The foundation of United Nations (UN) aims to help people under starvation, poverty and homeless.  If the UN was fully funded, why would we need the arc or social enterprise?

From my perspective, there are variety reasons. First of all, there are countless people who need help in the world. UN cannot provide assistance for all people in need even though they have fully funded. There are always some poor people in corner they cannot see. Secondly, it is more worth and longer lasting to teach someone to have a survival skill rather than give them financial support directly. As an old Chinese saying goes, if you give a man a fish you feed him for a day but if you teach a man to fish you feed him for a lifetime. Dorothy Stoneman said in the video: “We had three hundred abandoned buildings in where I lived, we had hundred maybe thousands of young people standing on the corners with nothing to do, and lot of homeless people.” What these social enterprises did is hiring these young people to rebuild these buildings to create houses for homeless people. Social enterprises helps people and change the society in a business way.Last but not least, UN is not focus on business. Not like Arc Initiative, it aims at providing a way to exchange business skills for students and young enterprises.  It not only benefits students and young enterprises, but also can promote economic development in South Africa, Ethiopia, Colombia and Rwanda.

With programs and people like Arc Initiative program and social enterprises, our society will be better off.

Image: http://bethellaw.net/social-enterprise/ http://www.sauder.ubc.ca/~/media/Images/International/ARC/South%20Africa%20Class%202013.ashx

Customers can be regarded as lifeblood to companies. In Jennifer Mavor’s blog she mentioned in order to maintain customer service everyone needs to understand company’s core values and do their best to satisfy customers. The question is how to satisfy customers?

Personally, I think hear customers’ voices are crucial. For example, managers can check suggestion box or answer customers’ complaint calls often so that the company can know its drawbacks. Moreover, employees’ attitudes affect customer satisfaction a lot. No one wants to pay money to see a glum face. For example, flight attendants always treat customers with polite, patient and smile. Thus, training workers how to serve customers is beneficial to improve customer satisfaction. Nonetheless, customer service not just about how to interact with customers, it also refers to after-sales services. For instance, Zappos has 356-day return policy and free shipping on all domestic orders. Another key point is providing quality products. Let customers feel that they have pleasant shopping experiences is important, and customers are happy only if they get satisfactory products.

Customer satisfaction is significant because it is a company’s point of difference and an indicator of customer loyalty. When a company owns high customer satisfaction it will gains repeat customers and more profit.

Blog link: https://blogs.ubc.ca/jennifermavor/2014/10/30/businesses-that-go-above-and-beyond-in-customer-service/

Image: http://www.findtheedge.com/general/satisfied-customers-are-not-just-the-domain-of-customer-services

DreamWorks is a well-known and successful company in Hollywood. Its unique organizational culture contributes a lot. DreamWorks regards creativity as a crucial factor in organizational culture. The company foster employees’ creativity by spontaneous discussions, encourage risk-taking, openly discuss mistakes, share successes and nurture professional development. What’s more, the company provides comfortable working environment for staffs like free foods and yoga class. Under this kind of culture and human resources management, I guess the reason why DreamWorks always produce high quality animation is obvious.

As far as I concerned, organizational culture plays an important role in a firm. First of all, a positive organizational culture can encourage employees. A comfortable working environment makes employees enjoy their works and always have energy to work. Naturally, employees’ enthusiasm and potential can be well stimulated. DreamWorks provides great environment for workers because the boss knows workers cannot come up with fantastic ideas under a stressful environment. Conversely, if a firm fails to build its organizational culture, workers would work with negative attitudes. Secondly, organizational culture also plays a guiding role. Business value and business spirit that shown by organizational culture lead employees to right direction and tell them what should they focus on during their work. For example, DreamWorks regard creativity as culture so that the staffs know they need to be creative in order to make great progress on their works. Thus, having a great culture can make a firm closer to success.

Article Link: http://www.workforce.com/articles/dreamworks-animation-cultivates-a-culture-of-creativity

I recently read Yue Huang’s blog about intrapreneurship in Google. She mentioned that Google support employees intrapreneurship because this kind of innovation can enhance the company’s creativity. I agree with her perspective but I believe there exists other significant reasons.

