If the United Nations was fully funded, would we need social entrepreneurs? Yes, we would. Though both the United Nations and social entrepreneurs devote to reduce poverty and promote prosperity, they provide different solutions to fight poverty. Specifically, United Nations more focus on wealth, while social entrepreneurs emphasize on value and systemic social change. So these entrepreneurs are regarded as a leader of the poor, instead of a donor, which is more likely the role UN plays. According to Scarcity: Why Having Too Little Means So Much (Sendhil Mullainathan), the main reason that the poor always fails to manage money and reverse the situation is the psychology of scarcity and the scarcity mindset. When the poor lacks money for a long time, they may suffer from the scarcity mindset and lose the ability to manage resources wisely. So breaking the cycle that leads to the scarcity mindset, instead of simply donating money, is the right direction of fighting poverty. In this sense, social entrepreneurs, by managing microfinance and a few resources, generate much more fortune and bring social changes. This can be illustrated by the example of Muhammad Yunus, who launched Grameen Bank, through offering microloans the impoverished in Bangladesh, empowering them to become self-sufficient. In sum, Social entrepreneurs should be encouraged, supported and appreciated because they lead more and more poor people and areas get involved in modern society.

As companies tend to create more various, fancier products to fit customers’ needs, how to get innovations meet expectations is a question. Sustaining innovations, charging higher price to most demanding customers by providing more professional services and products, are regarded as a stereotype, though this strategy is not always succeed. For Starbucks, introducing the La Boulange’s coffee chain to offer fancier pastries does not meet its expectation, even question customer loyalty. This is because new pastries, complained to be too pricey and small are not customized. In order to stem the loss of customers, Starbucks now plans to bring back some products from old menu. In this sense, innovation is a paradox, which is necessary for promotion but may be harmful to sales and customer loyalty on the other hand. So before implementing new strategies (or new products & services), companies need to do professional market researches to ensure these innovation and improvement customize customers’ needs. In addition to sustaining innovations, Disruptive innovations aiming of providing more accessible services, is also a choice of these companies seeking to break their market limitation because this strategy opens a new door of bottom market. In general, every strategies should depend on the market and customers’ need.

McDonald’s, the world largest restaurant chain, may look to sell organic food to stop the loss of customers. According to McDonald’s Corp. (MCD) posted last month, its sales in fourth straight quarter is consistently falling. Finding a new profit-point has become the most important task to MCD. Providing organic foods is a good approach to boost sales, at least, to stem the falling trend. The target customers of McDonald’s are various, from families who love Happy Meal, to workers grabbing breakfast on-the-go, so that organic foods can offer more choices and satisfy more customers’ needs. Also, McDonald’s can create shared value by offering organic foods, which currently have been coined with the brand of safe, nutrition and better taste. Shared value is a strategy for developing the future market value also strengthening economics, communities and business. In this sense, by re-conceiving products, McDonald’s meets social needs of healthier lifestyle, while better serving existing markets accessing new ones. Therefore, MDC, by providing more various products, can enjoy sustainable competitive advantage and avoid unhealthy competition.

Amazon is the shining representative of a new golden age of monopoly that also includes Google and Walmart (Franklin Foer). This can be proved by the truth that shopping on Amazon has been an inerasable habit of modern American life. Why Amazon is so successful? Today’s monopolies, like Amazon, take advantage of their high profits and dominance to drive down their prices. Lower prices, obviously have become a financial incentive that attracts more customers, and also a barrier of other competitors. Besides, Amazon, focusing on its operation management, provides customers with faster deliveries, better warranty policy and especially, cheaper goods. Not only more profits for capitalists, but more benefits for customers are the main difference between Amazon and old-style monopolies, like JP Morgan’s US Steel. In Thiel’s phrasing: “Creative monopolies are not just good for the rest of society, they are powerful engines for making it better.” In this sense, to be better, to provide better products and to make the society better, Amazon, as well as other modern monopolies is the shining representative of a new definition of monopoly and a new golden age of monopoly.

In the article “Will New Campaign Help Kraft’s Comeback of Jell-O” , Yiling Liu, the author, analyzed the main reason why sales for Jell-O in recent years has been declining, and gave his own recommendation in terms of brand proposition. According Yiling’s analysis in terms of industry trend and customer psychology, he believes emphasizing Jell-O’s “fun” rather than “sweetness” can let Kraft re-position this product. Personally, target customers of Jell-O are mainly family with little kids, because this product attracts many children by its colorful, amusing appearance. In this sense, it is FUN that is Jell-O’s unique selling proposition, and what differs it from other similar snacks. Accordingly, advertising should emphasize more on how this product can bring happiness and amusement to families, rather than how sweet Jell-O is. Nowadays, people automatically associate sweet snacks with high calories and unhealthy diet preference. So focusing on how “chocolatey” and “sweet” it is in advertising cannot be beneficial to sales of Jell-O. So FUN-based advertising and more colorful, creative, interesting snacks are highly recommended. Only with continuously launching new products can Jell-O attracts and satisfy its customer.

