Political Aspects of Organizations

July 23, 2011 2 Comments

The researchers, Chang, Rosen, and Levy (2009) state, organizational politics are widespread and affect the employees’ performance and resources allocation. Employees’ use of politics depends on the work situations, workplace, and type of goal they want to achieve (Bodla & Danish, 2009). Organizational politics will have positive results when used with good intentions to achieve important tasks. Bodla and Danish (2009) state that organizational politics are important for the organizational life and these politics affect the employees differently. Organizational politics has a negative effect when the employees misuse the politics. Employees who understand and control these politics respond less negatively, so employees should be aware of the politics and its effect on the organizations. Bolman and Deal (2008) explain that some groups have more access to decision makers and can take advantage of this closeness.The following discussion will develop organizational model to govern the organizational culture, climate, internal, and external stakeholders, and human capital issues. The model will discuss the difficulties in working with international teams and suggest a guideline for the organizational leadership to morally and ethically approach the international teams’ problems. Read the full research …

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Survey or Questionnaire?

January 23, 2011 3 Comments

Birthday cake
Image by Sami Malallah via Flickr

I was asked by one of the blog readers about the difference between surveys and questionnaire. We can easily get confused because they are doing almost the same thing. Surveys are more popular because most of the researchers use them to collect information from large population. But surveys need statistical calculations to analyse and interpret. Surveys are mostly used for quantitative researches. The surveys are usual printed on few pages and distributed in classrooms, shopping centers or social gatherings. Recently, most of the surveys are conducted online thought free survey services like Zoomerang or SurveyMonky who can collect and analyse the data for competitive prices.  Questionnaires are used for qualitative researches and usually conducted in a face-to-face setting.

Survey is a set of questions prepared with answers to choose from. For example the question can be “what is your favorite sweet after a good meal?” the answer can be: 1) cheese cake 2) chocolate cake 3) fruit salad 4) fresh apple. The survey participant will choose one answer. Questionnaires are set of questions to ask open-ended questions to get the participants perception or experience on the studied subject. Question can be “What do you like to eat after you main meal when you dine in a restaurant?”

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Greenfield Investment or Merger and Acquisition

September 19, 2010 7 Comments

Listen to this postGreenfield investment is defined by Investopedia as “A form of foreign direct investment where a parent company starts a new venture in a foreign country by constructing new operational facilities from the ground up.” So is greenfield investment is a better choice to enter a new market in a developing country, or should the investor target an existing local company for merger or acquisition.

Nanda (2009) state that greenfield Foreign Direct Investment (FDI) can bring benefits to the developing countries while Merger and Acquisition (M&A) FDI can be harmful or have little help for the same country. FDI should promote economical growth in the developing country to be considered a useful investment.  FDI transfer physical capital to the developing country along with technology and other intangible assets (Miao & Wong, 2009). Greenfield investment should start new business that help the developing country to grow, however, some of the investments are oriented mostly toward benefiting the investor (Nanda, 2009). M&A investments should be welcomed in the developing countries to help national ailing organization that need capital and knowhow to rise again as a competitive organization.

M&A investment is easier in developing countries because of the acquired organizations is established and operating within the local rules and regulations. The greenfield investments would need clearances from different governmental departments that could delay the greenfield investment beyond the target date (Nanda, 2009). Nanda (2009) state that China has more stringent regulatory regime than India but China is faster in approving or disapproving FDI projects. This simple fact is believed to be one of the reasons that made China more economically successful than India (Nanda, 2009). A study based on 84 countries from 1987 to 2001 by Miao & Wong (2009) showed positive growth effect from the greenfield investments while the M&A had negative effect. Furthermore, M&A investments required a minimum level of human capital to have positive impact on the developing country’s economy, but the Greenfield investment does not need that level of human capital to be effective (Miao & Wong, 2009). Muller (2007) had more accurate segmentations on the choice of entry mode in the developing countries. Muller (2007) suggest that Greenfield investments is best used if the competition in the local market is either high or low, but acquisition would be the best choice if the completion is intermediate.

Also read in this blog: Mergers and Acquisitions: How Good Are They?

