Corporations in widening operations essay

Corporations in widening operationsINTRODUCTIONEvolution of thought has always been an inevitable part of human lives.

Innovations are always manifested by people. One thought cannot and will not stay for long because it will surely evolve in the hands of great thinkers and even ordinary people. The human mind is so rich that it is capable of constantly conceptualizing new ideas that would best cater the needs of life. This is a ubiquitous reality that we are immersed. Nothing is permanent in this world except the changing atmosphere of thoughts and realities. There is always the constant evolution of thought that brings about new policies in the way business is conducted. Neoliberalism’s birth can be traced out from the 18th century economic liberalism.

We understand liberalism as a concept that banners democracy. It is characterized by freedom and liberty. In a liberalist perspective, they view such concept as letting the people decide of what they want and without any intervention or influence by others or the government itself. It advocates a free market policy and tries to open the economic possibilities of doing business globally. Today is the age of constant breaking of barriers in terms of business regionalization. We are now in an era of the new world order where we are experiencing a free market policy. There has been a presence of a one-world-one-market policy.

Freedom of commerce is much more evident and it slowly breaks regionalism and boundaries. We can see now the flourish of multi-national corporations. Different factories and companies have their own establishments in different places around the world thus, as many economists view, it increases employment especially on the third world countries which are the targeted destination of big multinational corporations.

International order was defined by Hedley Bull as “ a pattern of activity that sustains the elementary or primary goals of the society of states, or international society” (Holm & Sorensen 1995). The new world order is viewed to be manifesting inequality; where some countries are benefiting from the proceeds of free trade and free mobility of labour while other countries are experiencing the pain. “ The problem with globalization is that it is not just a natural progression…it stands to benefit some and make losers of others; the unequal power relationships within and between nation states and between other groups in society mean that the judgment about whether globalization is good or bad depends on the nature of those power relationships” (Public Service International 2005). The new world order is a product of the great spectrum of neoliberalism and it is widely use around the world. Social democratic government like Sweden’s and technologically ascendant countries such as Germany seemed to move in very different directions from other capitalist countries in the crisis of 1974.

These divergent economic paths seem to be only alternative ways covering in neoliberalism. In the 1990’s, the world economic status is generally agreed to accommodate only one model of development and it is the export-oriented production. This was base on the flexibility of labour markets, lower and authentic social wages, free trade and fewer regulations. According to Holm & Sorensen (1995), two social structures are visible from the uneven nature of globalization: Core- type, industrialized countries with consolidated liberals democracies and external institutionalization; andPeriphery- type, semi- or non industrialized, authoritarian or semi-democratic areas with a relatively low degree of internal and external institutionalization.

While the core –type, industrialized areas with consolidated liberal democracies is associated with Western Europe and the United States, the periphery- semi-periphery is linked to the African, Latin America, and South Asia. Another category resulting from the changes in the former Eastern bloc have created a ‘ gray zone’ (semi-periphery area) in which countries clearly resemble the periphery-type societies. This includes countries like Azerbaijan, Turkmenia, Uzbekistan and others. While most advance countries like Hungary, the Czech and Slovak Republics, Poland, and also Russia, struggle for membership in the core. It is observed that the Eastern Europe countries have suddenly imbibed the doctrine of the neo-liberals movement.

“ Eastern Europe’s market for policy ideas, suddenly opened in 1989, was swiftly captured by an Anglo-American product with a liberal brand name” (Gowan 1995). Some Scholars in Eastern Europe have also encouraged the adoption of the neo-liberals ideas. Prominent among them is Sachs’s ideas which have received the very highest accolades from the Anglo-Saxon academic world and widely recognized and a household name in Eastern Europe.  There was an emphasis made of a world with a vision of getting benefits in the policy of capitalization and that the people will enjoy the good harvest from it. With the birth of open economic enterprise, corporations operate around the world.

Most corporations have different branches and offices in different places around the world and want to conquer the world to expand their domain of business and profit. Global expansion is the theme of today’s business world. This is due to the fact that many corporations can benefit with other countries. These countries as somehow viewed to be exploited are third world countries. Third world countries are opportunities for corporations to enjoy low cost of labor and eventually high profit. Globalization is an umbrella term for a complex series of integration and democratization of the world’s culture, economy, and infrastructure through transnational investment, rapid proliferation of communication and information technologies, and the impacts of free-market forces on local, regional and national economies, and is seen as increasing interdependence, integration and interaction among people and companies in disparate locations. Globalization can bring about either positive effects or negative results. On one hand, it can carry an increased standard of living and prosperity to developing nations and further wealth to First World and Third World countries.

