Blog Post 2
1.) Give three compelling examples of how cultural issues affect your project.
- One example of a cultural issue that affects our project with CSR in India is with corrupt political figures being a core part of Indian society currently. Politicians as a middle man between the corporation and the NGO have control over what type of projects will be paired, which allows them to use the good will as a way to win over their constituents for reelections. This will have an negative impact on the sincerity of the work being done, as the partnerships were not made for truly beneficial reasons but rather for show.
- Another cultural issue that may affect our project is the caste system in India. It is similar to a combined social hierarchy, race and religion, and income system as that in America. Whichever caste you are in (also depending on your geographical location) will impact the relations you have, so this can affect partnerships that are created. For these partnerships to be successful, it is imperative that trust is established, but if going in, the manager from the NGO and the CEO from the corporation do not trust each other due to rivaling castes, that will not be attainable.
- Another cultural issue that can affect our project is the increasing regulation over what the Indian people, especially the youth, are allowed to say with regards to the government. Because our project is about a law that was enacted by the Indian government, we might not be able to find accurate feelings about the law because of fears of being persecuted.
2.) Have you ever experienced or observes any of these situations at home? Describe at least three such situations.
- Yes I have seen a lot of examples of discrimination take place because of factors people cannot change, similar to that of their caste system. In America, people can be targeted for being non-white, poor, non-heterosexual, female, having a disability or other characteristics. For example, there have been 45 presidents in the United States, which are all male, have all been heterosexual to date, and all white except for one. These cultural issues are just as impactful here as in India.
- I have observed political corruptness in this country as well. Politicians act similarly when it is time to re-elected, they try to find areas that their constituents care about and focus their intentions there. They make these social efforts at times that are advantageous for them, but do not actually care(usually) about the social issues they are getting involved with.
- In a much smaller sense, but if you ask someone survey questions about their job but not in an anonymous fashion you are unlikely to get genuine answers because people might fear being reprimanded or fired for any negative things they say. An example of this is with professor surveys at the end of the course, which are luckily anonymous now. I know for myself and most likely other students, we would not feel as comfortable sharing our opinions on areas that need improvement if the professor were to find out exactly who said it.
3.) Give three examples of cultural practices that can be leveraged to address community/market problems.
- One example of a cultural practice that can be leveraged to address community/market is by networking. This is an important cultural practice all around the world, but especially in India where there are so many people and therefore the encounters that you make need to be extremely impactful and well kept if you want your relationship with them to last past that initial encounter. Because of this, we have reached out to Indian students on campus and have asked if they have any connections with any medium to large companies in India that they would be able to put us in contact with for the trip.
- Another example of a cultural practice that can used to address market/community problems is us utilizing grass-roots techniques. A lot of the information we have received already is from the governments ideas of how they want the law to be carried out. If not from there, then from corporations who will also give a biased opinion on what needs to be improved about the law. When we go to India, we plan to meet not only with corporations but also with NGO’s to get a fuller picture of what the implications of the law are and where we can hopefully help and benefit the community more.
- Another cultural practice that can be leveraged to address community/market problems is respecting the caste system. It is something that is deeply rooted into Indian culture so for us to come over as foreigners and tell them that they should disregard it in order to expand the connections that they are willing to make with people.