References:

Nanda, N. (2009). Growth effects of FDI: Is greenfield greener? Perspectives on Global Development & Technology, 8(1), 26-47. doi: 10.1163/156914909×403171

Miao, W., & Wong, M. C. S. (2009). What drives economic growth? The case of cross-border M&A and greenfield FDI activities. Kyklos, 62(2), 316-330. doi: 10.1111/j.1467-6435.2009.00438.x

Muller, T. (2007). Analyzing modes of foreign entry: Greenfield investment versus acquisition. Review of International Economics, 15(1), 93-111. doi: 10.1111/j.1467-9396.2006.00634.x

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Short Introduction to: WTO, IMF and OECD

September 4, 2010 2 Comments

LONDON. Before meetings of the Heads of State ...
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Listen to this postThe three principle international institutions that influence the global economic relations are World Trade Organization (WTO), the International Monetary Fund (IMF), and the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) (Rose, 2005). WTO is primarily concerned with trade but does not have the biggest effect on trade. The recent recession had weakened the WTO and many countries started implementing preferential trade agreements that may not agree with the WTO (Dieter, 2009). The recession made many managers and policy makers questioned the international institutions ability to control the trade and generate more sales (Dieter, 2009). Globalization call for international finance and trade agreement, and for the same reason, globalization made most of the financial and business crises more global (Arner & Taylor, 2009). The Group of 20 (G20) called for greater consistency and systematic corporations between countries during their London Summit in April 2009. This call came while the WTO and the IMF are in effect but not effective as expected to be (Arner & Taylor, 2009). WTO was developed and was effective ten years ago but the resent recession’s downturn discouraged the organizations and the countries to neglect the trade agreements between them (Dieter, 2009).  Dieter (2009) state that IMF is not as important international organization as it was ten years ago.

Globalizations was and still believed to benefit the producing countries but the recent economical recession made many lose their confidence in OECD although Rose (2005) believe that OECD is the only international institution that that still can influence the pattern of global economic relations. Rose (2005) state that IMF has an agenda but fewer tools to implement it while OECD had legal instruments and tools but could offer fewer incentives.

References:

Arner, D. W., & Taylor, M. W. (2009). The global financial crisis and the financial stability board: Hardening the soft law of international financial regulation. University of New South Wales Law Journal, 32(2), 488-513.

Dieter, H. (2009). The decline of global economic governance and the role of the transatlantic powers. Business & Politics, 11(3), 1-23.

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Preparing a Code of Ethics

August 21, 2010 3 Comments

Listen to this postTseng, Duan, Tung, and Kung (2010) analyzed 85,000 cited references of 3,059 articles from three business ethics related journals. The researchers found three concentration of interest in the cited references. The concentration was around the following:

  • Ethical and unethical decision-making
  • corporate governance and firm performance
  • Ethical principles and code of conduct

Comparable study was conducted by Forster, Loughran, and McDonald (2009) on a sample of firms listed on the Standard & Poor’s 500 showed similar sentences in their code of ethics. The repeated phrases are covering law obedience, acting with integrity, commitment to integrity,  commitments to treating others with fairness, exercising citizenship rights and remaining committed to the organization’s values. Messikomer and Cirka (2010) stated  honesty, respect, integrity, quality, neutrality and responsibility as the code of ethics principles for the organization (Messikomer & Cirka, 2010).

The list of important rules and principles above are a good guideline to write most of the organizational code of conduct. The process can start with identifying the organizational values and learn for the past experiences when the organizations had ethical problems or when employees violated the organizational values. The employees should be involved in writing the code of conduct, however representatives from each departments or sections would be enough when the organization has many employees that could not be assembled in one locations to discuss such intangible issue. The key stakeholders comments would be valuable for writing the code of ethics because the stakeholders are directly affected by the organizational ethics. The code of ethics history shows that the code writing was reactive to the international ethical violations (Messikomer & Cirka, 2010). Foreign Corrupt Practices Act (FCPA) of 1977 was set to control the supply side corruption by imposing anti-bribery provisions and accounting provision. The act had limited success in the anti-bribery practices according to Darrough (2010), but the ethical users relatively subsided after issuing the act (Messikomer & Cirka, 2010).

Read also in this blog: Ethical Management and  Starting New Business Ethically

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References:

Darrough, M. (2010). The FCPA and the OECD convention: Some lessons from the U.S. experience. Journal of Business Ethics, 93(2), 255-276. doi: 10.1007/s10551-009-0219-5

Forster, M., Loughran, T., & McDonald, B. (2009). Commonality in codes of ethics. Journal of Business Ethics, 90, 129-139. doi: 10.1007/s10551-010-0380-x

Messikomer, C., & Cirka, C. (2010). Constructing a code of ethics: An experiential case of a national professional organization. Journal of Business Ethics, 95(1), 55-71. doi: 10.1007/s10551-009-0347-y

Tseng, H.-C., Duan, C.-H., Tung, H.-L., & Kung, H.-J. (2010). Modern business ethics research: Concepts, theories, and relationships. Journal of Business Ethics, 91(4), 587-597. doi: 10.1007/s10551-009-0133-x

