What is the difference between a religious institution and a system of believings?

A religious institution is an institution that has only religious purposes. It is an establishment, organization or association instituted to advance or promote religious purposes or beliefs. Places of worship such as churches, mosques, temples and synagogues. Religion is a set of practices, and it can be reasonably independent of belief system or faith. Religion is based on worshipping or believing in a god whose physical characteristics cannot necessarily be seen by one that is not enlightened.
Some of the definitions that I had found for belief are:

- The mental act, condition, or habit of placing trust or confidence in another

- Mental acceptance of and conviction in the truth, actuality, or validity of something

- Something believed or accepted as true, especially a particular tenet or a body of tenets accepted by a group of persons.

A belief system can be based on faith or related to religious practice, but it can also be independent of religion and faith. Believing is something that you personally choose to accept. Practicing religion is attending services regularly. You can believe and not attend church, and you can attend church without truly believing. A belief system is faith based on a series of beliefs but not formalized into a religion; also, a fixed coherent set of beliefs prevalent in a community or society

Sources:

http://www.smallbusinessbible.org/featureswebdesigns_religiousinstitutions.html

http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/belief+system

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Religious_belief

Wednesday October 6

Summary of the class

The teacher talk us about the religious institutions.
Today, the christian church does not have the power it once had, like in the middle ages. In the middle ages the religion was the one that had the control. The Inquisition was a Roman Catholic tribunal for discovery and punishment of heresy, which was marked by the severity of questioning and punishment and lack of rights afforded to the accused. The christian church murdered, tortured, mutilated and destroyed millions and millions of lives both directly through the Inquisition and indirectly through all of the wars they incited. But inquisition ends with illuminism and with the end of the middle ages, and people stop believing in God, and start to study sciences, physics, and also other religions appeared. The church began to loose its power.

Buddhism

It is a religion and philosophy encompassing a variety of traditions, beliefs and practices, largely based on teachings attributed to Siddhartha Gautama, commonly known as the Buddha. The Buddha lived and taught in India, some time between the 6th and 4th centuries B.C. He is recognized as an awakened teacher who shared his insights to help sentient beings end suffering (or dukkha), achieve nirvana, and escape what is seen as a cycle of suffering and rebirth. He started to realize that there was a lot of pain in the world and he started to suffer and connect that pain with the religious part. He wasn´t living because he was suffering all the time. Suffering doesn´t resolve anything. There was one thing that creates pain: desire.

Samsara: cycle of reencarnations in the Induism and in the Buddhism.

Sources:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Buddhism

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inquisition

http://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/jsource/History/Inquisition.html

Wednesday Septembre 22

These are the summaries of the expositions done in class:

MOTIVATION IN THE WORKPLACE – ARGENTINA
What is Motivation?
Is the force that makes us do things.
Result of individual needs – Vary person to person.
Determine effort we put into our work.
“Your employees are your greatest asset and no matter how efficient your technology and equipment may be, it is no match for the effectiveness and efficiency of your staff.”

Herzberg’s Two Factor Theory: (hygiene factors)
- Factors that motivated employees in the workplace.
- Factors that prevented job dissatisfaction.

Actions for increase motivation
- If has a small number of employees, you will probably have an idea what motivates each one.
- If has a large number of employees, you may decide to delegate the task of identifying motivational issues to assistant mangers or immediate supervisors of the employees, etc.

WORK ETHICS – VIETNAM
The ethics of an organization, it is how an organization ethically responds to an internal or external stimulus. Organizational ethics is interdependent with the organizational culture.

Ethics in the organizations
1. BUSINESS ETHICS
2. CORPORATE COMPLIANCE
3. CORPORATE GOVERNANCE
4. CORPORATE RESPONSABILITY
5. CORPORATE SOCIAL RESPONSABILITY

Issues concerning ethics
- Reputation management.
- Accurate accounting.
- Fair labor practices.
- Environmental factors.

"Individualistic approach”
Every person in an organization is morally responsible for his or her own behavior, and any efforts to change that behavior should focus on the individual.

“Communal approach"
Here individuals are viewed not in isolation, but as members of communities that are partially responsible for the behavior of their members.

Vietnamise Culture
80% Vietnamese population is young.

90% literacy rate.
High context: Actions are more important than words.
Longer view of time: Focus time on season instead of weeks.
Formal behavior even in Interpersonal relations.
Saving face is very important for their culture.
They are very collectivist with respect for elderly and wisdom.
Masculine society

COMMUNICATION AND TEAMWORK – USA

Communication problems:
•Cultural differences
•Language barriers
•Gender differences
•“Noise” interrupting a communication process

Communication Styles
• Aggressive Communication
"Everyone should be like me."
"I am always right."
"I've got rights, but you don't."

• Passive Communication
"Don't express your true feelings."
"Don't make waves."
"Don't disagree."
"Others have more rights
than I do."

• Passive-Aggressive Communication
“ I am the most important“
“ I don’t care about others feelings and interests”
“ I do everything to achieve my goals and to be successful”

• Assertive Communication
• Him-/Herself and others are valuable
and important.
• Knows that oneself not always wins
• Handles situations to be effective
"I have rights and so do others."

Teamwork
Definition:
Teamwork can be defined as the process of different people working together to achieve the same goal by taking into account the following factors:
•Communication
•Coordination
•Balance of contributions
•Effort

Organizational Learning – Russia
Ways to design organizations so that they fulfill their function effectively encourage people to reach their full potential and at the same time, help the world to be a better place.

Learning Dimensions
-System levels:
Individual
Group
Organizational
Inter-Organizational

-Learning Modes
Cognitive
Cultural
Action Learning

-Learning Typology
Adaptive
Proactive

-Learning Process
Identification of info.
Generation of knowledge
Exchange & Diffusion

Wednesday September 15

At this class we saw a video about Korea:
North Korea:
- Poor country
- Empty roads
- Militarist men
- Stanlist vision
- Military defense
- Bicycle (universal transport)
- Concentration camps

South Korea:
- Rich country
- Tourists can´t go outside alone
- Social classes divided in three
- Totalitarians: Marxism, Leninism
- 34% of women suffer of “anemia”
- Nuclear weapons
- They create false truths of Americans through the different societies

EMOTIONS IN THE WORPLACE – JAPAN
Emotions: are psychological and physiological episodes experienced toward an object, person, or events that create a state of readiness. Different from Mood: less intense emotional states that are not directed toward anything in particular.

DEFINITIONS
• Events or “episodes: your anger toward a co-worker, for instance, would typically subside within a few minutes.
• Directed toward someone or something: tasks, customers, public speeches we present, a software program we are using, and so on.

TYPES OF EMOTIONS
Six primary categories: anger, fear, joy, love, sadness, and surprise.

Emotional labor: refers to the effort, planning, and control needed to express organizationally desired emotions during interpersonal transactions.
When interacting with co-workers, customers, suppliers, and others, employees are expected to abide by display rules. These rules are norms requiring employees to display certain emotions and to withhold others.