Organizational Communication, Globalization, and Quality of Life
When you think about it, civilizations, biodiversity, the world, the universe, they all have some sort of organization to them. Although sometimes the world seems like it is full of disorder, it always has had a way to sustain itself and return to order. Similarly the history of societies, nations, and cultures has required organization. One thing that has drastically changed even in the last 100 years is communication. This of course has all to do with technology and how it has affected our communication locally and worldwide. Organizational communication can be defined as people working together to complete a set of common goals. Trying to define effective communication however is a different animal because it is inevitable to change constantly. Similarly as Eisenberg et. al states that “organizational communication is said to be situated and perishable” many corporations such as Google, NBC, or Nike have responded to the dynamic change and have left us with differentiated positive and negative results.
One of those results is globalization. Globalization can be seen as individuals, governments, and businesses from around the world interacting together due to the incentive of international trade and investment through the means of technology. From an economic standpoint there is a lot of positive result from these interactions because competition is higher, and the market is greater. More people have access to more jobs. In the documentary “The Corporation” there was a negative stigma against U.S. companies hiring in developing countries because wages were very low and conditions were unsafe. Although this is true and unfortunate, the more unfortunate situation was the one the civilians were in before the big corporations came in and gave them jobs. Take for example Taiwan and South Korea whose economies are in great prosperity. If we look at a country like Vietnam, in 20 to 30 years it will most likely be able to put itself on its feet and greatly prosper because the people have been given jobs. This is also why in comparison to African countries, where we don’t see much corporations taking advantage of cheap labor, the country is still greatly poor even though we send them much aid. From a social standpoint on globalization I see more negative implications. I have been traveling to different countries in the world for the past 12 years of my life and one thing that I notice the older I get is that there is a McDonald’s in almost every country that I visit. Personally for me that defeats my purpose of traveling because I don’t want to go abroad to see the same stores and things I have at home. That is definitely one fallback to massive corporations being able to open their stores globally now and not keep that local and unique feel to a city or town.
The film attacks corporations and mostly how they hurt small mom and pop businesses. However this can be counteracted with the idea of corporations like Ebay and Amazon. These two online hubs actually help small businesses to reach their clientele much further then they can in a store setting. On the other hand a big corporation such as Wal-Mart, which has competitive prices, definitely does worsen the situation for small businesses.
Communication technology although great, has created a lot of gray areas in terms of privacy and boundaries (virtually). From a personal standpoint I have noticed there is a lot more miscommunication because for example if I send an email to someone on a certain matter, they may respond in a few minutes, hours, or a day. Then this email thread can be going on for weeks and not much has been done rather then speaking in person. Especially nowadays we are more inclined to send an email then make a phone call because of the comfort level and also ability to organize ones thoughts in an email rather then a quick conversation. In terms of boundaries with the working world emerging into a more virtual office, sometimes it’s hard to decide when work really stops? Last semester I student taught at a high school teaching biology. I was amazed at how much a school setting had changed since I was in high school. All the students had Chromebook laptops and we had different sites for communicating with the students, posting lectures, and homework. I would often come home and check my email or the class page because there was not enough hours in the school workday to respond to students. This led me to coming home and spending a few hours just replying to student messages. When I thought about it, we never had such a personal portal between the student and teacher when I was in high school. The times have definitely changed and therefore virtual boundaries clearly need to be established.
The new social contract is a movement that we are seeing grow due to what technology has been able to provide for businesses. Competition has increased as a result and skill sets are highly specific leading to continual education. The drawback is that we are not seeing much long-term employment, which affects pension plans, but the solution for this is moving to private pension plans, something that the film also seems to ridicule (i.e. privatization).
Finally, I place quality of life on a pedestal for myself. Personal fulfillment is also one of the most important things for me because if you don’t love your job or the people around you, your life can be one big misery. Financial stability is extremely important to me, but that is also why it is called “stability”, meaning enough money to help you pay the bills, have food on the table, and maybe take a vacation from time to time. It doesn’t mean making millions (although that would be nice). The ability to prioritize things like family and work is a great luxury. In the film, they picked at the “rich white men” who are said to be out of touch with the majority. I could bet that they are also out of touch with their family because they are usually under a lot of stress and working way over the regular amount of hours per week. Being able to have time for family is extremely important and a blessing if someone has that ability.
Like with everything, globalization and technology have brought about many positive and negative changes to our world. It is up to us to decide what we support, and take action against what we don’t if we want to make any changes in the world.
