The Latin American Studies Association (LASA) is the largest professional Association in the world for individuals and institutions engaged in the study of Latin America.

LASA Sections and Task Forces

• Brazil Section
• Cuba Section
• Culture, Power, and Politics Section
• Ecuadorian Studies
• Ethnicity, Race and Indigenous Peoples
• Europe and Latin America Section
• Gender and Feminist Studies Section
• Latino Studies Section
• Peru Section
• And many more
  

This organization's mission is to foster intellectual discussion, research, and teaching on Latin America, the Caribbean, and its people throughout the Americas, promote the interests of its diverse membership, and encourage civic engagement through network building and public debate.

The section that i found most interesting was the Ethnicity, Race, and Indigenous Peoples, their goal is give scholarly collaboration and exchange of ideas with respect to the study of ethnicity, race, Indigenous peoples, Afro-descendants and related issues in Latin America and the Caribbean. Also the seeking and promotion of greater participation of Indigenous and Afro-descendant scholars and intellectuals in the activities of the Latin American Studies Association and, more generally, in scholarly and academic communities.

Blogs

I personally still liking Santiago´s Carvajal blog, is very complete and nice to read, sorry that i cant comment there.

And Daniel's blog is also amazing, he really carries out a research for every topic discused in class, is very complete.

Some blogs i visited:

http://dboterog.blogspot.com/
www.carval.tumblr.com
http://culturesagora.blogspot.com/
http://se-luna.blogspot.com/2010/02/culture-is.html
http://www.carlosvallejod34.blogspot.com/

Trade Unions

Trade unions in europe, specially en germany, are very strong but are few, managers can be
forced to share decision-making power with trade unionists, and
where they can question managers to make sure that enough
redundancies have been made to save the company, and where trade
unionists can vote in favour of bonuses for the management (Piette, 2004)


Extra-EU trade by main declaring Member State, 2008
As the chart shows, the German trade unions represent a lot compared with othe countries like Spain or France. But in only 8 out of the current 27 member states of the European Union (EU) are more than half of the employed population members of a trade union (Fedee)

According to that, this fragment of Fedee, supports what i'm saying; Over the last twenty years there has been a widespread decline in trade union membership throughout most of western Europe. Since the fall of the Iron Curtain in 1989, unionisation in many eastern European states has collapsed at an even more dramatic rate. In Poland, for example, today's 14 % level of unionisation is in marked contrast to that of the Soviet-controlled era, when almost all workplaces were unionised. Most of those who remain trade union members in Poland work for former state-owned companies.

¿¡SORRY!?

From your own point of view it useful to say "Sorry" after years of wrong policies towards a minority? Why, What else is needed?


Photo: Michael Davies, Flickr

This is a delicate isue, but i think that just saying sorry is not enought, the stolen generation was part of the oldest cultures of the history of Australia, and they stole not just people, they took away much more, like the identity of the people, they human rights, the heritage, entire families, native languages, and i can make this post out of bad and missing things.

¿how can you wipe that up?

But at least they recognize the wrong that they did, but that doesnt take the harm away, is somethig that England or United States havent done. This is a "part of the healling of the nation" and it tried to give equal oportunities to all, making the life spectancy, education achievement, economic oportunity the same for all (at least is what Kevin Rudd said).

Say sorry by part of the government has to be also matched with economical aid and educational programs to make the "aboriginies" a functional part of the society, but that is not what is going on, the native australians, live in extreme poverty and with social exclution. The goverment havent fullfiled they ¿¡"sorry"!? yet.

Please let me know what you think about this isue in the comments below.

E-commerce in Islamic culture.

E-Commerce is spreading world-wide and many Muslims are wondering whether this new form of commerce is acceptable from the Syariah (Islamic Law) point of view (Norazlina Zainul).

First of all, the main concern of Muslims when talking about commerce, is the legitimacy of the contract and its transaction, therefore, the contract must be written and have to have witnesses, the Holly Book (Quran) specified this.

E-Commerce referred to the use of information and communication technologies to network economic activities and processes, in order to reduce information related to transaction costs to gain a strategic, information advantage, also, some of it quality values are accuracy and veracity, flexibility, convenience, contract standardization, speed, cost effectiveness.

This is accepted by the Quran ‘‘Allah showers his mercy and compassion upon the one
who is tolerantly flexible, both when buying and selling’’.

Like Zainul Osman said in his article, Islam said that the first goal of a Muslim doing business is to seek the pleasure of Allah and they should aim higher goal when they do business. This means that every business they do and their life, must be acepted and guided by the Holy Book, the Quran, since it contains the principles and guidelines related to all spheres of life.

Finally, to summarize, the Muslims, have to see if his intentions and the economic contract in general, is lined with the Quran and Sunnah and also, these intentions, should be for the sake of Allah, not merely for the worldly gained.

• Norazlina Zainul, O. F. (2004). E-Commerce from an Islamic perspective (Master's thesis). Abstract retrieved from http://www.sciencedirect.com

The Blog EcoPlanet

This was the most amazing blog i ever seen, i like it very much, not only for its content but also for the way the writer make his entries.

