This week in class, we watched Erin Brockovich. This is the story of Erin, played by Julia Roberts, who is a single mother and legal assistant fighting against a California corporation, Pacific Gas and Electric Company. PG&E is being accused of polluting drinking water in a tow that has caused many medical issues to the citizens.  In the end, she was able to win a $333 million dollar settlement for there damages. This is a ground breaking film that relates heavily to our class. PG&E obviously did not decide to maintain ESG in their business and ended up hurting not only the people, but losing $333 million dollars. If they decided to not pollute the water, everyone could have been saved from their future distresses.

At my internship this week, Jon and I are evaluating reviews made on Trustpilot, a review website, and presenting them to our supervisor. To do this, we split this into two parts, reviews of Tempocasa and reviews of competitors in the same industry. We would take the best and worst reviews from all companies and compile them into a list, with the most common ones being our main focus. By doing this, we are able to do an analysis on what Tempocasa is doing well and what they shouls be improving on. Evaluating competitors will allow us to do the same as we can take improvements or good actions they have done and hopefully incorporate them into Tempocasa. In all, this presentation should allow Tempocasa a more in depth view on their image in the Italian real estate industry.

In my journey in Italy this week, I visited Catatonia in Sicily. Sicily is located in southern Italy so I needed to take a 2 hour plane ride there. While Sicily, is still in the same country as Milan, I was surprised at how different it felt. The food was different as they served more Sicilian dishes compared to more traditional Italian dishes. This is a slight combination of Greek and Italian dishes. When I was there, I visited the Catatonia Doumo, Dog Beach, and other smaller landmarks. The Doumo was different than the Milan one as it was samller and I was not able to go inside, but the outside was very impressive and plaza was bustling with nightlife. The city itself was beautiful and I hope I am able to go back and experience more of Sicily.

This week in class we discussed the Apple case study and its potentially unethical working conditions from using oversea suppliers. The interesting part of this case is that it directly related to everyone as we all own an iPhone and the fact we are still using their products despite knowing the accusations against Apple can be seen as problematic. With this in mind, the ethical dilemma discussed was whether or not we should be able to hold the same ethical standards in different countries. While my initial answer was yes we should, after discussion, I’ve come to seen the difficulties of trying to apply what I consider ethical across so many different cultures. Even for a company like Apple, who has suppliers in many countries, just trying to hold them to certain conditions is very hard. Overall, this discussion has left me thinking more about how can we make an ethical standard that everyone in the world can hold.

 

At my internship at Tempocasa, we presented the our second project to our supervisor. This one was an analysis of their current workflows and recommendations for improvements. After carefully looking over the departments operations, we made a few recommendations we thought would be very helpful. The first one was to add an extra call if the selling process of the house takes a while. This was to prevent detractors if customers begin to feel impatient for the house not selling. The second recommendation was to start directly asking customers for reviews to boost the company’s image. While these were our main two, there were also a few smaller changes we recommended for quality of life.

 

This week started with the end of our Naples trip. Naples was such a great place to visit and I can honestly say that the pizza lives up to the hype. The best part of Naples was Pompeii, which was such a cool site to see. I would recommend anybody with the opportunity to visit Pompeii as it has been one of my favorite things to see in Italy so far. Back in Milan, after not having American food in a while, me and a couple others decided to go to Hamerica’s for a burger. While the food was pretty good, eating a burger after so long was really great. Now, since I have satisfied mt craving for American food, I am going to enjoy all the best Italian food the rest of this study abroad I can.

This week in Italy I have done so many fun activities. To start at my internship at Tempocasa, me and Jon began working more on our presentation on the current workflow of the customer care division. We have outlined what we want to talk about and are now doing more research on what’s the best way to bring about interactions between customers and the company. One of the challenges in this project is that while we have a perspective from what we know, there is a cultural difference that we don’t want to offend by making decisions. With that in mind, we are carefully treading on Italian culture in a workplace and how we should rationalize some suggestions we are making. So far, we are making great progress and hope to finish this presentation up in the following week.

 

In class, I have learned so much more about corporate responsibility. In particular, this Monday we discussed a lot more on ESG and whether or not companies should care about stakeholders more or shareholders. There are great arguments for both sides of this case, and the approach the class took was on the Business Roundtable Statements made in 1997 and 2019. In the 1997 statement, it was clarified that shareholders are prioritized but stakeholders will still be aided such as employee training and increasing consumer value. In the 2019 statement, an emphasis on stakeholders was made and that the whole is more important than just focusing on the shareholders. Personally, I am conflicting in choosing a side currently as both slides of the argument made very good points. The discussions we have in class really help me to create dialogue on important subjects in the business world today.