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Considering Russia For New Business

August 18, 2010 3 Comments

Listen to this postRussia has many natural resources with oil and gas are at the top of the list (Ledyaeva, 2009). Most of the goods produced in Russia would be approximately close to European market. Ledyaeva (2009) warns that the legislation and political risk in Russia had increased since 1998.  Geinberg (2008) explain that Russia had good natural resource that made the Russian government accumulate enough cash to invest in the available opportunities.  Foreign investors are shying away from Russia because of the their growing concern that their investments could be seized by the government (Grinberg, 2008). Czech Republic would be a better place for your investment because of its association with the EU. Czech Republic would had lower labor cost and is open for trade but need the capital investment (Janicki & Wunnava, 2004). Kraftova (2005) state that the most promising countries for investment that joined the European Union is the Czech Republic. The rate of youth in the age of 20-24 with secondary education is high, the employment of women is more than 50%.

The Czech Republic would need to increase its labor productivity because it  has productivity lower by %40 than the EU countries (Kraftová, 2005). The Czech Republic need to spend more on the research and development because its research and development effort is lagging behind the EU countries (Kraftová, 2005). New opportunities would be discovered during the research and development work which will benefit. The local governments workforce life time education for the people in the age between 25-64 is lower than EU countries because Czech has %6.3 when EU had %9.5. Czech Republic is part of the EU which is a complex and creative cooperative system of 25 different cultures. This mix would consider the Czech Republic as a potential site for investment if the above points were mitigated (Kraftová, 2005).

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References:

Grinberg, M. (2008). Oil and power politics. Risk Management (00355593), 57-57.

Janicki, H. P., & Wunnava, P. V. (2004). Determinants of foreign direct investment: empirical evidence from EU accession candidates. Applied Economics, 36(5), 505-509. doi: 10.1080/00036840410001682214

Ledyaeva, S. (2009). Spatial econometric analysis of foreign direct investment determinants in Russian regions. World Economy, 32(4), 643-666. doi: 10.1111/j.1467-9701.2008.01145.x

Kraftová, I. (2005). Investing in the Czech Republic. Journal of Corporate Accounting & Finance (Wiley), 16(6), 39-45.

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Does Your Goals Match Your Organization’s Goals?

August 8, 2010 3 Comments

Listen to this postMany employees work very hard to achieve their personal goals thinking that these goals would help them to excel in the their careers. Sometimes, personal and career goals are a perfect match because the individual had planned it that way. We all have needs and wants that appeal to us. We would like to achieve them but they do not help us to climb that steep professional ladder to reach the desired promotion or salary increase. Reading the following pages would help identifying your personal strength and weakness and guiding in converting the weakness to a strength to reach your challenging goals. The last page would help the reader to compare his or her personal goals with their organizational goals. The reader is asked to match his or her goals with the career goals and try to aim for a common goal that develop him or her and to achieve the organization’s objectives.

Many employees work very hard to meet their personal goals thinking that these goals would help them to excel in the their careers. Sometimes,personal and career goals are a perfect match because the person had planned it that way. We all have needs and wants that appeal to us. We would like to achieve them but they do not help us to climb that steep professional ladder to reach the desired promotion or salary increase. Reading the attached pages (by clicking here) would help identifying your personal strength and weakness and guiding converting the weakness to a strength to reach your challenging goals.


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SWOT Analysis

July 29, 2010 4 Comments

SWOT analysis Matrix Listen to this postMany people associate SWOT analysis with the SWAT police force. SWAT team is a Special Weapon And Tactics team while SWOT analysis, the subject of this post, is the identifications and sorting of the Strength, Weakness, Opportunities and threats. Strengths and weaknesses are internal issues, however, opportunities and threats are external matters which can be difficult to find and Control. Brainstorming may be required during the SWOT analysis because some of the items are not obvious and need abroad vision and “out of the box” thinking. Some of the items in the SWOT analysis can fit in two sides of the matrix. They can be a strength and threat at the same time or can be weakness but a good opportunity to explore. I used SWOT analysis before analyze Acer company in this blog. And I wrote in the blog before about my personal reasons to start a blog and that are the advantages and disadvantages to so so. I am today using the same subject for the SWOT analysis. The lost below is the result of my personal SWAT to blog. I have use the “Priority Matrix” to help me in the SWAT arrangement and I find it very useful application to use on your iPad if you are welling to spend few dollars.