Work cited:

Liu, Yiling. “Will New Campaign Help Kraft’s Comeback of Jell-O.” Yiling Lius Blog. N.p., 5 Oct. 2014. Web. 13 Oct. 2014. .

E.J. Schultz. “Kraft Launches New Campaign to Revive Jell-O | News – Advertising Age.” Advertising Age News RSS. N.p., 12 Aug. 2013. Web. 13 Oct. 2014. .

As the sixth largest stock market in the world, Hong Kong recently have been socially and economically unstable due to the pro-democracy protests from September. Linda Yueh, a chief business correspondent in BBC News, wrote a blog named “ Is Hong Kong’s future as a financial centre threatened?”. In this blog, she discussed the corresponding influence of HK protests and questioned whether this political uncertainty would sacrifice Hong Kong’s economy. To my view of thinking, HK protests seem to be a paradox. More specifically, on the one hand, Hong Kong’s economy will be negatively influenced by this political issue, and this can be directly illustrated by the fact that stocks have been down in Hong Kong from last week. Also, Beijing would be willing to sacrifice Hong Kong’s economy to ensure the power control and the stability of society, especially when Hong Kong is no longer the only open broader in China. In this sense, Hong Kong’s status as one of the top global market financial centers would possibly be threatened to a certain extent. However, if pro-democracy protesters can win this war and create a more free and democratic political atmosphere in Hong Kong, this will increase the degree of economic freedom as well. So it is still a question whether Hong Kong can retain its current finical status, or its economy would be threatened by the protests.

Work Cited:

Yueh, Linda. “Hong Kong’s Future?” BBC News. N.p., 29 Sept. 2014. Web. 04 Oct. 2014. < http://www.bbc.com/news/business-29406712 >.

Pittis, Don. “Why China Might Be Willing to Sacrifice Hong Kong’s Economy: Don Pittis.” CBCnews. CBC/Radio Canada, 02 Oct. 2014. Web. 02 Oct. 2014. < http://www.cbc.ca/news/business/why-china-might-be-willing-to-sacrifice-hong-kong-s-economy-don-pittis-1.2784555 >.

According to the definition given by government of Canada, “First Nation People” refers to status and non-status “Indian” people in Canada. Yet, between First Nation and Canadian government, there are several conflicts in terms of citizen rights, lands, resources, environment, etc. In this sense, First Nations partner issues, as a political and social factor, have influence over many business and organizations in Canada.

This can be best illustrated by the example of BC Hydro’s 8-billion-dollar Site C hydroelectric mega-project. In order to enlarge the production of hydroelectricity, BC Hydro planed to construct a dam on the Peace River. This construction, on behalf of First Nation people, however, will destroy farmland and effect on fishing, hunting and organizing traditional ceremonies. So for the sake of aboriginal people, B.C. First Nation Chiefs have fought for their own right (i.e. to urge the government to reject the dam construction). Obviously, BC Hydro currently cannot continue their construction as what it planed because the protest of first nation has delayed or even cancelled the schedule of the dam construction. This just proved that the external factors (in this case, external factors are political and economic factors) enact great impact on the business. More specifically, BC Hydro now needs to find another river to construct a dam, which will probably cost much more. For the corporation, the key resources are harder to reach and fixed cost are accordingly increasing.

However, respecting the right of First Nation is ethical correct. Otherwise, if BC Hydro ignored the rights of First Nation and constructed the dam, their business reputation, brand image and even customer loyalty would be negatively influenced. So considering the external factors and social environment is a necessary process of decision making to every business and corporation.

Work Cited:

O’Neil, Peter.  First Nations chiefs to stage Site C showdown.  Vancouver Sun.  September 18, 2014.  Newspaper Article.

Pynn, Larry.  BC Premier urges cooperation.  Vancouver Sun.  September 12, 2014.  Newspaper Article.