On the other, it could be an engine of “ corporate imperialism” (en. wikipedia. org), one that would tread on the human rights of developing societies, that asserts to bring affluence yet often simply amounts to plundering and profiteering. It could also give negative effects like cultural assimilation through cultural imperialism, the export of artificial wants, and the destruction or inhibition of authentic local and global community, ecology and cultures. IMPORTANCE OF BUILDING A STRONG CORPORATE CULTUREA strong corporate culture is the key for a corporation to attain success in its operation. “ Company culture is based on shared values and workplace norms (e.

g., innovation, risk-taking) not necessarily personality likenesses. Company cultures pervade the entire organization, not just certain departments or levels of employees.”(Rao 2003). Corporate culture is the underlying element inside a corporation. A strong corporate culture enables a company to deal with challenges effectively especially on its expansion worldwide. A strong corporate culture is characterized by cohesiveness and cooperation.

It is of known fact that companies are not run by only one man. Companies are driven by groups of men with the goal of achieving success. It is important to achieve this state of order because companies really do need cohesiveness and teamwork in facing different challenges. Cohesiveness will bring the companies to have a smooth operation that is essential in attaining success. Every member is vital and plays a role of significance in the quest to have corporate success in every corporation. “ Culture has a vital and measurable impact on the organization’s ability to deliver on its strategy. Thus culture is central for a successful operation and to long-term effectiveness of the company” (Gupta 2007). CORPORATE CHALLENGESMany challenges face corporations that try to expand its operations worldwide as a result of the evolution of the worldwide policy.

Building a strong corporate culture is always been the objective of a company. When we try to study expansion of corporations, there are a lot of challenges associated in building a strong corporate culture. First, the expansion of corporations in its operations means having to face the challenge of how to keep corporate culture strong amidst distance. In every company or corporation, there is no time to waste in their operation. Every single moment must be translated to profit. In venturing to the different parts of the globe, corporations face distance as a barrier. A strong corporate culture is manifested in teamwork and venturing to different parts of the world challenges the idea of teamwork and cohesiveness.

This is because laws and norms of a corporation might not be followed by employees in other places. Some people, because of distance, they tend to relax in their jobs. Thinking that it is hard for the head office to monitor their actions, they feel not really oblige to work as hard as they use to in times being observed by management. Distance also minimizes face-to-face interactions between employees and thus making it harder to create strong bonds between them. Less bond between employees may result to non-cooperation.

Second, the expansion of operations means having to face the challenge of diversity among its employees. Corporations conquering the world face different contexts and settings associated with different cultures and may find difficulty in training new recruits due to differences in orientation. Many countries from Asian region are deeply committed and dedicated to their cultures. In fact, many countries have a hard time adapting new policies that are associated to globalization because they deem it as a threat to their own identity and culture. In the Middle East, many insurgencies are connected to the Anti-globalization campaigns. Many insurgents view globalization as a form of Imperialism that will soon exploit their national identity and culture.

In Afghanistan, Insurgents contradicts the campaign of educating and making women as productive in terms of working together with men. They are deeply attached to their culture that they view women as not to be part of this gender sensitivity campaign. They want women to be even dressed with veil in order to remain pure and remain unattached to the world of change which they see as a form of evil and destruction of culture.

The diversity in culture manifests a problem in building a corporate culture which is strong. Differences in values embedded by different culture may find it hard for employees to go along with team work. Differences is a barrier that must be addressed and people inside an organization must have openness to other’s beliefs and values and everyone must also be open enough to set aside his cultural values and beliefs and uphold organizational norms in order achieve the success of business. DEALING WITH CHALLENGESTechnology makes it possible to save time and economize effort in the pursuit of organizations in their goals, a very good effect of technology that is ubiquitously happening now. Technology helps build a strong corporate culture amidst distance.

It has been of great truth that meetings of organizations can easily be carried out now by means of video conference technologies, internet chatting and a lot more. It can be seen that the faster the communication and information dissemination, the faster the branches of an organization to act and accomplish their tasks. Even having distance as a barrier, constant interaction and monitoring can still be made. Clearly, technology can greatly increase productivity and efficiency in work which are elements in the fulfillment of every organizational goal and also enables managers to constantly check the performance of employees. Team work can still be achieved with the help of technology because employees can still interact and exchange ideas for the betterment of the whole company. It is then imperative that multinational corporations in its quest for expansion must adapt new technologies that would overcome the problem of distance. Another important element in building a strong corporate culture is the horizontal strategy.

