Company Culture, Ethics, and Social Exclusion

Posted on Dec 5, 2024 in Other subjects

Company Network

A network of contacts among agents, energizing their internal structure. Companies, especially multinationals, adapt to markets and technologies through internal decentralization. Subsidiaries, departments, and product lines have autonomy, even competing with each other. SMEs form collaborative networks for flexibility and resource concentration. Networks of small firms work for large ones, creating intersecting networks. The company network ensures flexibility but has adverse effects.

Adverse Effects:

  • For workers, it increases vulnerability and decreases bargaining power, especially for low-skill levels, leading to wage disparities. Unions struggle to operate within these networks.
  • For companies, there’s a contradiction between flexibility for competitiveness and labor productivity.

Contradictions:

  • Economic dynamism vs. social vulnerability
  • Competitive flexibility vs. productive stability

ICT and Internet Impact

ICT and the Internet provide essential tools and a dynamic business model with five characteristics:

  • Scalability: Networks expand or retract based on business needs.
  • Interactivity: Real-time interaction among suppliers, customers, and employees eliminates vertical communication channels.
  • Flexibility: Control over projects while extending reach and diversifying composition.
  • Brand Management: Brand policy in a multilateral business environment.
  • Personalization: Online interaction ensures production tailored to consumer tastes.

Globalization and Labor

Globalization affects labor through:

  • Multinational company employment and cross-border networks.
  • Impacts of international trade on employment and working conditions.
  • Effects of global competition and flexible management methods.

Strategic Advantages:

  • Reduce firm size, retaining skilled labor and importing products.
  • Outsource work to transnational networks.
  • Use temporary, part-time, or informal labor.
  • Automate or relocate tasks with high labor costs.
  • Obtain employee consent to severe working conditions.

Network Reorganization

Network reorganization threatens industrial relations:

  • Traditional industrial relations were based on physical workplaces.
  • Informational relations develop along value-added production streams and networks.

The information economy promotes individualism, rewarding winners and hurting losers.

Social Exclusion

Poverty

Poverty is associated with low income levels. Relative poverty is measured against median income. The UN defines poverty based on health, employment, and income.

Poverty Intensity Indices:

  • Less than 15%: Severe poverty
  • 16-25%: Severe poverty
  • 26-35%: Moderate poverty
  • 36-50%: Very poor

Social Alienation

Philosophers link alienation to work experiences:

  1. Feeling detached from work products.
  2. Lack of control over work phases.
  3. Absence of generic social connection.

Changes Leading to Social Exclusion

  1. Fragmentation: Ethnic, cultural, and age-related changes create precarious scenarios.
  2. Information Economy Impacts: Job losses, long-term unemployment, and low-quality training lead to exclusion.
  3. Welfare State Deficit: Failures in education and social support systems increase vulnerability.

Concepts of Social Exclusion

Social exclusion arises from inequalities and structural determinants. It involves vulnerability in employment, residence, and economic access. It is a dynamic, expanding phenomenon with interrelated factors.

Areas of Social Exclusion

  • Economic: Poverty, financial difficulties, and dependency on social protection.
  • Work: Unemployment, underemployment, and precarious working conditions.
  • Training: Lack of access to education and training.
  • Socio-Health: Limited access to healthcare and social services.
  • Residential: Exclusion from housing due to economic and labor difficulties.
  • Relational: Deterioration of family and social networks.
  • Citizenship: Lack of participation rights and obligations.

Company Culture and Structure

Factors of Interest in Culture

  1. Japanese companies’ success.
  2. Growing uncertainty in the business environment.
  3. Success of companies with strong cultures.

Elements of Culture

Culture is shared behavior based on cognitive, emotional, and moral experiences. It is transmitted across generations and requires learning.

Culture Components:

  • Technique: Know-how, skills, and interaction with technology.
  • Symbolic Code: Shared codes of meaning and communication.
  • Models of Reality: Shared explanations of life’s dimensions.
  • Normative World: Guidelines for performance standards and penalties.

Visible Manifestations:

  • Core Beliefs: Tacit assumptions and attitudes.
  • Conscious Values: Principles influencing actions.
  • Institutionalized Rules: Management systems and communication styles.
  • Stories and Narratives: Anecdotes, myths, and legends.

Functions and Dimensions of Culture

  • Symbolic Dimension: Finding meaning in reality and tasks.
  • Instrumental Dimension: Adapting to the environment and achieving goals.

Types of Cultures

  • Entrepreneurial: Flexibility and adaptation to change.
  • Mission: Shared vision and purpose.
  • Clan: Internal processes and employee treatment.
  • Bureaucratic: Compliance with regulations and procedures.
  • Stabilizing Dimension: Internal cohesion and motivation.

Ethics in the Company

Ethical vs. Economic Rationality

Ethical standards differ from economic standards. Ethical reasoning is based on dignity and justice, not just wealth.

Ethical Codes

Companies can adopt existing codes or develop their own. Codes should be developed through dialogue and consensus, with monitoring and enforcement mechanisms.

External Audits

Audit on Organizational Behavior

Ethical audits assess ethical behavior based on established principles and codes. Indicators measure performance and outcomes. An Ethics Committee should oversee the process.

Ethics Committee

The committee ensures participation and monitors ethical conduct. It should include independent members and represent diverse perspectives. Functions include analysis, assessment, and operability.