Julia Roberts - the biography

Besides being visible, the leaders of these top companies provided a 'clear mission'. In other words, they knew where the organisation was going and persuaded staff to follow them.

Finally, successful organisations have clear values. And it is the job of the leader to show what they are.

Thus, the successful leader must also protect and promote the organisation's values.

13. Mana

gement in multinationals

Simply, multinational is a company, doing business in more than 1 country. But this definition doesn’t indicate the size and the scale of the multinational’s activities.

To be a ‘true’ multinational, experts say, an organization should operate in at least 6 countries and have no less than 20% of its sales or assets in those countries. For instance, the larger enterprises like IBM, British petroleum and Mobil Oil, have subsidiaries in sixty to eighty countries.

The interests of multinationals and foreign governments frequently clash. Because of their global approach, multinationals often make decisions which are against the interest of the host countries. The governments of host countries can put pressure on multinationals to change their minds and can also criticised them for different reasons. Difficulties often arise when multinationals wishes to transfer its earnings back to Head Office, because this operation may have a bad effect on the exchange rate of host country’s currency. The list of complaints against multinationals is a long one, so many countries try to restrict their operations (Nigeria & India) – certain % of the equity must be owned by local investors or certain % of managers must be local staff. All this restrictions can lead to friction between the 2 sides, and even bitterness.

Multinationals managers will spend much of their time working overseas. They will live and work in a strange environment, have to deal with people, who have diff. language, customs and religions. Multinationals managers must take foreign conditions into account.

Managers working abroad need various skills. A recent study has shown that, first of all, they need human relations skills, which are quite significant, an understanding of the culture, ability to adapt and knowledge of local language. These requirements are vital. To be effective, the manager must persuade local staff to cooperate with him and his organization.

Differences in culture are important when a manager is negotiating in a foreign country. Manager should be able to make a concession and not to talk in an over-eager way.

14. Social responsibility

Thirty o so years ago, discussions of social responsibility were of three types. Firstly, there were a lot of talks about how business people should behave in their work. Should they have the same ethical standards, principles, as they had in the private life? Secondly people discussed the social responsibility of business towards its employees. They were interested in how org. could improve the working conditions of their employees. And finally, social responsibility included the idea that business people should contribute to cultural activities like music festivals and art exhibitions.

These days, there is a new approach to social responsibility. Many people say that a business should try to meet the needs and interests of society. It has an obligation to help solve the problems of society. For example, pressure is put to provide a safer environment - even if this means reduced profits. Business is expected to show social responsibility in all kinds of ways. It is urged to provide safer products; to protect and respect the environment; to hire more people from minority groups; to offer work opportunities to unemployed youngsters; to oppose racial discrimination and at all times to behave with integrity. The list is endless.

The new concept of social responsibility means that businesses and business people must have integrity. They must deal honestly with their employees, and with the outside world.

A lot of business people agree with the ‘wider’ concept of social responsibility. They accept that businesses should help to solve social problems – even if they don’t create them, and even if the social actions don’t bring profits. But it is certainly true that social actions cost money. And businesses have to bear that cost often by raising prices, lowering wages or having less profit. In the end someone has to pay for the social actions – it may be customer, the employee or the shareholder. Business has only one social responsibility – to use its resources and energy to increase profits and compete without deception and fraud.

Of course, by showing social responsibility, the company may well benefit in the long term. For example Rank Xerox was engaged in wide range of social projects like: grants of equipment to universities, information technology project and seminars etc. And, since it was knowledge-based company, it needed to hire highly skilled people. There was no doubt that, in the long run, these activities were profitable to the organization.

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