James Whittaker used to be an employee in Google. His reason for leaving Google is that “The Google I was passionate about was a technology company that empowered its employees to innovate. The Google I left was an advertising company with a single corporate-mandated focus.”, said by James on his blog. In fact, except James, there are also other employees who left Google such as Lars Rasmussen and Omar Hamoui. Many employees in Google claimed that Google’s “20% time” which allows employees to work on side projects, actually no longer exists.

In my view, Google allowed intrapreneurship in order to prevent brain drain and recover enterprise vitality. But the question is does it really work? The “Wave” create by independent team in Google was an example of failure. Although intrapreneurship is a great approach to promote the development of a company, I consider that how to support and lead employees intrapreneurship in very crucial. Some employees might afraid of risks of intrapreneurship, some might lose confidence during intrapreneurship. Therefore, I think the boss should help employees establish positive attitudes before intrapreneurship. Besides, Google should not too much exert stress on employees.

Blog link: https://blogs.ubc.ca/yuehuang/2014/10/25/intrapreneurship-in-google/

Recently, I read Anthony’s blog which talks about Starbuck’s shared values. Anthony is a global store design senior manager who undertook Starbuck‘s building project in Washington. The project is building a Drive-Thru store as well as a LEED-certified store. I agree with his idea that Starbucks is a company with social responsibility.

Starbuck has made their business environmental friendly for several years. Apart from building sustainable store, Starbucks also implemented a water saving solution and using 10% recycled paper on its beverage cups. Moreover, Starbuck cares about their customers and employees by making profit for them as much as it can. However, in China, many companies fail to create social responsibility (CSR) and create shared value (CSV). They using harmful chemicals as food additives, trying every means to evade taxes, encroaching customers’ rights and interests by unfair form clauses, not actively participate in public welfare activity. As a result, these companies lost reputations and profits.

As a saying goes, good is rewarded and evil is punished. Creating social responsibility and shared value is very crucial to a company. It is beneficial to the company’s long-run development through building brand, reputation and public image. Furthermore, it might attract investor and financiers for the company. This is a win-win choice for company, because both society and company are benefited from CSR and CSV.

Blog Link：http://www.starbucks.com/blog/sustainable-store-design-in-action/1158

The Site C dam is a megaproject proposed by the British Columbia Hydro and Power Authority (BC Hydro) for a large-scale earth fill hydroelectric on the Peace River in BC province.The reservoir would flood 83 kilometres of the Peace River Valley from near Fort St. John to Hudson’s Hope.  The advantage of building Site C dam is it can provide enough electricity to locals. However, there are also some aboriginals hold the opinion that it should not be found.  They consider that the building of Site C dam would destroy farmland and wildlife habit. What’s more, it would create threats for First Nation People to fishing, hunting and using the place to hold ceremonial practices. The megaproject cannot continue because of “political” reasons. It violates First Nation policies (Treaty 8) and impedes the business.

 From my perspective, The Peace River Valley is crucial to British Columbia for ensuring food security. As a proposal that violates First Nation People’s life, the building of Site C should be found otherwhere or downsize the project.

• Link: http://www.vancouversun.com/news/First+Nation+chiefs+stage+Site+showdown/10215965/story.html
• Image: http://westcoastnativenews.com/there-will-be-no-peace-if-the-site-c-dam-is-approved/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=there-will-be-no-peace-if-the-site-c-dam-is-approved

Nowadays, Apple’s products are almost dominant electronic markets. Samsung, as the Korean’s largest electronic company, has put much more effort in promotion tactic. Recently, Samsung’s new product Galaxy S5 experienced ALS Ice Bucket Challenge. A video was published on the official YouTube channel, which makes waves in the world. As we know, ALS Ice Bucket Challenge is very popular in recent months, especially among celebrities and young people. Samsung is so clever that used the challenge to highlight Galaxy S5’s value proposition-water resistance. In the video, Galaxy S5 nominates the iPhone 5S the HTC One M8 and the Nokia Lumia 930. Samsung has virtually satirized its competitors and generated its product differentiation.

