Julia Dzurenko Blog Post #6 Ending Week June 17th | 2024 Lehigh-in-Milan with Professor Gupta

CSR Course

This week in Professor Gupta’s class, we watched the second half of the Corporation movie/documentary, and it continued to provide me with information and knowledge about corporations, whistle blowing, labor laws, and the idea of corporations becoming a nationalized figure with the control of the government. This all was shown in the second part of the corporation by showing two employees’ own experience at a big news company, and the company wanted them to rewrite a story so that they lie/exclude the truth from the story. The two employees then refused to rewrite the story in the way the corporation wanted, and the corporation demanded, and threatened them, so that they would base their work off lies. The employees used the whistleblower policy to protect them in their workplace, and the woman who blew this whistle, didn’t win the lawsuit. The power of the corporations lawyers, even with the policy protecting the employee for what they believe is illegal or unethical in the workplace, overrode her protection. The employees made it known that the news is exactly what the corporations say it is. This was shocking to me because my mother was a whistleblower for Pfizer in her local workplace, not a whistleblower against the corporation, and it was handled responsibly with care for my mother. This movie showed that 57 corporations were found trading with enemies of the US, and because of this, more smaller towns are restricting the number of chains in a town because they have so much tyrannic power over the small town, that they were to minimize this power. We then went into a discussion based on questions that we answered after the documentary, and it was interesting to ask difficult questions that were based subjectively, so we all had to deeply think about them. I have noticed though, with these types of questions, there is rarely a yes or no answer. For example, one of the questions that my group was asked was: “Can we hold people accountable to higher ethical standards if their behavior is not illegal?”. We answered this question as “Yes, depending on the priorities of these people doing said unethical actions, we can figure out a way to work in their best interest so that they end up working towards the common goal, which is ethical behavior”. This was a difficult question to answer because you CAN try to hold people accountable, but in the way corporations are run and the legalities behind them, it’s difficult to do this especially if their profit is booming, and that is their priority.

Internship Seminar

Today in the beginning of class, we talked about our different communication styles, and how communication is different from our individual communication styles, and just in general the US communication. We talked about how going into our internships, we realized that there were many greetings, no matter if they spoke english, you always introduce yourself to the new person. Also, whatsapp is a literal difference in communication, that substitutes iMessage, or emails if you wanted to be more informal. We did a self assessment of how ethnocentric we are and how interculturally competent we are. This assessment opened my mind on how I am coping with the cultural differences here, and shows where I stand on the scale and how I am dealing with different communication, and how self aware I am being in Italy, or just in general as a person. I concluded that I range around the adaptation area of the spectrum, which kind of shows that I finally have adapted and accepted the culture here in Italy, and the differences in which it can sway me to certain biases and stereotypes.

Internship in Milan

This week at my internship, I finally submitted my first review of the market research and planning that my boss wanted, but he reviewed it and he wanted something completely different than what he asked of me in the beginning. This is the negative of the lack of directness and communication in Italian culture because it is difficult for him to put into words what he wants, and it is difficult for me to put into words my questions. But, he finally wrote everything out for me how he wants it, and I am going to keep revising this research probably until the end of the program, since there is a lot of detail behind this project, and data that needs to be included and analyzed. Beside the work, I am definitely getting more comfortable here, as I am understanding everyone individually, and the exact work they are doing.

Italian Culture and Travels

This weekend, we all split up in our adventures, since some of us wanted to go to one place, and another group of us wanted to go to another place. This past Friday, a group of us traveled to Venice, and we took a train for Milan to the center of Venice to walk around and experience the culture and sights of Venice. It was pretty crowded on Friday, and we only had the day, so we didn’t get to go into any historic sights, but we did make it a chance to ride on the water taxis through the grand canal. We passed by their cathedral, and walked around the streets of Venice and stopped in a lot of different museums and churches that were open to the public. On Saturday, we took a train to Cinque Terre, which is in the complete opposite direction of Venice, but it was worth it. We went to Monterosso to meet up with a few friends and have a nice beach day, but also to explore the beautiful town. Monterosso rested on the bright blue waters of the Ligurian Sea. We just walked around Monterosso and relaxed on the beach. It was a nice and relaxing day and an opportunity to see one of the villages in Cinque Terre.