Organisations & Cultures
International Business Department
Universidad Eafit







jueves, 18 de marzo de 2010

Biography of Mahatma Gandhi



Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi was born on October 2, 1869 in Porbandar, India. He became one of the most respected spiritual and political leaders of the 1900's. Gandhi helped free the indian people from British rule through nonviolent resistance, and is honored by indians as the father of the Indian Nation.


The indian people called Gandhiji "Mahatma", meaning Great Soul. At the age of 13 Gandhi married Kasturba, a girl the same age. Their parents arranged their marriage. The Gandhis had four children. Gandhi studied law in London and returned to India in 1891 to practice. In 1893 he took on a one-year contract to do legal work in South Africa.


At the time the British controlled South Africa. When he attemped to claim his rights as a British subject he was abused, and soon saw that all indians sufured similar treatment. Gandhi stayed in South Africa for 21 years working to secure rights for Indian people.


He developed at method of action based upon the principles of courage, nonviolence and truth called Satyagraha. Using the principles of this, he led the campaign for Indian independence from Britain. India was granted independence in 1947.


On January 30, 1948, at the age of 78 a Hindu fanatic, Nathuram Godse who opposed Gandhi's program of tolerance for all creeds and religion assassinated him.

Source: Biography of Mahatma Gandhi, from website:

jueves, 11 de marzo de 2010

China's one child policy

It's true the fact that there a lot of people in China, but since 1979 when the "One child policy" was implemented another bigger problems started from its aplication.
This policy hasn´t been fair since its beginning, people from the rural areas were the most affected, a lot of pregnant women without permission were forced to practice abortion.

Other critics of the policy maintain it has led in some case to the killing of female infants because of the traditional preference for boys.
As a result a female infanticide has been increased because of these traditional preferences, even some practices has been implemented acording to this preference for boys, in rural areas families who first child was a girl are able to have a second child.



In conclusion, women and mainly girls get a very unfair treatment in China, an example of this would be that mothers let their sons to access to the health centers before that their daughters, in consequence a imbalance in China´s male and female population has been created.

Sources:

jueves, 4 de marzo de 2010

Comparative Chart

Sources: Lee, Jangho, Thomas W. Roehl, & Soonkyoo Choe. 2000. What makes management Style Similar and Distinct Across Borders? Growth, Experience and Culture in Korean and Japanese Firms. Journal of International Business Studies, 31(4): 631-52

jueves, 25 de febrero de 2010

Migrants & Expatriates










Short meanings define a migrant as someone who moves from one region to another by chance, instint or plan. On the other hand, the word expatriate comes from the Latin ex meaning "out of", and patria meaning country. An expatriate is someone who has chosen to live in a country other than the one in which he or she legally resides. And there is where is the main difference in the part where it says: who has chosen to.

An expatriate is different than an immigrant in that most expatriates do not plan on residing in their new country permanently, and if they do, they plan on retaining their native citizenship for practical purposes. Immigrants by constrast, usually plan on residing permanently in a new country and acquiring permanent citizenship there.
In many cases expatriates are more critized than migrants. Despite both represent a negative force in the country where they are residing, expatriates has chosen to do ti, so that indicates a reduction in their sense of patriotism; while migrants had to do ti for many facts that made them made that decision.
Sources:

martes, 2 de febrero de 2010

Culture & Organisational Culture

A. Culture: this term refers to the uses and customs of a community. Each nation has its own way of being and thinking, wheter recognized or not. An example of this is the Western culture and the Mayan culture that have coexisted for a long time together, sharing many aspects (governments, schools). No matter if one is older or more universal than the other, all have the same right to exist although the differences between these are obvious (behaviour, dress, way of spending money, having fun). All these aspects are important because they make one different from the other one.



B. Organisational Culture: as in the definition of culture, each company has its own organizational culture. This term is established in every company and are the attitudes, values and behaviours shared by the members of an organization. The workers' performance dependes on the organizational culture developed inside the company.

In conclusion, both meanings refer to the same, the human behaviour in a specified environment, the main difference, among others, would be the ancient of each term, because the first one it has been in the history from a long time ago, and the last one, we could say, it is a brand new term directly related to business, in the same way, the last one could be more flexible and an organisational culture could try to be changed in order to get a better performance in a company, but a culture of any society is quite hard, if it´s not impossible, to be changed.

Sources: