonts 51: 201-209

Von Glinow, Mary Ann. Debra L. Shapiro, and JeanneM. Brett. 2004. "Can we talk, and should we? Managing emotional conflict in multicultural teams". Academic Management Review 29, no. 4: 578-592

RELIGION AND INTERNATIONAL BUSINESS

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1.      How can we create an ethical relationship between religion and business so that they may cooperate towards a more sustainable and respectful development of life?

I believe that any type of ethical relationship must be build under the principals of honesty, trust, acceptance and respect for each other. So in order to create an ethical relationship between religion and business it is necessary to work under those values and make a joint effort to collaborate with each other. They must also, put together all the principles of business and religions around the world that are focus on the sustainable development and make this its final goal.

2.      Can you imagine a world without religion where everyone would be trying to get immediate satisfaction to their individual needs?

The religions have help for both guide and direct people and as some kind of motivator. Even before the Christian religion (one of the most important in the world), in many cultures there was some type of religion, where people many gods and used them as a way to explain things they didn’t know.

Most of the religions encourage cooperation (at least among members of the same religion). These kinds of values are necessary for society, since a world in which everyone does anything to meet only its personal needs would not have developed in any way. We are all social animals and we need of each other to achieve something.

That is why I can’t imagine a world without religion.

3.      Religion can create networks of trust and familiarity that facilitates economic transactions. Can you name other positive aspects of this relationship?

It enhances cooperation among the participants; creates set of shared values and goals that make people to join forces in order to achieve something.

In the economical sense it can create reliance on the other partner’s values and ethics, an easy way to communicate and respect for the others opinion.

4.      Do you think that stereotyping based on religion has been influenced by economical or political interests, why, whose? What is the role of The Media in this issue?

Yes, I think that the most important reason could be that when religious dogma is against the economic or political interest of some very powerful group of people, they start to harm them and stereotyping is very harmful. I also believe that the all the religions are victims of this type of bias. 

http://images1.wikia.nocookie.net/__cb20080327005347/inciclopedia/images/f/f0/Religion.jpg

It is important to highlight that the economic and political interest are not the only reason for religious stereotyping; lack of tolerance and racism are other reasons.

For me, The Media manipulates the information and only to the interest of a few very powerful people (those who pay), that is why I believe that the roll of media is to “inform” people about what they are allow to say. 

COMMUNICATION

Which ones are the main Cultural Differences in Non-verbal Communication?

The non verbal communication can be defined as the stimuli that are nonverbal and that have a meaning and a potential message to the reciever. 

<http://punditkitchen.files.wordpress.com/2009/01/political-pictures-gestures.jpg>

It true that the personal appereance is something that we use as a reference to judge someone, that is why many people consider it being an important part of the nonverbal communication. 

Another example is the posture, the body movement and the gestures. In cultures such as China and Japan the way you greet someone is consider to be sign of respect. Even gestures as simple as the ones we use to point something, vary depending on the culture (Americans points with the index finger, Japanese with the entire hand). 

Other important types of this way of communication are the touch,  the facial expresions and the eye contact. 

http://www.uxmatters.com/mt/archives/2007/03/images/kevin-cheng-gestures5.jpg

When someone is in a multicultural environment, he must take into account this type of communications since, for many cultures,  the nonverbal codes are as much as important as verbal. Also, for the western cultures (for example) there are many ways to express or to communicate something that could be offensive in Eastern cultures.

MIGRANT WORKERS

Due to Globalization and the free market, the people have begun to think in a world without barriers and free movement. Media and the information sharing, for example, circulate “freely” around the world ( a guy in India can watch the Ecuador news in the net for example). These can be the main external motivations for people to choose to migrate to another country.

The IOM states that the total number of international migrants has increased over the last 10 years from an estimated 150 million in 2000 to 214 million persons today[1].

It is also important to mention that are many personal reasons to explain why people decide to migrate inside or outside their country, such as: the search for job opportunities, displacement for war, family reunion, among others.

According to the IOM among the nations that receive large flow of immigrants is Germany.

