Friday, October 31, 2008

Corporate Social Responsibility

Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) has been an important subject for businesses for many years; however because of the situation in the world today, with the environment, the Greenhouse effect, financial crisis etc, the subject is more important than ever. The controversies about the globalization process have raised a lot of questions regarding the management of both multinational enterprises and small businesses in both developed and developing countries, and whether some organizations are pursuing profits at the expense of vulnerable workforces, the fragile environment, etc.

Globalization has put a lot of pressure on businesses in the sense of development, and solutions such as liberalism and public ownership have become self-explanatory. The competition in the world’s marketplace has become tougher, not only because of the competition but also because of the pressure for stakeholders. The reactions to this kind of concerns have been that organizations have increasingly taken steps towards improvements of their social responsibilities and more and more started to demonstrate it. There are different reasons for implementing CRS within organizations, and different approaches and strategies to do so. For small and medium sized enterprises adapting CSR might become a high cost and they choose not to, or to only some extent.

CSR could be a way to solve major global problems like unacceptable working conditions for employees or increasing the level of unhealthy discharges for the environment. If not, the CSR movements made by organizations show that their responsibilities does not only lie in profit making, but in the process of how profits are being made. It can easily be argued that companies should focus on making profits, since that is one of most important measurements of success, and that development and other responsibilities should be up to the governments. However this would be an ineffective strategy for a company to take, since the market for profit maximization does not take into account social roles such as reducing unemployment, creating education possibilities and helping developing countries in their developing process. As I see it, developing countries have two options; they can either wait, and let the globalization turn the country into a socially responsible business area, or they can act; work from inside the organizations and build on an already existing, but weak, concept of CSR. They can follow MNE’s examples and improve their CSR standards in order to become a more international payer on the global marketplace.



Friday, October 17, 2008

To connect back to one of our first lectures in this module, the one regarding pictures and layouts for financial articles, I have during these recent weeks collected some interesting ones from different newspapers. It is interesting to see the always upcoming theme: disaster, depression and the color red.

The Swedish market


(www.di.se)


(www.e24.se)


(www.va.se)


(www.di.se)


(www.e24.se)


(www.e24.se)

In The UK


(www.ft.com)

In The United States


(www.fortune.com)


(www.forbes.com)



In the Arabic countries


(www.arabianbusiness.com)

Swedish newspapers mostly use pictures that are descriptive trough objects, not humans. In international newspapers the focus in on the individual. I believe the reason for this is because Sweden does not familiar themselves as a country with the crisis yet. They are affected by it, but I don’t think they consider themselves to actual be in it. The American Newspapers are the most dramatic ones, and nationalistic ones with the American flag in almost every picture.

Friday, October 10, 2008

Iceland - A small country with big problems


Iceland has suffered to a great extend in the financial crisis today, and it is not over for them yet. Last week the Icelandic Financial Supervisory Authority took over the national banks Kaupthing, Glitnir and Landesbanki. The fact that Kaupting also has operations in other countries such as Sweden and Finland makes the situation even more complex.



Just after the Icelandic bailout, The Swedish Central bank ”Riksbanken” decided to lend 5 billion Kronor to Kaupthing Bank in Sweden (app. 525 million Euro). According to the Riksbanken, this loan can be used either to pay depositor with accounts in Iceland or Sweden, or to depositors and other creditors in Kaupting Bank Sweden. 1.7 billion Swedish citizens have got shares in Kaupthing Edge, and according to the Riksbank, this solution will prevent Swedish investors from losing any of their capital, this can even make them till winners of this crisis. (http://www.riksbanken.se/) And the Riksbanken will not lose either, the Swedish subsidiary of Kaupthing will be sold.

This quick bailout made by the Swedish Central Bank show that the Swedish government is really taking responsibility in the financial crisis. Furthermore, I see no need for bailouts like this one to Swedish banks in the near future; they have a considerably stronger economy than many other banks is other countries, and it looks like the Swedish Financial Supervisory Authority has control over the situation.

Friday, October 3, 2008

Food prices

The shoppers in Chongqing, China, died in a stampede for discounted cooking oil at a Carrefour store in November last year. At the same time in Morocco, dozens of people were hurt in clashes with police at a protest over high food prices. Around the world, the soaring cost of everything from milk to bread to meat is stocking inflation, threatening the poor with hunger and prompting politicians to impose price and export caps. The United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization’s global food price Index jumped 24% last year, the biggest gain since 1990. Donald Coxe, a global portfolio strategist at BMO Capital Markets has tracked commodities for over two decades, he recommends buying the stock. He also says that here will be another year of skyrocketing food prices and consumers all over the world will be hurt. “History as shown that when people have problems with food, governments can fall”. (http://www.financialpost.com/story.html?id=213343)

With stockpiles of grains including wheat and rice at the lowest in three decades, a scarcity of agricultural land in China and India surging demand for food in emerging markets, prices may keep rising even higher in the future. According to the International Monetary Fund, last year, as much as 40% of the global gain in soybean and meat consumption came from China. However weather also plays a part; drought in Australia, the world’s third biggest dairy exporter, hurt milk supplies. According to CMA (A German agriculture marketing firm) the amount dairies in Germany pay to farmers for a liter of milk rose 22% last year.

With the biofuel boom, which diverts corn used for food and animal feed, is making goods such as Mexican tortilla and American meat more expensive. US ethanol production alone counted for about 60% of the global increase in corn consumption in 2007 according to the International Monetary Fund.

Global food inflation is being driven by this strange attempt to take the food out of the tables and give it to the cars. Rising crude prices mean that customers won’t find much relief buying imported goods. In some nations, where some people may spend more than half their income on food, a small jump in prices may mean more hunger, which Governments might rush to impose caps. In India for example, the Prime Minister announced a plan in the end of last year to set aside more land for grain after higher prices for onions and wheat cost. In Russia the Government has proposed limiting grain exports, and Venezuela ordered its state oil company to plant soybeans and build food processing plants.

Food prices are clearly adding to the stress in developing countries today, on top of the other financial crises. We need to be more prepared for an agricultural point of view.