However, Samsung got caught cheating ALS Ice Bucket Challenge lately. Some netizens found some evidences to prove the video is faked. If you watch the video carefully, you can see in the end of video, the time on the lock screen is 2:16PM while the time on top right corner jumps to 2:50PM. Is this a ridiculous publicity stunt? Is Samsung violates business ethic? In my view, there must be some misunderstandings but there is no doubt that the flaw in video will influence Samsung’s brand reputation. Meanwhile, IPhone 5S finished its ALS Ice Bucket Challenge as well, which hits Galaxy 5S’s promotion heavily. In short, Samsung should develop new market strategy to gain a firm foothold.

Resource: http://www.businessinsider.com/samsung-galaxy-s5-ice-bucket-challenge-2014-8

Video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6w4Gqt-ljb4#action=share

Recently, the whole world is restless. This is because Apple Company introduces its new products to the public in September. Apple Inc. is an popular company that sells consumer electronics. The company amazed the world and their products make consumers crazy. Last month, IPhone 6, 6 plus and smart watch came out and caused a sensation around the world. This time, IPhone 6 and 6 plus improved drawbacks in previous generations by using larger screen and thinner profiles. The screen size of IPhone 6 plus is even bigger than Samsung Galaxy 5S, which makes many big screen lovers start considering IPhone 6 and 6 plus as their new phone. The more remarkable product is iWatch. The smart watch made by Apple Inc. has three different styles, which can satisfy customers with different needs. What’s more, the Sapphire screen used on the watch is really fascinating. Another revolutionary breakthrough for the company is IOS 8 system. A new app that added in the phone generates the point of difference (PoD). The app named “Health” is very outstanding because it set up an easy way for customers to read their health information. In this part, Apple Inc. surpasses its competitors by considering customers’ health problem. Personally, Apple is sought-after for a reason. Its key to success guess is creativity and consumer friendly.

 Resource: http://www.nytimes.com/2014/09/10/technology/apple-aims-for-the-wrist-with-a-smartwatch-while-making-the-iphone-6-larger.html?module=Search&mabReward=relbias%3Ar%2C%7B%222%22%3A%22RI%3A14%22%7D

 Image: https://www.apple.com/iphone-6/

Recently, I have read an article about the economic recession in Detroit. As we all know that the other name for Detroit is “Motor City”, which means that it is famous for automobile industries. Because of the booming car market in the middle of the twentieth century, Detroit became one of the most prosperous cities in America. However, with the development of our society, the price of petroleum has shown a dramatic increase and people has been aware that compared to gas-guzzlers from General andFord, automobiles from Japan are fuel-sufficient. As a result, Detroit companies’ value propositions became weak. People changed their values, tending to buy more fuel-efficient cars and this change hit Detroit’s auto industries hardly. In fact, Detroit’s economy, approximately 80%, depends on automobile industries and the long-term auto industries’ slump made the economy fall off a cliff. From this story, it is easy for us to find that if we want to have a healthy economic system, we can not rely on one specific industry too much. On contrary, we should try to diversify our economy to guaranty healthy economic development.

Right now, Detroit government has filed for bankruptcy protection, but there is still a long journey for Detroit to go to restore their economy.

Resource: http://www.nytimes.com/2013/07/19/us/detroit-files-for-bankruptcy.html?pagewanted=all

Image: http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2013/08/17/us/detroit-decline.html?ref=us

Business ethics is a crucial element that determine a company’s reputation. Society is more likely to welcome a company that concerns much more about human’s wellbeing. More specifically, to carry out social responsibility, companies should make contributes to different aspects rather than individual parts. Foxconn is a negative model. Foxconn, the largest electronics contractor manufacturer in the world, has experienced suicide wave in 2010. Many employees reflected that they have bad working and living conditions and always work under big pressure. The suicide wave really brought bad influence to the company, which made its reputation down sharply. Personally, I think the main reason that the incident occurred is Foxconn focus too much on quantity and it does not concern its labors. To earn its reputation, I suggest Foxconn raise employees’ salaries and improve their working and living conditions. A company with business ethics should satisfy all its stakeholders and take social responsibilities.

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