uctionThis module has been very challenging and intellectually fulfilling as I have learned a whole lot, and acquired a number of skills just by doing it . I chose four lectures which I really thought enlightened me as business oriented person, these are Management and leadership styles, Globalisation, Corporate social responsibility and Regulation and control of business.
The topic that intrigued me the most was lecture 7 Regulation and control of business.Corporate Social Responsibility(CSR)I learnt that corporate social responsibility is about having an awareness of how the organisation can affect stakeholders and the environment and is about accepting responsibilities to manage decision making, including strategy formulation and implementation, for a wider good. According to Brinkman et al (2010) social responsibility is a duty to all stakeholders of the company to make decisions in such a way that takes into account the interest of the environment and society as a whole. Organisations need to ensure, when formulating and implementing their strategies that they do not unavoidably adversely impact on stakeholders and the environment. An organization needs to use its resources and engage in activities to maximize its profit as along as it does not negatively affect its stakeholders or the environment.
Corporate social responsibility is not just about giving money to charity, but it is about managing these relationships to produce an overall positive impact on society, whilst making money. One example of good responsibility is about a company in the America called the Body Shop, a responsible company which had believes on environmental protection, animal rights community trade and human rights. The shop is famous for its anti- animal testing stance. Another example is the Walt Disney. It was able to run its Disneyland trains biodiesel made from cooking oil from the resorts hotels and came up with the Green standard to engage and motivate employees in reducing their environmental impact when working , having business meetings, travelling and eating lunch.
This lecture has urged me as a business person to also implement similar procedures for it is our obligation as a business , to guarantee that our customers, stakeholders and governments are satisfied, not only with our invention or goods, but also with our business transactions and giving back to the community. As the lecture progressed i learnt that Corporate Social Responsibility does not only benefit the communal, but also benefits the business in interesting investors and clients. CSR also enhances employee engagement. According to Tsourvakas & Yfantidou (2018) employees love to be associated with businesses that are socially responsible and this encourages workers to work at their fully best. However this means that my employment of Corporate social responsibility will yield greater returns due to my employee commitment in delivering hence potential investors would be attracted to my business because of the good brand image and growth can be possible. Globalisation Globalisation is the reduction or elimination of state-enforced restrictions on exchanges across the world and the increasingly united and complex global system of production and exchange that has emerged as a result (Palmer, 2002).
According to IMF (2008) Economic globalization is a historical process, the result of human innovation and technological progress. After being introduced to this topic, it changed how I regarded the globalization from the beginning. It was rather biased, that is, globalization has brought about nothing but worry especially for developing countries like Botswana, it has brought about narcotics , crime and human trafficking into developing countries . My thinking as a business person has been exploited such that I’m now aware that globalization is two ways.
Globalization is not delinquent, the problem arises on what is being globalized, and how the recipient country is responding to such disadvantages of globalization.After all that was taught, I learnt that globalization has both advantages and disadvantages when the effects of globalization were stated out as the lecture progressed. I further took it upon myself to find a good example of globalization that has been brought into a developing country . Observing the health sector in Botswana, it is vivid that before and after the introduction of anti retro viral drugs in Botswana, figures show that the child death rate has extremely fallen after the introduction of ARV’s. HIV/AIDS related deaths have drastically declined from fourteen thousand verified in year 2005 to three thousand verified in the year 2016 (UNAIDS, 2017).
this lecture not only enlightened me about globalization but it was a front that enhanced my analysis skills which are very key in the corporate world. This lecture topic stressed out to me the need to know the advantages and disadvantages of everything that affects the corporate world by critiquing, thereafter it will be simpler to make decisions based on the good information analysed and gathered.Management and Leadership stylesThis was the second lecture from the Business Environment module and it has not only enlightened as a business person, but it has also equipped me with the best managerial and leadership skills that I did not know before. According to Marcelo (2012) leadership refers to the action of leading a group of people or an organisation and a leader is a person who leads or commands a group, organization, or country. Management is defined as the process of dealing with or controlling things or people.According to Goh Yuan et al (2005) , leadership style is significantly influenced by the leader’s immediate and extended family, clan and tribe.
Leaders tend to exhibit specific traits which drive ,motivation to lead honestly and integrity. In this lecture I also learnt that when these skills are put together in use, my business can be successful and grow. Leaders attend to the needs of multiple stakeholders, they balance economic and non-economic goals and they establish and monitor both short term and long term matrices, ( Allio ,2012).
I further imbibed that leadership styles are divided into two, transformational leadership and transactional leadership. Transformational leadership has the characteristics of individual influence, spiritual encouragement and intellectual stimulation, furthermore, Bass and Avolio (1993) stated that transformational leaders encourage cliques to view problems from new perspectives, provide support and encouragement communicates a vision, stimulates emotion and identification. Transactional leadership is focused on staff’s basic and external demand, the relationship between leaders and subordinates is based on the contract. Bass Bernard et al6 explained that transactional leadership depends on contingent reinforcement, either positive contingent reward or the more negative active or passive forms of management-by-exception. . I personally consider myself a transformational leader because I am hands-on, considerate and i believe in team work and not group work.
This will assist me as a business person, my business will induce a healthy working environment for the employees, enabling them to perform at their potential best which is advantageous to the performance of the business in terms of profits generated.Regulation and Control of BusinessThis lecture interested me the most. It was emphasizing the importance of regulations in the business world, to establish ground rules for control and management of how different businesses in the corporate world should operate. After being introduced to this lecture, I had awareness on some business regulations which I thought failed in some of the big companies operating in the United States of America like the Wells Fargo, this corporation was caught doing some corporate fraud, customers were charged late fees on accounts they had not requested and that they did not know they had, which to me was an indication of a failed bank regulation because they problem was discovered late. However another example was with reference to the Lehman Brothers, there had been failed regulation about their line of business and their funds therefore leading to their filing of chapter eleven bankruptcy (Russo, 2014).
Both scandals lead to people losing their occupations and the declining of economies . This urged me as business oriented person to follow to rules and regulations set by governments as this could be beneficial to my business.I further learnt the pros and cons of regulation and business control as lecture progressed. I always thought regulations were a burden for businesses, more especially to the small medium enterprises, countless rules and laws to abide to.
However I was wrong, my theory reformed when I further researched from Ejournals. I interrogated the argument which stated that regulations indorse competitive advantage and I discovered that the practice of regulation for competitive advantage is thought to be done by strategic organizations who influence the knowledge of regulations (Peck, Jackson, & Mulvey , 2018). As a business minded person, this lecture taught me that in any situation, be a regulation or anything, it is never a deterrent unless I allow it to be . If l I want my business to accomplish and be successful, a premeditated adaptation to the regulation obligatory should be established.Conclusion
