The United Nations is led by four purposes in order to make our world a better place. However, big vision can also be a disadvantage of the organization. Even if the United Nations get enough funding, it is still too hard to make consistent effort to resolve all kinds of problems from different places. Some big problems will get attention prior to small ones, due to their higher urgency and importance. That’s why the United Nations bring the its focus of budget into regular and peacekeeping. However, there is still hope for complex regional problems to be solved, becasue that is what social enterprise stand for. Social enterprises face more challenges than traditional business because they are aiming at generating social values. For example, in the story of the co-founders of Osei-Duro Clothing, they have to make great effort to educate their workers to do proper sewing to meet the challenging high-end fashion market. Although the process of running a social enterprise is tough, it is also a very rewarding path, because social enterprise can make real social impact besides traditional profit-making.  Social enterprise can drive real and positive change by focusing on one area, which fix the flaws of the United Nations.

Source of picture: Salesforce.com hypes social enterprise at cloud conference www.cnmeonline.com

After the preparation for class 19, I realized one key factor in HR management is good understanding between employees. The media of passing understanding between people are the culture and core values of a company. Take Zappo as an example, the core value of the company is building happiness among people, the company want both employees and customers be happy. How can the company fulfil this goal is to give employees training about happiness, and let them be motivated  and be driven to make positive changes. However, since employees are from different background, building understanding between a team can be hard. As the article “Like it or not, Millennials will change the workplace”mentioned, there are gaps between older generations and young generations because of the difference in societal background, experiences and more. In my opinion, each generation has their values to bring to their companies and teams. In order to maximize the potentials of all team members, it is important to foster such open, fair and active team spirit so that older workers can pass the valuable experience and skills they have and young workers can speak up and share their fresh perspectives with older workers. Only when team members can communicate openly and effectively, the good understanding can be formed between them.

Source of picture:Common challenges in HR management www.traningtampa.com

Recently I read a news article discussed the effect on drive-thru brought by mobile payment. Technology is changing the way we buy and pay, online and mobile payment are disruptive innovations that replace traditional way of purchase. As a consequence, the stores and food chains have to make adjustments to adapt to this trend brought by technology. It is unsurprising that restaurants like MacDonald begin accepting mobile orderings, which may replace drive-thru sooner or later. The mobile ordering is clearly a result of value propositions of target customers; since there are increasing urban population and young people are driving less and less. However, in my opinion, drive-thru still have its convenience for people on the street. Especially when you are on the way and need to grab some food. Drive thru satisfies urban people’s lifestyles to grab food on the go, but the waiting lines and congestion bring some problems. I think it will be better to replace drive-thru windows by several windows that people can grab their food that they ordered on their mobile apps so that there are no congestion concerns and people can still get their food quickly on the street. In addition, restaurants have to improve their time management and organization skills to make sure customers can get their orders in time.

Source of picture: “interstate drive-thru” nowiknow.com

After learning about the content and meaning of CSR and sustainability, we are all clear that both of them are beyond the primary profit-maxmizing goal of business. What if a company want to perform CSR and sustainability at the same time? In the business blog named “Don’t confuse sustainability with Corporate Social Responsibility”, the authors Tima Bansal and Mark DesJardine use critical thinking to point out that business should not call their social responsible behaviours sustainable if they borrow resources from future. This is an interesting and deep question for business to consider, because the companies should think about the future effect before they perform social responsibilities. In another word, the long term vision is the necessary quality that a social responsible corporation should have. This suggests that business should have ability to provide on going support to the community they want to benefit. In my opinion, the considerations of long term increases the difficulties of performing social responsibilities for a business, and the business need to have a good Chief Sustainable Officer to integrate the social responsible decisions with sustainability.