Source Statishes Bundesamt Deutschland

The graphic shows that the Turkish people are the main immigrants to this country, followed by the Italian and the Polish. Most of the immigrants work as unskilled laborers, as Germany recruited workers in particular for simple activities. Studies have revealed that immigrant families in Germany have difficulty climbing the social ladder or improving their economic situation. Nonetheless, over the past two decades progress has been made with regard to integration: Acquiring German citizenship was facilitated by law, contacts between immigrants and Germans are closer, and there is more widespread acceptance of ethnic cultural variety. And the immigration law that came into power in 2005 provides for the first time an all-embracing legal framework that considers all aspects of immigration policy[2]

http://www.inkcinct.com.au/web-pages/cartoons/past/2007/2007-100-migrants-become.jpg

References

Facts about Germany: Immigration and Integration." Facts about Germany: Home. Web. 12 May 2011. <http://www.tatsachen-ueber-deutschland.de/en/society/main-content-08/immigration-and-integration.html>.

Statishes Bundesamt Deutschland <http://www.destatis.de>

Projects, ThemeFeatured. "Facts & Figures." IOM. Web. 12 May 2011. <http://www.iom.int/jahia/Jahia/about-migration/facts-and-figures/lang/en>.

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[1]
http://www.tatsachen-ueber-deutschland.de/en/society/main-content-08/further-reforms.html

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[2]http://www.iom.int/jahia/Jahia/about-migration/facts-and-figures/lang/en

Organizational Learning

Nowadays, organizations are experiencing an environment of change and a lot of competition. The knowledge these days evolves more and more everyday and becomes “obsolete” really fast. That is why it’s very important to continue learning and acquiring new information and knowledge all the time. Thus, organizations can develop a competitive advantage.

We need to know that learning occurs when the new knowledge is transformed into actions (how to do things). Then it is necessary to develop a learning organization- a firm that enhance and builds strategies to encourage organizational learning-, as well as a strong organizational culture.

There are three types of organizational learning:

• Single-loop learning: occurs when errors are detected, corrected without altering the nature of the organization.
• Double-loop learning: occurs when in addition to single-loop, the organization questions and modifies their existing norms, procedures, policies and objective.
• Deutero-learning: The first two will occur.

It is important to highlight that organizational learning must happen in the whole organization; it means that if an individual acquires new knowledge, he must share it.

Now, to answer the question of how can SME’s benefit from organizational learning, I have taken the example of a research paper that concludes saying “(…) learning environment provides manager with a deeper insight which leads the rational decision making and could help managers to tolerate the uncertainty in organizational learning process”

http://www.sinologic.net/wp-content/uploads/2008/04/sleep-learning.jpg

·         The Free Management Encyclopedia and Network . (n.d.). Retrieved 06 05, 2011, from 12manage: http://www.12manage.com/methods_organizational_learning.html

·         Abdul Malik, M., Idress, A. K., Sana, A. B., & Arsalan, M. G. (n.d.). MANAGERIAL SKILLS AND ORGANIZATIONAL LEARNING IN SMES OF PAKISTAN. Retrieved 06 05, 2011, from www.scholarshub.net/vol2_i4/Paper_06.pdf

·         Singh, K. (2010). An analysis of the relationship between the learning organization and the organzational culture in Indian business organizations. In Organizations and markets economies (Vol. 1, pp. 142-165).

Leadership and Convergence

¿How does organizational leaders should behave in cross cultural environments?

Cross cultural environments offers a new kind of challenge not only to organizational leaders but also to everyone involved in the working environment. We can study four dimensions in which cultures differ on the workplace; these are:

•       Directness: Get to the point versus implying the messages.
•       Hierarchy: Follow orders versus engage in debate.
•       Consensus: Dissent is accepted versus unanimity is needed.
•       Individualism: Individual winners versus team effectiveness.

One of the most important subjects to understand is how culture affects the communication process. We can see the challenges in many ways, from speaking another language to having differences in how we might express our concerns.

In order to achieve proper communication on the workplace it is very important for all the parties involved to understand and appreciate what it takes to work with (and in) different cultures. Some people might show empathy easily to the needs and wants of others while some may struggle to see their point of view

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In any of the cases it is an obligation for an organizational leader to motivate its peers by showing them the positive aspects of understanding another culture. Cultural diversity is known to boost creativity, productiveness and helps the expanding of business’s opportunities.  He must show effort to integrate different approaches used by the people in their cultural backgrounds in order to create a mixed, rich and respectful environment. To focus on what brings workers together rather than what tears them apart, to be as open minded as it can be, have everyone in consideration, reintegrate the different points of view and then take the smartest decision. 

Sources

• http://www.kwintessential.co.uk/cultural-services/articles/cross-cultural-communication-work.html
• http://www.1000ventures.com/business_guide/crosscuttings/cross-cultural_differences.html
• http://www.imd.org/research/challenges/TC082-08.cfm