UN Global Compact Child Labor in Outsourcing One of the many problems
APA format with detailed in-text Citations.
Responses are required to have references from required materials.
UN Global Compact
Child Labor in Outsourcing
One of the many problems associated with labor abuses in developing countries is the child labor problem.? The use of sub-contractors who are guilty of poor labor practices has created bad publicity for Companies like GAP, Nike, Samsung, Apple, Nestle, IKEA, WalMart, Bayer, Marks & Spencer, Cadbury and many others have been accused of using.? The bad publicity these companies received in their primary markets has been somewhat effective in forcing them to recognize that they may be part of the problem. But the well-intended efforts of multi-national corporations, and politicians in the more developed countries, has sometimes had bad unintended consequences.?
The United Nations Global Compact is an agency trying to address the child labor problem on a global basis in a way that will correct the problem in the countries where it is taking place.? In the Global Compact discussion forum it states “The dilemma for responsible business is how to address child labor responsibly, given the complex social and economic context in which it occurs. While a business may seek to respect the international conventions and national laws on minimum age there is the dilemma that eliminating children from work without considering the implications for them may worsen their situation. Dismissing children from the workplace may leave them vulnerable to more exploitative work elsewhere and negative health and wellbeing implications due to increased poverty within the family (if indeed they have one)…..? Addressing poverty and education directly – often the root cause of child labour – is generally beyond the remit and capability of business.” *?
* United Nations Global Compact Discussion Forum {http://human-rights.unglobalcompact.org/dilemmas/child-labour/#.UjuR_5DD-Cr}
Week 4 Required Readings
Readings & Supporting Materials – Gray-Larson text
Chapters 10 and 12
Chapter 3.1
Harvard Course Pack – How to Think Strategically about Outsourcing
How to Think Strategically About Outsourcing by Martha Craumer
Harvard Course Pack – Transformational Outsourcing
Transformational Outsourcing by Jane C. Linder
Harvard Course Pack – Too Much Outsourcing
What Happens When You Outsource Too Much?
OFFSHORING VS. OUTSOURCING
(Uploaded)
U.N. Global Compact Agency re: child labor
(Uploaded)
Global Project Manager
(Uploaded)
Article-How to Manage Remote Teams
How to manage remote direct reports – Harvard?Business Review.??
Week 4 Lecture Material
Week 4: Organizational Culture, Outsourcing and Offshoring Considerations – Lecture Material Description
(Uploaded)
W4 – Graded Discussion – Virtual Teams
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Please define, then discuss the following?items:
1.? Please define in your own words what is a virtual team?
2.? Please discuss at least?3 virtual team types.
3.?Scenario:? You are a Project?Manager (PM) and you have your project team in 3 primary global? locations – United States, China, and Dubai, UAE.
Please list at least 2 advantages and 2 disadvantages of having such a diverse?project team.
Please describe?how you would setup project communications?for project status reporting for tasks and issues.
Then, please respond to fellow classmates’ responses on virtual teams.
Pascale,
A virtual team is a group of people contributing to a common goal, project, or purpose together, made up of individuals working in different areas who primarily or exclusively communicate electronically instead of face-to-face. Those differences in areas may be due to far geographical distances, like across countries or continents, or simply not working in a united office.?
A few types of virtual teams include service teams, which kind of work together like bees. Different workers around the globe unite in the same work independently, but in different time zones in order to provide a 24/7 coverage experience for customers, or in other words a continuous working presence. Another type is parallel teams, which are usually shorter-term groups part of the same organization adding a responsibility to their normal workload. These teams aim to achieve specific, well-defined goals. Lastly, another type of virtual team is an action team. These are very short in nature and usually response-based, as in situations like a major event or crisis, both mobilized and disbanded quickly.?
For this virtual team in North America, the Middle East, and Asia, the biggest advantage is the ability for work to span across different time zones. Projects have the ability to move much more quickly with close to 24/7 coverage working on different components. Additionally, access to specialists around the world provides a much broader skillset that can be applied to the work. Decision-making can be more complicated, though, as contributors in different locations may at times wait for answers or replies from other time zones, stalling progress for long stretches of time. Further, the barrier of 3+ different languages being spoken takes time in communication and creates the possibility of misunderstandings.?
Assuming that this global project is complex in nature, I would set up communications for status reporting with a distributed approach. This means that contributors would report to localized coordinators, who have the ability to respond with immediacy, cultural awareness, their common language, and authority. This prevents any communication disruptions that could hold work up for replies. I would then communicate directly with the regional coordinators regularly for check-ins, questions, or issues.?
References:
Different Types of Virtual Teams. (n.d.).?
Gray, C. F., & Larson, E. W. (2021).?Project Management : The Managerial Process. Mcgraw-Hill Education.
Samuels, D. (n.d.).?Week Three Lecture Slides: Leadership and Governance of Virtual Teams. Canvas, Northeastern University. Retrieved January 30, 2023, from?
Christina,
Please define in your own words what is a virtual team?
A virtual team is when team members work together on projects or other work but primarily use digital tools to communicate. Virtual teams can have team members working in locations from all around the world or even in the same city but do not work together in person.?