SWOT analysis for personal blogging:
Strength :

  • Crystallize and integrate ideas while writing
  • My writing will be global
  • Writing release stress
  • Have many thoughts to share
  • Can use school work for the blog
  • Long work experience
  • My Academic knowledge

Weakness:

  • Some people may misunderstand the thoughts
  • Might get negative comments
  • Writing in English is a challenge
  • I have limited time for bogging

Opportunities :

  • Can blog on anywhere and anytime
  • Blog site is free
  • International reputation
  • People will ask for my expertise
  • Rewrite the post into s book
  • Display my ability to integrate the thoughts

Threats:

  • Hackers may change what I wrote
  • May offend some people with my thoughts
  • Host site may accidentally delete the blog
  • Readers may copy my writing for their personal use.

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Are You Changing Your Work-Space?

July 15, 2010 Leave a Comment

Listen to this postMany companies had redesigned their office space from the traditional set up which have rooms designated for one or two office workers to cubicles or open space design. Some cultures would accept the new set up but others would like to  maintain their privacy in the office. According to Jones (2007), the main purpose of the organizational structure is “to control the way people coordinate their actions to meet organizational goals and to control the means used to motivate people to achieve these goals” (p. 7). The workspace is defined as an organizational resource and is designed to advance the organizational goals (Vaske & Donnelly, 1999). The marketplace especially the international market is influenced and segmented by religion (Wenger, 2004).

Organizations would attract workers who conform with the dominant religion in the organization and in the environment, employees with different religions may face glass ceiling and bear stereotype effect during promotions and salary increase. Wenger (2004) relates religious marketplace theory to the failure of communism to replace religion in China. Religion may have a positive effect from the point view of some (having the same religion) or seen as a hurdle by others. Many companies in the Middle East region are changing their work place set up to cubical or open-space set up similar the Western office layout. The new theories may support the open-space layout and “barrier removal” to enable workers to interact openly but not all agree. New researchers have found that such optimism does not continue when workers find that they lose privacy and independence with it (Chan, Beckman, & Lawrence, 2007). Another research found employees’ satisfaction decreased after they moved from the traditional office layout to the open-space layout (Chan, Beckman, & Lawrence, 2007).

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References:

Chan, J. K., Beckman, S. L., & Lawrence, P. G. (2007). Workplace design: A new managerial imperative. California Management Review, 49(2), 6-22.

Jones, G. (2007). Organizational theory, design, and change (5 ed.). New York: Pearson Prentice Hall.

Vaske, J. J., & Donnelly, M. P. (1999). A value-attitude-behavior model predicting wildland preservations voting intentions. Society & Natural Resources, 12(6), 523.

Wenger, J. E. (2004). Official vs. underground protestant churches in China: Challenges for reconciliation and social influence. Review of Religious Research, 46(2), 169-182.

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Cultural Differences in Business

July 14, 2010 3 Comments

Listen to this postCultural differences are considered as one of the main reasons for work stress and management conflicts during business relationship development in the U.S and China (Li, 2009). Chinese avoid confrontation especially when the conflict is with someone who holds authorities. The Chinese believe that direct approach with the boss will ruin their relationship with him (Johnston & Hongmei, 2009). Cultural diversity has two dimensions, the first consists of age, ethnicity, gender, race and sexual affection orientation which molds the workers self-image and fundamental worldview. The second dimension manipulates the workers self-esteem and definition because it consists of “educational background, geographic location, income, marital status, religious belief” (Edewor & Aluko, 2007, p. 190). The cultural diversity would strengthen the differences between two countries. Globalization help advancing business growth and taping economical resources but cultural differences would limit theses business opportunities. Pinggong (2009) stress the importance of not isolating one culture from the other but to try to relate the cultural experiences and integrate them to have a harmonious organizational culture.

The Islamic culture stress the importance of bonding and team work. Similar to the Chinese culture, the Islamic culture would demand respect and obedience to the superiors and leaders. Most of the Arabic cultures (mostly Muslims) are build on the fundamental of electing an Amire (leader) and then follow the leader whom the community had selected.
Reference:
Edewor, P. A., & Aluko, Y. A. (2007). Diversity management, challenges and opportunities in multicultural organizations. [Article]. International Journal of Diversity in Organisations, Communities & Nations, 6(6), 189-195.

Johnston, L. M., & Hongmei, G. (2009). Resolving conflict in the chinese and U.S. realms for global business entities. (English). [Article]. China Media Report Overseas, 5(4), 22-36.

Li, C. (2009). Managing business relationship development: A cross-cultural perspective. Portuguese Journal of Management Studies, 14(2), 123-147.

Pinggong, Z. (2009). Rethinking the impact of globalization and cultural identity in China. [Article]. China Media Research, 5(2), 25-34


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