There was this image in particular that caugth my atention because is right where we are going to, beside the ironic and funny of it.

Also i think i learn how a blog have to be structurated and how the citations are made, i will try to make it right, is a learning process and i will do my best.

Image done by: Clay Bennett available at: http://ecoplaneta.mangasverdes.es/2010/04/13/top-31-vinetas-ecologia/

If anyone wants to visit that amazing blog, her is the url: http://ecoplaneta.mangasverdes.es/

East Asia

Well i think is a very important region for us right now because all the technological advances, natural resourses, market size and labour force. That is why most of the companies are trying to have some share of those markets, because of the profits that it promeses.

All this also have consecuenses, like poverty in the big cities, like Mumbay and China, but big industrialization and economic development for the region.

On the other hand, is the cultural heritage that this region has, millions of years of tradition and respect for life make an exelent and very important region for the world.

OMG!

Sorry for the colors and the letter style of the entries but is my first time blogging and its very hard to do it. :S

Try to ignore it. XD

Average sales person in Colombia

Before i start i must clarify that all im saying is from my own point of view and my personal experiences.

As we can see in Hofstede analysis the individualism of colombian people, including the bussines man, is very low, we lake to work in groups and support each other; the power distance is very high, it means that we dont need always a boss that tells us what to do and what not to.

In the part of "role of stress", we always avoid conflict, since we tent to work on groups, the conflict rate is very low and we have the information to do what we need to do, that is whay the "role of ambiguity" is very low too. The Colombian sales-people is people very preparated in resolution of conflicts and tend to be more independent and open-minded .

About the Leadership Behaviour, the average sales-person in Colombia is vey bad, because we most of the time think in our own good, even tought we work in groups. The two evaluation categories of consideration and initiation to structure we practice them in the organisations for education but not because of true leadership skills.

Finaly the organizational commitment of the Colombian people (including obviously sales-people) is very high due to the love we develop in the organisations, it can be for the rewards, fear to lose what we have achieved, the people we know, even the boss, etc; anyway we tend to work in the same organisation for "life".


Don't forget to comment ;)

Other blogs

I´ve seen a lot of blogs but the one i liked the most was the blog of Daniel Botero (http://dboterog.blogspot.com/), because is very organized and his posts are really nice, he say very apropiate things. But the blog of Santiago Carvajal (http://carval.tumblr.com/) is also very good.

Little work about the girls exposition

Well i think the most offensive one is Simbad, followed by Slug, Gregory in the third position and abigail in fourth and last one Ivan.

And the reprehensible conduct i think would be something like this: 1.Simbad, 2.Ivan, 3.Slug, 4.Gregory, 5.Abigail.

Very short post but is a very short activity :D

Legal ¿"Person"?

The wednesday in class the teach show us a movie called "The Corporation" and told us to answer a question of it; i chose: Should corporations be entitled to the same legal rights as individuals ? Where Should the line be drawn ?

I think the corporations twisted their way, and the just have some hidden harm within themselves, they just look for more productivity and more products per man hour. The corporations as a “person”, have no moral (conscience), are an immortal thing and only seek for short term profit, in this part you are probably starting to get my point, as a popular Swedish adage sais “power corrupts and absolute power corrupt absolutely”. To solve this, the corporations should have clear and visible stipulations and regulations, less freedom and rights to do whatever they want and more severe punishment to their corrupt and twisted view of the world.

For example, the environmental impact, is a case in which the corporations doesn´t have any regulations, I mean, doesn´t have any strict and very high obligatory regulation, the corporations always do what they want at the end of the day, in my point of view, the law should put some high rules and standards and bind their action field.

¿Relation between national identity and corporate culture?

Well, i understand the national identity as a creation of the institutions of the state like the law, the education system, the media, etc. and it is different from country to country.

The national identity can modify the corporate culture making it more compatible with the national identity, if the enterprise doesn´t modify it, it might not have succes in the country because, the people, used to what they learned from the institutions of the state might not like what the enterprise bring and it makes the company fail.

There is and existent relation between this two concepts, one surrounds the other and make it more changeable and flexible.

About Culture

Culture:

Culture has many definitions but i found one that inmediatly called my attention and i think is very complete to define what culture is.

• Culture is the way of life of a given society. It includes the way people think, act, interact with each other, and make decisions. It also defines what individuals eat, what they wear, what they think is right or wrong, and much more. Culture is passed down from one generation to another. What individuals learn from their parents and those individuals they grew up with, such as teachers, uncles, aunts, and neighbors, is passed down to future generations. Iowa State University. 2005. About Culture [Online] (Updated March 24, 2009). Available at: http://www.celt.iastate.edu/international/Culture3.html

Also the culture can be defined in terms of organisations and corporations like:

• The set of shared attitudes, values, goals, and practices that characterizes an institution, organization or group. Wikipedia. Culture [Online] (Updated January 17, 2010). Available at: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Culture

And the classic dictionary definiton:

• The totality of socially transmitted behavior patterns, arts, beliefs, institutions, and all other products of human work and thought.

Please comment and complement this post. :)