“ For example, instead of the usual corporate practice of putting employees’ names on their doors, our staff offices are identified by their pictures. This personalizes their workspace and gets people interacting quicker. They’re able to attach a face and personality to a name, rather than another nametag. Social cohesion between employees can be encouraged, creating a web of workplace relationships that will tend to result in employees attaching higher values to the workplace environment” (Lakeman 2001). In horizontal strategy, there is the atmosphere of giving employees the freedom that would make them feel relaxed at work and able to interact quicker with other employees with no high emphasis on level of position. Although this strategy does not emphasize more on level of positions regarding employees, respect must still be bannered. Freedom is only granted in order for an employee not to inhibit himself and in order for him to participate well in every undertaking of the company. Social events must also be organized by companies in order to develop and maintain a strong corporate culture.

“ Social events, such as multicultural potluck lunches held at our offices, are also part of the glue that bonds employees to each other, and to a common corporate culture, no matter what their background” (Lakeman 2001). Social gatherings ensure face-to-face interactions among employees and even make them create a bond that goes beyond working relationships. In social gatherings, employees are able to even talk matters such as family and create friendship from small conversations. Another factor in contributing to a strong corporate culture in cases of private corporations is to “ provide your staff with part ownership of the company so that they’re all working towards a common goal” (Lakeman 2001).

In this kind of approach, employees feel a deep attachment to the company and make them work hard in order for the company to achieve success which can also be translated as their own success. The company also must encourage education for those who are lacking or deficiencies in educational attainment. It must also provide seminars and trainings to its members for the advancement of learning. Some of the steps that can be taken are personality development seminars, leadership seminars and even values education seminars which will surely give life’s lessons to the people inside the organization. Growth and development is again vital to organization’s success. Openness to learning is a manifestation of adapting to the changing and challenging world. There is always an evolution of knowledge and thus people must also adapt to its constant change. People’s minds are also dynamic and thus needs to be catered by new trainings, short courses and seminars.

“ Another key to building a strong corporate culture is to integrate the principles into everyday work. This is especially important for a start-up where there are limited resources, including time and money, to devote to off-site, team-building events. One way to overcome this obstacle was by encouraging people to create cross-functional task forces to solve complex problems. In this way, we were able to integrate team culture into the workplace effectively” (Rao 2003). The last but not the least way of maintaining a strong corporate culture is hiring talented and well-suited individuals for their work. These people will make a team of great professional especially given trainings with values integration.

Having the right employees for the right job makes it a smooth sailing operation for a business. Intellect is always not enough if not coupled with good values because it values that makes decisions to be right. CONCLUSIONWe are now in an era of the new world order where we are experiencing a free market policy.

There has been a presence of a one-world-one-market policy. Freedom of commerce is much more evident and it slowly breaks regionalism and boundaries. We can see now the flourish of multi-national corporations. Different factories and companies have their own establishments in different places around the world. Globalization is an umbrella term for a complex series of integration and democratization of the world’s culture, economy, and infrastructure through transnational investment, rapid proliferation of communication and information technologies, and the impacts of free-market forces on local, regional and national economies, and is seen as increasing interdependence, integration and interaction among people and companies in disparate locations. With corporations expanding their operations around the world, there are challenges that are associated with its expansion that threatens or hampers a strong corporate culture. First, the expansion of corporations in its operations means having to face the challenge of how to keep corporate culture strong amidst distance. Second, the expansion of operations means having to face the challenge of diversity among its employees.

In coping up with challenges in maintaining a healthy corporate culture, is to adopt technology. Technology helps build a strong corporate culture amidst distance. It has been of great truth that meetings of organizations can easily be carried out now by means of video conference technologies, internet chatting and a lot more. It can be seen that the faster the communication and information dissemination, the faster the branches of an organization to act and accomplish their tasks. Another important element in building a strong corporate culture is the horizontal strategy. In horizontal strategy, there is the atmosphere of giving employees the freedom that would make them feel relaxed at work and able to interact quicker with other employees with no high emphasis on level of position. Social events must also be organized by companies in order to develop and maintain a strong and healthy corporate culture. Social gatherings ensure face-to-face interactions among employees and even make them create a bond that goes beyond working relationships.

A company must also provide seminars and trainings to its members for the advancement of learning. Having the right employees for the right job makes it a smooth sailing operation for a business. When multinational corporations expand their operation, challenges are expected to arise.

But proper programs will always answer problems related to expansion. Strong corporate culture is the key for a business to prosper especially in its expansion of its operations but to maintain this kind of culture is hard but it is worth the effort. BIBLIOGRAPHY; Gowan, P. 1995.

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