Virtual Teams

The business is an international NGO called The World Wide Fund for Nature (WWF) that works on issues regarding the conservation,research and restoration of the environment.

WWF is one of the world's largest and most respected independent conservation organizations, acting locally through a network of over 90 offices in over 40 countries around the world. It is an independent foundation registered under Swiss law. The central secretariat for the network (called WWF International) is located in Gland, Switzerland.

MesserWoland. WWF Logo. 2008.  Retrieved on May 10, 2011 from:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:WWF_logo.svg 

WWF's mission is to stop the degradation of our planet's natural environment, and build a future in which humans live in harmony with nature.Since 1985, WWF has invested over US$1,300 million in more than 11,000 projects in more than 100 countries. WWF runs about 1,300 projects at any one time.In carrying out its work, WWF cooperates with many partners, including UN organizations, IUCN, and development agencies such as USAID and the World Bank. WWF also works with business & industry partners. Individuals contribute 60% of WWF's income.

Switzerland is one of the richest countries in the world, with high living standards and with diverse linguistic and cultural regions: German, French, and Italian with a strong sense of belonging to the country founded on the common historical background, shared values (federalism, direct democracy, neutrality) and Alpines symbolism.

Traditionally, Switzerland avoids alliances that might entail military, political, or direct economic action and this neutrality is the reason for the unusual number of international institutions that have their seats there.

Switzerland has one of the best environmental records among nations in the developed world, part of lots of organizations and treaties and with politics that allow them to be for example one of the top recyclers in the world.

Virtual Teams. Retrieved on May 15, 2011 from:
http://www.businesscapturemastery.com/proposal-writing-with-virtual-teams  

Mongolia is an Asian developing country with an economy based on agriculture and mining. Mongolia has rich mineral resources, and copper, coal, molybdenum, tin, tungsten, and gold account for a large part of industrial production. Despite growth, the proportion of the population below the poverty line is around 30%, being a considerable percentage. As a result of rapid urbanization and industrial growth policies Mongolia's deteriorating environment has become a major concern. The deterioration of the environmental situation is rooted in the irresponsible conflict of interests, the lack of coordination among the member implicated, the inadequate monitoring of natural resource conditions and the lack of serious and respected environmental regulations.  

Siebdrat, F., Hoegl M. & Ernst, H. 2009. How To Manage Virtual Teams.
Article MIT Loan management review. Retrieved on May 12 from:
http://sloanreview.mit.edu/the-magazine/2009-summer/50412/how-to-manage-virtual-teams/ 

n this order of ideas, Switzerland could be a useful partner to transfer environmental practices to Mongolia. But is not as simple as it sound, because their hugest differences in technologies, time zones, cultural differences, knowledge transfer could be a source of misunderstandings. First of all there are located in two different continents with a different time zone (6 hours) and different languages  which would make complicated the agreement on the development of communication. Cultural differences could generate differences in the group member’s willingness and ability to collaborate with each other and also the development of trust among them. Both countries have notorious differences in their technology development, which could make harder the compatibility between the tools that are use to communicate and the availability of such tools. 

ASSIGNMENT GOAL	DESCRIPTION (Hypothetical Case)
Audience	Managers
Purpose	Define a recycling project to develop in Mongolia by the supervision and coordination of the Switzerland branch.
Deadlines and deliverables	Each member must send to the other a project proposal before the date of the virtual meeting. In the virtual meeting there’s going to be a discussion to define the project. After a period of one week the proposal must be defined and ready to be started.
Content	The meeting will be directed by the manager of the Switzerland branch.
Evaluation	Accomplishment of the definition of the project by the date proposed.
Resources	Skype and email.

REFERENCES:

The World Wide Fund for Nature web site. Retrieved on May 10, 2011 from: http://wwf.panda.org/ 

Communication

Non Verbal Communication. 2009. Retrieved on May 12 from:
http://maxatkinson.blogspot.com/2009/07/non-verbal-communication.html 

Non verbal communication includes any kind of communication without using words, and constitutes a big percentage of what we communicate. Facial expression, head or eye movements, hand signals, and body postures are some of the ways of nonverbal communication. All cultures make us of nonverbal communication, but the meaning differ across cultures. 

According to Hofstede cultural dimension, the differences in non verbal communication can be described as follow: 

• Immediacy and expressiveness: demonstrate availability for communication.  High immediacy cultures are called contact cultures, and are mostly located in warm-temperature areas like Arab countries.  
• Individualism vs. Collectivism: Individualistic cultures tend to remote and display less non-verbal communication, on the other side collectivistic cultures stress cohesion as a group and spend time in close proximity to one another. 
• Masculinity: Women in low-masculinity cultures show more synchrony in their movement than those in high-masculinity cultures. 
• Power distance: high-power distance cultures tend to be more “untouchable” and be more tense in subordinates’ body movement, tend to smile more for subordinates to appease superiors or to be polite, and tend to be more aware that vocal loudness may be offensive to others. 
• High and low context: in high context cultures people tend to be more implicit in verbal codes, perceive highly verbal persons less attractive, tend to be more reliant on and tuned into non-verbal communication, and expect to have more non-verbal codes in communication.  