Alibaba, a super popular e-commerce company in China, became the largest-ever initial public offering in the US. Alibaba is currently valued at over $200 billion, and accordingly the founder Jack Ma became the new richest man in China. In North America, Alibaba is probably not knew by too much people, but actually this is a super e-business company in the world,especially in China. Compared with eBay and Amazon, Alibaba has much greater advantage in terms of customers and cash transection, and more specifically, the value of goods sold through Alibaba last year is equal to that of the combination of Amazon and eBay (The Wall Street Journal.Web. 22 Sept. 2014.) What I am interested in this News is why Alibaba can attract so many investors to invest and make such success? After reading the letter Jack Ma wrote to investors, I believe the value propositions that Alibaba provide is right one of the answers. Ma wrote: “ We want to help small businesses grow by solving their problems through internet technology. Alibaba’s mission is to make it easy to do business anywhere.” For the last 15 years, Alibaba devoted all its effort to provide small companies and individuals more easy and convenient access to free market. This leads to a good reputation, strong image, wide acceptance and today’s success Alibaba enjoys. There should be more reasons that so many investors would like to trust and to invest Alibaba besides its insistent mission. There are also some other questions whether Jack Ma can make good use of these investment to further develop Alibaba, and is it a wise decision for investors to invest this Chinese company. These questions probably cannot answered right now, but time will tell.

Work Cited:

“Out of Control.” The Economist. The Economist Newspaper, 20 Sept. 2014. Web. 22 Sept. 2014. .

“Alibaba: Too Big to Expropriate?” The Wall Street Journal. Dow Jones & Company, n.d. Web. 22 Sept. 2014. .

After reading the article “ REDEFINING ‘CORPORATE’.”, which write by Lily Du, I am convinced that the decision made by CVS to terminate tobacco sales shows a right direction of today’s corporations. Many people believe that “the social responsibility of business is to increase profits”. Though it may be true to a certain extent, I do think this point is to extreme. Under most circumstances, it is not a conflict to increase profits and to carry on social responsibility, such as to protect environment, or to take care of health and safety of employees as well as citizens who live near factories. Because if a company can do so, its brand reputation, consumers’ loyalty, employees’ loyalty, and corporations’ culture will be improved dramatically. Then the profits will probably increase accordingly. In this sense, corporations can increase their long-term profits through adhering business ethics, though they may loss some short-term economic profits . This can be best illustrated by the CVS example that Lily Du presented in her blog. Though this action will cause approximately $2 million loss for CVS in few years, it re-organize and re-evaluate its consumers’ demands and build a fairly great company’s reputation for social responsibility. Obviously, a strong brand name and good reputation are beneficial to company’s long-term development. Also, the intangible assets, including brand name and reputation, will be increasing a lot. On the other hand, if a corporation ignores business ethics and does not carry any of social responsibility, such corporation can hardly be successful. Otherwise, if a company careless about its own employees, how can consumers believe that the company can care about customers’ health and safety. If a company careless about our environment, our hometown, how can customers believe that the company can produce qualified products without any toxins. So business ethics and financial profits should not be a conflict at all, and in this sense, every corporation should carry social responsibility and adhere business ethics for the sake of profits.

The link of Lily Du’s Blog

https://blogs.ubc.ca/lilydu/

On April 2013, Rana Plaza, an eight-story commercial building, collapsed in Savar Upazila, Bangladesh. This disaster, which can be regarded as one of the world worst industrial accidents, caused more than 1,100 people died. Most of victims in this disaster were the low-paid workers in the garment industry in Bangladesh. Those workers, in order to earn comparatively higher salary, suffer from long working hours, abuse from employers and poor social security. Especially, the working environment is too bad to ensure employees’ health and safety.

Before the collapse of the Rana Plaza, in order to minimize the costs, many high street brands, such as Inditex, H&M, Primar, to a large extent, pay no attention to the health and safety of their employees. After that, those brands, and other worldwide-supplying companies have began to care about how to build a socially-responsible global chain.

According to the article “The social Responsibility of Business Is to Increase Its Profits”, the only social responsibility of business is to use its resources and engage in activities designed to increase its profits to create more wealth as much as possible. In this sense, it is fairly reasonable for those companies to co-operate with the suppliers that provides cheapest clothes but put their employees in dangerous working environment because they can earn most profits by doing so. But actually, they should not. This is because chasing profits should based on the rules of the game, which is to say, following certain social customs and ethics. Otherwise, their reputation among customers would not be good, since obviously, none believe a company which does not care about their own employees health and safety at all would care about that of customers.

In conclusion, although the main social responsibility of business is to maximize their profits, companies should also follow some social customs and business ethics.

the links of references:

http://www.theguardian.com/world/2013/jun/06/bangladesh-factory-building-collapse-community

http://www.theguardian.com/global-development-professionals-network/2013/jul/29/responsible-business-retail-supply-chains

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2013_Savar_building_collapse

http://site.ebrary.com/lib/ubc/reader.action?docID=10187339&page=171