Please discuss at least 3 virtual team types.
One type of team is a parallel team (Samuels, 2023). Parallel teams are short-term teams that work on a clearly defined task or project. These assignments typically address global business issues (Samuels, 2023). Another type of team is a project or product development team. These are also defined clearly with team members who typically work for a specific amount of time (Samuels, 2023). Another type of team is a networked team is a fluid team with team members rotating on and off. Networked teams are normally not clearly defined within the organization.?
Scenario:? You are a Project Manager (PM) and you have your project team in 3 primary global? locations – United States, China, and Dubai, UAE.?Please list at least 2 advantages and 2 disadvantages of having such a diverse project team.
There are advantages and disadvantages to having a diverse project team with team members in the US, China, and Dubai. One advantage is that the team members are exposed to different cultures. Having such a diverse team brings new perspectives, which help lead to creative solutions within projects. Another advantage is that teams can have members from a greater pool of resources. This means that team members are likely to bring different skills than team members from the same culture. A disadvantage is that with a diverse team and team members with different cultural backgrounds, some cultural differences may cause issues, tension, or misunderstanding among team members. Another disadvantage is that having team members spread out worldwide can make meetings very challenging due to so many different time zones.?
Please describe how you would setup project communications for project status reporting for tasks and issues. Then, please respond to fellow classmates’ responses on virtual teams.
For project communications, I would first create a project team charter, a project schedule, and a communications plan. The communications plan would outline that there would be a re-occurring team meeting each week on MS Teams. The team can use the regular meeting to provide status updates or high-level issues that may occur in the future. I would encourage any urgent project issues to be communicated immediately through email or instant messaging on MS Teams. I would suggest that project documents are shared in the same place where all team members have access and encourage that MS Teams is the primary place for files to be shared.
?
References
Samuels. (2023). Week 3 Lecture Slides – Leadership and Governance of Virtual Teams [Slide show]. Canvas.
OFFSHORING VERSUS OUTSOURCING Offshoring (in-house Production) Outsourcing (to Third Party) Full control over quality of products Maximization of scale and scope advantages and leveraging of best practices across subsidiaries High short-term flexibility allows adjustments to changing market (e.g. changes in import tax) Know-how protection Stable pricing and lower supply risk (alleviate eventual fluctuations in supply or prices) Lower lead time due to use of existing infrastructure Specialized outsourcing companies Exploit advantages for using a subcontractor more focused on a particular task High long-term flexibility because fewer asset-specific investments have been made Lower investment costs (tend to be variable costs) Often cheaper production Integration binds resources (human and capital) and distracts managerial faocus from other activities (such as marketing and branding)
Global Project Management: Keys to Success
?- March 1, 2017 (Project Management.com)
(https://www.projectmanagement.com/articles/369194/Global-Project-Management–Keys-to-Success)
Managing global projects can be like your worst project management nightmare on steroids. To be sure, more is likely to go wrong than right if you fail to consciously factor in strategies and tactics to overcome the added complexities that are common to virtually all global projects.
Hopefully after digesting this article and suggested readings, you will be better prepared for a global project management (GPM) assignment. If you have already experienced the joys of leading a GPM effort, hopefully you will resonate with some of the guidance offered.
The above assertion is not without reason or merit. In addition to all the issues and challenges found in ??normal?? projects, global projects bring with them elements that complicate things even more, including differences in:
Language:?While language barriers can be overcome, they do seem to slow down the pace of a project if interpreters are needed throughout the process. Two languages to deal with is one thing, but when it becomes three or more, progress dramatically slows and costs materially increase. Even when everyone speaks the same language, the words can have very different meanings. U.S. English versus Australian English versus UK English are very much different, especially at the colloquial level.
Work ethic:?When planning and managing global projects, it is important to pay close attention to each culture??s view of work. Cultures can have very different views related to work-life balance, working overtime, taking vacations (holidays), days worked a year, hours worked a day and so on. Pushing team members to work longer hours may get you fewer hours of productivity. It is critical that work plans take into consideration how much true utilization of resources and related productivity is likely to be achieved.
Process maturity:?Not all organizations have the same level of maturity in terms of operational and project processes. A wide variation in these maturity levels can create chaos and conflict, especially when project manager tries to force team members to comply with more mature and rigorous frameworks and processes than they are used to (or even believe in).
Socioeconomics:?Global projects often mean working with people from countries with vast differences in socioeconomic realities. Teams and stakeholder groups comprised of workers from first-world and third-world countries can run into barriers to progress, with the potential for a great divide among people.
World views:?Whether we like it or not, people harbor different views of how civilizations should be governed, how mankind impacts climate change, how genders should act and be treated, politics and more. Even if never talked about, material differences between team members in terms of the meaning of ??good?? when it comes to how the world should be can present roadblocks to progress??and even threaten project success. This is true even within the same country, but is magnified in global projects. Understanding the likely world views of the stakeholder community (and project team members) and developing strategies for dealing with the conflicts that could arise should world views collide is essential to being successful in managing global projects.
