International Business and Globalization
Question 1
Multinational Corporation or MNC is a result of clear managerial control and coordination together with elements of ownership legally linked distinct companies operating in several different foreign countries. Most of the foreign plants have poor working conditions that make it risky for workers. It is therefore the responsibility of the United States multinational corporations to intervene and ensure that the standards are universal. The fact that foreign plants are far from the United States does not mean that the corporations cannot be in a position to monitor them. They send auditors regularly to the foreign plants for the purposes of ensuring that there are better working conditions (Acosta, 2007).
On the other hand, some countries make it difficult for foreign plants to operate in the foreign market. The United States multinational corporation ensures that there are no barriers to international market. Some of these barriers are because of politics and in rare cases culture. For a foreign plant to operate in a different culture, it is necessary that it adapt to their culture. This means that if people are working in china, which has a different diet from the rest of the world, they should have special meals prepared for them and in most cases; the United States multinational corporation ensures that they have packed food. Most of this packed food comes from the mother country therefore eliminating any risk of starving because of not eating the different diet (Acosta, 2007).
It is the responsibility of the United States multinational corporation to ensure that the machines in the foreign plants are friendly and less risky. There have been cases where people lose their lives due to electrocution from hanging and naked wires. This shows carelessness and lack of responsibility and care for the workers. Most foreign plants tend to misuse and mishandle employees going to an extent either of paying them lesser because they are foreigners or in a foreign country. The multinational corporation also inspects the quality of products and materials used in the foreign plants and has full mandate to close down those plants that do not meet their standards.
Question 2
There could be many points contesting this question but to cut the story short, Berkeley, Princeton and LSE university researchers can have political motivations just like others and that is why their research could not be true about the same question. Employers prefer not to sack their existing employees when labor costs increase. Small variations in the minimum wage have small effects on the economy. Even though there is about that study it may be honest and genuine, to draw the conclusion that the minimum wage does not affect the employment market would be dishonest and disingenuous. Otherwise, why can the corporations not go ahead and call ten times higher minimum wage? After all, an increase in minimum wage would not have any effect; right (Acosta, 2007).
Sacking people is costly and dangerous for employee morale. However, employers adjust their expansion plans and naturally decide not to hire as much in the future. Therefore, one may not see any job cuts, but will not see a high level of job creation either. The real question about minimum wages is not ‘what would be the effect if we increased it by 20%’. It is ‘how much better could we be without minimum wages?’ study ought to compare a situation with minimum wages to one without.
If there is a country with high minimum wages and other government burdens on employers, and I will reveal a sluggish, unemployment-ridden economy. Examples: are too many to mention. If there is a country without minimum wage and little government burden on companies, and I will reveal a vibrant economy that functions without unemployment. Examples: Switzerland expects an unemployment rate of less than 3% in 2012. Singapore has an unemployment rate of around 2% (Acosta, 2007).
Wages and working conditions of workers in less developed countries should therefore not remain to the demands of the local labor market and it is not preferable for workers in foreign countries to have low paid jobs and difficult working conditions or no jobs at all. Employers should take this as a wake up call and do away with their style of sucking people when there is increment of minimum wages. This also creates a bad image to the employees and in future, such employers could lack employees. It is easier for word to s spread across employees than the employers think (Alison, 2002).
Question 3
There is adoption of corporate social responsibility programs by more and more companies. On a wider range, the purposes of CSR programs are to asses and improve corporate operations regarding a variety of values that are beyond profit, environmental protection, workforce diversity, human rights and contribution to local communities. Activism around sweatshop conditions in the factories contributed to the rise of central feature for a majority of corporate social responsibility program’s codes of conduct.
This is where manufacturing of consumer goods take place. Efforts to get the multinational corporations and their subcontractors together for compliance with local labor will not be easy, as many would think it is. Many northern and southern countries do not put sufficient resources to enforcement. There is persistence of the management practices that avoid regulations. Furthermore, interpretation of labor laws can be difficult. However, companies, suppliers and countries fail to point to these difficulties for the purposes of eluding accountability that is legal and genuine (Alison, 2002).
It will be difficult to achieve legal compliance regardless of whether in the Corporate social responsibility rubric or not. There are advantages of extracting legal compliance form corporate social responsibility like exposing a range of wage and workplace issues that law require companies to attend to strictly. Compliance with local laws is insufficient for corporate social responsibility but there are advantages associated with it like mentioned earlier in the paper. Compliance is indeed difficult and companies admit that fact.
Separating legal compliance from corporate social responsibility could provide bigger incentive for focus by companies on keeping the law first. It could also give corporate social responsibility greater accuracy to ratings and support company compliance staff that often makes unpopular requests. It could also influence in increment of companies engaged in all these issues (Alison, 2002).
Question 4
Consumers do have many responsibilities on products manufactured under sweatshop conditions. Consumers have a lot of power and can decide what they want as the products because they are the final or end users. If there were a way to ask consumers, they would have a great influence on what a company produces. Consumers are the main pillars of sweatshops and thus more influence on products under sweatshop conditions. Consumers do not only buy, they also determine what the company should make them to buy. Market segmentation approach is a technique where products get certain products created for specific target consumers. It refers to product’s design and this is something that sweatshops take seriously. Its products are mainly for the music industry where young people are the target group (Acosta, 2007).
There are many methods applicable to market segmentation depending on what consumers want. If consumers want nothing, then the products are all useless. Consumers include cluster analysis, which is a set of methods meant for knowing the structure or groups of products in a set of facts having measures on each product. Personality of the consumer also influences buying behavior and people with a mighty personality rarely go for common things. It is something that just comes. Perception includes the activities that an individual acquires and gives meaning to stimuli. This begins with exposure, which is usually the result of self-selection. There is an occurrence of attention in cases of more than one sensory receptor (Alison, 2002).
People have different attitudes towards some products and this prevents them and their friends from buying the same. Some think that putting on headphones and earphones is old school and prefer using the hands free feature while on phone. Well, the latter is just an example of attitude as an influence towards buying behavior. All these are ways in which consumers have responsibilities for products manufactured under sweatshop conditions. The reason companies do have customer care is to get a way of making the consumers happy so as to support them by buying their goods and services like products manufactured under sweatshop conditions.
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