 In this order of ideas, lets see some examples described by De-hua & Hu in their publication "Nonverbal language in cross-cultural communication"

Non verbal communication. Retrieved on May 14 from:
http://www.timmersgems.com/ztnoh.php?bjqt=Chinese-Nonverbal-Communication 

• Body language: Researchers found wide variations in this aspect, even with such universal rituals as nodding agreement and greeting friends. Example: In Italy, Colombia, and China, people may wave good-bye by moving the palm and fingers back and forth, a gesture that more likely means “come here” in the United States. But in Malaysia, beckoning someone by moving the forefingers back and forth would be taken as an insult.
• Body space and body touch: Various cultures have their own customs of different distance that make their people feel comfortable in personal conversation situations. The way human beings space themselves is determined by their culture and the particular relationships involved. Example: Chinese do many more touches than Americans. It is quite usual for the Chinese to walk hand in hand between the same sex. But in America, friends with the same sex never keep such a close distance. Such kind of behavior is considered homosexual in the west and is strongly disgusted.
• Paralanguage: The vocal cues that accompany spoken language like the pitch, speed, volume, pause and silence. People use the basic elements to transfer the emotional and intellectual meanings of their messages. Example: Different traditions view silence much differently. Chinese people value silence more than the use of words, many of them believe that inner peace and wisdom come only through silence, just as the old sayings “Silence is gold”; “Silence speaks louder than sound”, etc. But in American culture, Americans tend to think there is no communication in silence. For instance, in response to the question “Will you marry me”, silence in America would be interpreted as uncertainty; while in China it would be interpreted as acceptance. 

Many nonverbal expressions vary from culture to culture, and what is accepted in one culture may be completely unacceptable in another making in some cases the nonverbal communication as a source of misunderstanding. 

REFERENCES: 

• Kirch, M. 1979. Non-Verbal Communication across Cultures. The Modern Language Journal Vol. 63, No. 8 (Dec., 1979), pp. 416-423. Retrieved on May 11, 2011 from: http://www.jstor.org/stable/326027
• Culture and non verbal communication.  [WWW page]. Retrieved on May 13, 2011 from: http://www.cba.uni.edu/buscomm/nonverbal/culture.htm
• De-hua, W. & Hui, L. 2007. Nonverbal language in cross-cultural communication. Sino-US English Teaching, Volume 4, No.10 (Serial No.46). Retrieved on May 15, 2011 from: http://www.linguist.org.cn/doc/su200710/su20071016.pdf          

The role of workers + migrant workers + expatriates

World. Retrieved on May16, 2011 from:
http://www.bhbl.org/charlton/chhistory/CHhistory.htm 

“From an advertisement found in China in the mid 1800s:

Americans are very rich people. They want the Chinaman to come and will make him very welcome. There you will have great pay, large houses, and food and clothing of the finest description. You can write to your friends and send them money at any time, and we will be responsible for the safe delivery.... There are a great many Chinamen there now, and it will not be a strange country. Chinagod is there, and the agents of this house. Never fear and you will be lucky. Come to Hong Kong, or to the sign of this house in Canton, and we will instruct you.

Money is in great plenty and to spare in America". 

From Linda Perrin, Coming to America: Immigrants from the Far East, (New York: Dell Publishing Co. Inc., 1980), pp.7-8.

Immigration USA. 2010. Retrieved on May 12, 2011 from:
http://www.frugal-cafe.com/public_html/frugal-blog/frugal-cafe-blogzone/2010/04/24/tough-arizona-illegal-immigration-law-igniting-controversy-liberals-smear-campaign-begins-70-of-az-residents-support-it-video/

REFERENCES:

Macalester College. Immigration case studies. Retrieved on May 9, 2011 from: www.macalester.edu/geography/mage/teachers/.../as_case_studies.pdf 

Organisational learning + Change + Conflict

Nowadays, due to the global competition and the increased customer sophistication, organizational learning has been becoming not only a need but also an essential pillar for the survival of organizations. 

O’Keeffe proposes an interesting set of characteristics that must develop an organization to be a learning one and how each contribute to the effective learning.

But this is not an easy process is a challenge that not all organizations achieve to manage or do in the proper way. In many cases organizational culture become a barrier to develop OL, because it requires a culture that encourage, support and facilitate transformation and learning. This requires that the three culture that are present in an organization, the operator, engineering and executive (Sceien, 1996), align themselves with the same objectives, achieving mutual understanding and promote trust, openness and communication among them in order to make the learning initiatives on lived. 

Randy, G. Social learning blog. [Cartoon]. Available at:
http://www.dashe.com/blog/social-learning/brain-rules-for-learning-who-knew

Examples of some organisational learning practices:

• Johnsonvile Foods’: policy of giving each employee one day a year to spend with an employee in another department.
• Toyota Canada: departments invite employees from other departments into their monthly meeting and take staff on tours if the company.
• Honda: requires each manager to exchange each jobs for a two-week period with a counterpart in another function.
• General Motors: plants performance evaluations include an item on networking that encourages the integration of information.

 REFERENCES:

• Dixon N. (1999). The organizational learning cycle: how we can learn collectively. Second Edition. Gower Publishing. Retrieved on May 6, 2011 from: http://books.google.com/books?id=gTn1rJFSOm0C&dq=organizational+learning&lr=&source=gbs_navlinks_s
• Singh, Kavita. 2010. "An Analysis of Relationship between the Learning Organization and Organization Culture in Indian Business Organizations". Organizations and Markets in Emerging Economies. Vol. 1  (1): 142-165.
• Ted O’Keeffe, (2002) "Organisational learning: a new perspective", Journal of European Industrial Training, Vol. 26 Iss: 2/3/4, pp.130 – 141. May 2, 2011. DOI: 10.1108/03090590210422012