Political climate:?Politics can get in the way in any project, but if the project spans multiple countries that have edgy political relationships, the impact can bring a project to its knees. A shift in the political climate is not a variable that can be controlled but should be one that is addressed in the planning phase in terms of developing scenarios for keeping the project on track should a negative shift occur. For example, what would you do if you were managing a project in a country that might break off diplomatic relationships with another country, resulting in those team members affected not being able to work or communicate with each other? Being prepared for these types of events can spell the difference between success and failure.
Time zones:?It is great to have real-time collaboration and online meeting tools, but they don??t compensate for the complexities presented for conducting business across time zones that are literally as different as night and day. No one wants to be online doing business at 2 a.m. in the morning and still be expected to work a 9-to-5 job. Can you work around time-zone issues? Sure, but the impact of time-zone differences might have an impact on the project??s progress, team morale and costs.
Laws/legal systems:?When managing projects that means doing business in multiple countries, it is critical to be up to date on legal issues that could impact the project and its team members. Does any country in question have radically different laws from the others? Are the legal systems and due process laws similar or materially different? Are there things that are considered legal in one country and considered a crime in another? What about travel between the countries in question??any legal complications there? If the laws and legal systems pose a potential threat to the project, it is best to address those issues up front and devise strategies to avoid any needless entanglements.
Currency exchange rates:?While exchange rates might seem unimportant, changes in those rates can have a serious impact on budgets should the base currency used to budget the project experience unplanned movement in context to other currencies in play. A weakness in the base currency can make doing business much more expensive in countries that have currencies that have strengthened throughout the project. One way around this is to get management to agree that the budget will always be evaluated in terms of the currency exchange rates as of the date the project began, thus factoring out any fluctuations from the budget performance analysis. If that isn??t going to fly, then consider establishing a currency fluctuation contingency fund that can be used to offset differences.
It is important to note that any one of the above issues can create project heartburn should they come into play. However, when multiple issues converge on a project, that heartburn can turn to project heart failure.
It is also important to understand that most organizations fail to adequately address these issues in their budgets, delivery timetables and risk analysis. It is easy to see why the seeds of project failure can be sewn early in the process. It is no wonder why around 90% of global projects fail to deliver as promised??if they deliver at all.
So what can a global project PM do to increase the odds of success? As you will find from the suggested reading list at the end of this article, the ideas are plentiful??and that is good news. Of course, only you can decide if they apply to your situation. Reflecting on the lessons learned from my own GPM experiences, I offer the following guidance:
Directly address global project elements in assessing project risks, communication plans and value-delivery expectations.?This will demonstrate you understand the issues and challenges specific to a GPM assignment and allow for the right conversations to take place regarding areas that are often glossed over.
Make a master blueprint of how deliverables all fit together (all the touch points).?Regardless of the PM and development frameworks to be used, it is critical that the first phase of the project set forth a detailed master blueprint of the deliverables and how they fit together. This is especially important in construction and IT-related projects. Having this blueprint will allow you to break the project up into smaller pieces and modules that can be worked on by multiple teams. In some cases, this approach will allow for teams to work independently and in parallel, focusing cross-team communications around deliverable touch points to ensure that all the pieces fit together properly. This can also compress the project??s timeline.
Bundle deliverables and assign to autonomous and geographically local teams.?Issues related to time zones, language barriers and other items as presented above can be greatly reduced if teams can work autonomously from each other and within their own geographical and cultural orientations. This is more easily accomplished when a master blueprint is developed at the beginning of the project.
Budget for on-site progress reviews and face-to-face project team leader walk-throughs.?Often missing from global projects is ample budget to perform on-site progress reviews. While conducting most communications can be done via on-line meeting tools, it is only through face-to-face and visual inspection that actual progress can be validated.
Build tight specifications and manage to them.?The more dispersed the development of deliverables and work products are, the greater the need for tight specifications that can be used to evaluate the quality and completeness of the work performed. Failing to do this can result in massive amounts of rework, budget overruns and missed deadlines??all bad things.
Focus on outcome delivery.?Give teams the latitude to self-organize by keeping the focus on the delivery of the desired project outcomes. This can go a long way to simplifying issues related to cultural differences and obstacles. It can also increase team ownership and pride of the outcomes achieved.
Factor in more quality compliance checkpoints than you think you will need.?When work is distributed across countries or amongst multiple teams, it is critically important to conduct quality compliance reviews on a very frequent basis. Building verifiable milestones that can be quantitatively measured and confirmed can insure that all the pieces fit together during the final assembly and testing phases of the effort.
Be a change order and specification variation hawk.?Since global projects can be difficult to control, it is easy for teams to take license with the specifications??and that can spell disaster. To overcome this risk, it is important to continuously inspect work products for compliance to specifications and have in place a very formal change-order process. Early detection of defects and deviation from approved specifications is fundamental to success.
Simplify, simplify, simplify.?Since managing global projects is at best complicated and difficult, it is essential to keep things as simple as possible without becoming naïve and simplistic. Focus on designing complexity out of the project plan and processes. Doing this will reduce costs, conflicts and sleepless nights (those nights that you aren??t conducting 2 a.m. teleconference meetings).
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