WEEK 12

(image source: http://vapresspass.com/2013/09/18/ethical-dilemmas-

challenges-when-to-speak-up-why-how/)

        For this week,  we had two groups for our Good News Monday. For the first group, they reported about how the mangroves were able to help the people during typhoon Yolanda. Mangrove is good: it's not only under philanthropy but it also considered to be under risk management. These mangroves have multifunctions. People don't only get shrimps and crabs, etc. but these mangroves also acted as a barrier during the typhoon. Planting mangroves would be a good idea/move because we would get a lot of benefits from it especially protection. For the second group, miss told us that it is important that Corporate Social Responsibility can address social issues like education. Education is very important because everything starts from learning. People often say that education holds the key to our future. Education can develop generations of responsible individuals and can make them successful.

         For this meeting, we watched a video about corporate governance and we related this talk with Enron. The speaker focused on rewards. He said that rewards motivate people but there is an argument that it does not apply every time. I think that I learned most of what he was talking about in my HUMANBE class wherein we also discussed about how rewards can affect motivation. The speaker gave a case to the audience called the candle problem. I think that it was a very interesting experiment wherein people would be challenged to fix the candle on a wall in a way so that the candle wax won't drip onto the table below. There was only the candle, a book of matches and a box of thumbtacks in the room. The solution to this was to empty the box of thumbtacks and put the candle in the box, then the thumbtacks should be used to attach the box to the wall. This experiment was a test because most of the participants weren't able to see the box as a holder for the candle. He told the audience that this was the concept of functional fixedness.  Also, when there was a reward being offered the participants took longer to do the task because they focused more on the rewards they could receive afterwards. I think that this experiment is very effective in determining some things. First, how people would think of a solution to the case given? Second, how fast would they be able to do it? Third,  will rewards affect them? Will it be faster if the thumbtacks were not placed in the box?   

      After watching the video, we went back to discussing about Enron. Miss said that we need to ask: "How much does the CEO earn?" and "Does it match with his earnings?" From this, we talked about risk management as an important component of CSR. There are some companies that would work in crisis because of the negative perspectives about them. An example would be Malaysian Airlines, when MH370 was lost, it caused panic and a negative image against the company. People worried and they were not sure if they could still trust the airline company. A local example would be Cebu Pacific, one of its plans crashed on a mountain and this was when the airline was just new probably 2-3 years only. They were just beginning when this accident happened and this caused them a negative image. However, it was good to know that the top management were visible when this happened. This shows how the managers care for the customers and the company. From this, we could determine that the relatives of the victims were more relieved. 

      I remember the talk that we attended which was ADX: Limitless which was an advertising conference. One of the speakers, Ms. Amor Maclang is a risk/crisis/reputation strategist. She focused her talk on risk management and she told us the rules on how risk/crisis should be approached. I think business people should know and understand risk management. When organizations deal with crisis management, it is important to know the important steps. Knowing what to do would be really helpful, because there we could avoid the threat to the organization, stakeholders and general public. 

        Similar to the previous blog, we need to have sustainability. It is important to have sustainability because all the choices we pursue and all the actions that we make today will affect everything in the future. We need to make the right decisions today so that we could avoid limiting the choices of the future generations. 

           We also talked about the performance of the 2009 best companies in the country. We analyzed the results based on the report presented. It might be threatening that one person might own most of the companies in future. This would result in a negative effect because these companies would then be considered a monopoly.  If this would happen, there would be no control and people could not do anything if the companies would say that they would raise prices of the basic commodities like water, electricity, and communications line. 

       This would be the last meeting wherein we had our lecture. Learning about Corporate Social Responsibility and Corporate Governance made me more conscious/concerned about the things happening around me especially in the business world. I think that some of my perspectives/ideas changed because of this subject. The different theories and situational examples that we had made me understand that corporate social responsibility is not just about giving back. It is more than that because people/organizations that do CSR become an instrument by helping the community and changing their their lives. While for corporate governance, I think that companies need to become organized, follow the rules and build good relationships especially with the shareholders and managers.