 

This week, I traveled to both Florence and Naples. In both of these places I learned so much more about Italian culture. First in Florence, I was able to see the Statue of David and see all the other paintings in the museum. I found it very interesting to read up on the various paintings by Italian artists throughout history. David itself was impressive in its own right due to its sheer size and details. While I’ve seen many pictures of the statue itself, I thought seeing the real one lived up to the hype and I am so glad I got to see it. At the end of the night in Florence, I got to eat a famous Florentine steak. This steak was one of the best I ever had and I could see why it is world famous. In Naples, I got to visit Pompeii. Personally, I was looking forward to this the most of all the trips I went on so far because of the history this one village has. The buildings that were left standing, the amazing architecture, and finally just the atmosphere of the place is something I’ve never experienced. Overall, this was an amazing week to see all of Italy.

As I enter my third week in Milan, I am beginning to adapt to the culture of the area. At my internship this week, Jon and I presented an analysis of USA vs Italian real estate. In the presentation we included topics on the buying and selling processes, a look at USA real estate firms, a comparison of review management websites, and finally the differences in Customer Care divisions. Overall, I think we did very well on our analysis and it seems that our supervisor was satisfied. The most difficult part of our presentation was the language barrier. It was very difficult to try and interpret US real estate terms to Italian terms. For example, due diligence is a process when buying a house but because they were unfamiliar with the term, we needed to articulate it in a way for them to understand. In the end, we were able to communicate what we wanted to.

 

In our class this week we explored a lot more on businesses and taking moral actions. One example was the mini debates that were held for real life situations. One of the debates I was apart of was if banks should be held liable for transactions involving scams. I found this a very interesting dilemma to debate. For the given article, the older widow sent hundreds of thousands of dollars to an oversea account because she was told she won money. After the wire transfer, she found out she was scammed and sued the banks for putting the transaction through. On one hand, we have a older woman who may have not been the most mentally or emotionally strong who was being taken advantage of. On a moral side, it seems like banks should be doing all they can protect her. But on the other side, there’s only a certain amount a bank can do before they start treading on privacy concerns for these types of transfers. This moral dilemma is just one of many that happens in business and it is up to us to determine was is right and wrong.

 

This week I went to many different places. To start, I went inside the Milan Doumo, one of the most famous landmarks in Milan. We went up 220+ steps to the roof where we got a beautiful view of Doumo plaza and the surrounding area. I thought the most impressive aspect of it was inside the cathedral. The beauty of the artwork and stain glass was so breath taking we spent a while just sitting and admiring everything. Later in the day, we went to AC Milan’s final game of the season. The rumors that European football being very crazy was confirmed at the game. AC Milan ended up winning and we even had the honor of witnesses in the retirement of one of the greatest football players in the world, Zlatan Ibrahimović. To finish up my week, I took a train to Genoa to see the coastline of Italy for the first time. Genoa is a very nice port town where we spent time at the pebble beach we found. This culture immersion has been so exciting and I can’t wait each week to find

something new to do.

 

In my first full week of internships and classes, I learned a lot more here in Milan. To start, in my Corporate Social Responsibility class this week, we began discussing our Wall Street Journal posts and how the content from the material speaks about the responsibility corporations have. One that stood to me was California is trying to ban certain chemicals in food, most notably a chemical that makes skittles red. In summary, Mars corporation does not want to ban the chemical because they believe it should be left up to the FDA to make these decisions and California wants to ban it because of potential health consequences from consumption of the chemical. The dilemma here is that the chemical they want to ban has already been approved by the FDA in 1970. At what point now does Mars corporation has to take another look at their ingredients list and redo a safety check for a chemical approved 50 years ago? so much has changed, both technologically and biologically, that maybe 50 year old processes aren’t actually accurate. This discussion really made me think about other corporate safety procedures that probably has not been reviewed in decades and how it is an ethical concern these aren’t being looked at.

 

At my internship of Tempocasa, me and Jon continued our work on the analysis of Real Estate in the US vs Italy. After finalizing our research on Tuesday, we began and finished the PowerPoint we will present this upcoming week. Our final results showed that while many of the processes are similar, there are some aspects in buying and selling of property that differs. I am very nervous for this presentation as it will be our first big project we need to turn in for internship. Also, the language barrier may make it a harder to communicate with our audience, especially our supervisor who will be evaluating our work. In the end, I do believe we will succeed in this presentation from all the hard work we put in.

 

In my adventures within Italy, I have done a lot more exploring this week. On Sunday, I visited the Ferrari museum they have here and learned all about the rich history of one of the most renowned car brands in the world. What I learned from this experience is that through each iteration of racing cars and engines made by Ferrari, they always improved on previous models and innovated new ways do it. Also, on Friday, we visited Verona. My first impression of Verona when walking thorough was how different it was compared to Milan. While much of the architecture remained the same, the people and atmosphere just felt very different. While in Verona, we visited the Montresor Winery and visited the famous landmarks such as the Juliet Balcony and Verona Arena. All throughout this trip, I learned much more about Italian culture such as more on the wine making process. I am really thankful for such an amazing experience and I hope I can do back to Verona some time again.