What is Business Philosophy? It is a question to which various definitions can be given, which does not matter who gives them or in which book or article they can be read, what is important is the meaning or scope that these can have for the professional life of a person within a business.
The company must be managed with ethics and values. Why? It is a question that is commonly asked and generally does not apply. Ethics without values cannot be managed and vice versa.
Where, apparently, from the author, it should not be pursued as the purpose of a company to "earn" money only, but to seek to serve the community, to mention one of the parameters mentioned. The dominant values are those that at first glance produce the effect at the beginning, that is, what the company usually seeks is to meet the goals and seek good results, and the ascending value: the realization of principles. Where each should not be seen separately, the two should go together.
A question that can be asked here, after analyzing Thurow's (1992) article, is: What concrete actions should be implemented to achieve community capitalism in Mexico?
To answer this question you would have to do something related to the table mentioned above about the values:
Learning to work as a team, since many of the times here in Mexico people are not used to working this way, they like to always excel by trampling on the people around them. It is a very important point because as a phrase that is in the public domain says: "Several heads think better than one", the result that can be obtained can be much better than the one that could be obtained individually.
Another action would be to see not only the fact, for example, that in Mexico, many businessmen see cutting their personnel, expenses, etc., with such ease. Only for the sole purpose of maximizing your profits. With which the author totally agrees that this is the economic goal of the company, but we have to visualize the social goal, which would already be the community point of view. Not only see employees as amounts of money or earnings, but as people who are worth and who are an important part of the company, who really are the engine of it and are the ones who generate much of the company's profits. An example that could be applied to this particular case would be the one that happens in the city of Chihuahua, where the maquiladora industry has a very high rate of personnel turnover,because they have very low wages and treat people like robots that only produce, that is, they only seek to maximize their profits and their own benefit.
It is a fact that the maquiladora industry carries out activities for the benefit of the community where it is located, such as the construction of sewage and waste treatment plants that it produces. But not only that is what counts, if employees are not treated as people, they will not be motivated and they will not give their best. If the person feels part of the company therefore it will show better results. How can employees be motivated? It is not a very simple question to answer, but broadly speaking, it can be said that through training, incentives, participation in decision-making through suggestions, recreational activities, etc. The fact is to make her feel a core part of the company.
Another very important point that can be related in part to what was mentioned in the previous paragraph, would be loyalty, which is a point that can be managed from the community point of view. Where according to the author's point of view, where the employee is happy in his work, either because he has a decent salary, good benefits or at least those required by law, or simply because they take it into account in decisions of the company that although they are not strategic feels the important employee to be taken into account. Seeing this situation, the employee's loyalty to the company is almost imminent.
Although the situation can be seen that in Mexico the employees who are truly loyal to the company are few. Many times they are not loyal or loyal to the company even when it seems that way. Standing out individually is one of the issues that Mexicans cannot avoid, and that as mentioned before they do not understand that teamwork can be more beneficial but they cannot bear the fact that credit or recognition takes them all in place. of a single person.
It can be considered that these actions to implement community capitalism in Mexico are not very viable, because the Mexican ideology is simply not used to seeing work in this way.
The Mexican is very independent and is not used to working as a team, although as mentioned in previous paragraphs it is the best. Even though teamwork is instilled in many companies and universities, most of the time only part of it works, which means that the rest receive the benefit at the expense of the other members of their team. That can be considered unethical, but the idiosyncrasy of the Mexican is like that, he does not seek to improve, just stay at the level he is at that moment without risking or working at all.
For the same reason, the author considers it not viable, but if you make an effort and try to change the mentality of the Mexican employee or businessman, you can achieve many things. Which would make the country more competitive in relation to the exterior, because it would achieve better quality products, more prepared people, quality services.
Now another question can be asked: What aspects of Mexican culture give us the basis for trust and which do not?
To create trust in a culture, society must be improved, but in the process there are many problems or conflicts which, according to Fukuyama (1997), must be resolved through human values and culture.
Until now, where the transition from one political party to another has been seen in the federal government, there was no confidence. Obviously, apparently from the author, they did not work or carry out their work according to the values and culture that is managed in the country.
But what are some of the values that are handled in the Mexican culture: one that considers the author very important is the family, which compared to other countries such as the United States is very strong, many of the companies that work in Mexico are of extraction family, the main managers of the company are the founders and curiously they are parents, children, brothers, cousins, etc. Perhaps, for this reason it is a value that is considered of great importance in our culture.
When looking at the large number of Mexican companies that are family-owned, without making distinctions in their size, this value should be highlighted. Increasing confidence increases efficiency (Fukuyama, 1997)
We could compare this case of Mexico with the case of Japanese companies, where most of the companies are also family, due to the same culture they have. Although there is an issue that should be highlighted and that differentiates us from them, which is the fact that the founding family does not physically manage the company, that is, they are only the owners but they have professionals who are actually managing them. What in Mexico does not happen, the owners (the family) are the ones who manage it.
Another action that must be taken into account for Mexico is recognizing the importance of the main capital that a company has: people. As mentioned in previous paragraphs, apparently from the author, they are the main element and without them nothing can be done, they must be motivated, happy with their work, feeling an important part of the company.
Also learn how to work in a team, how? Well, it is not as easy as it seems, it would have to work very hard for people to react and integrate. Mexicans are very individualistic, we prefer "working alone than in bad company", which is wrong because greater efficiency can be achieved. A possible solution would be to instill teamwork from childhood in all schools at all educational levels, which would allow us to see this situation of teamwork in the most natural way possible.
But can these bases of trust override those of mistrust?
Possibly at first it is not so easy that they can overcome, apparently from the author it is very possible that in a short time if people see that there is really a change it might work.
An example that could be applied here would be, as mentioned before, the change of government from the official party to a new party. The official party created great distrust by abusing the population for more than 70 years. Every change of six-year term saw the same situation of corruption, theft, and economic crisis.
For the population it is not easy to forget this, but to see a light of hope in which to see a change that is really seen. Now that the president of the unofficial party is already in office, the people, the author thinks, have more confidence, because he highlights the values of the family, for example by giving the importance that it has in the life of any Mexican The fight against corruption is another factor that has increased confidence.
And so you could list some more factors but it should be noted that the political party that is on duty does not matter, what matters are the actions they take to increase confidence in the population. Without actions that really convince people, mistrust will continue.
Personal conclusion
Finally, as a conclusion, it is that in any private or public company you must work with ethics and values, in short, with a business philosophy. Highlighting the values that are important for the culture of Mexico, the family, the people, among others.
Likewise, handle corporate issues according to values that not only benefit the company where it works, but seek the benefit of both the company, the employees and the community around the company.
The ideal would be to achieve community capitalism, at the moment in many companies this concept is already handled in a certain way, but in others it must be managed enough to achieve it. And the actions that were proposed in some of the paragraphs that dealt with this issue, may be difficult to apply depending on the line of business in question, but it is not impossible.
And trust is achieved through concrete actions that are in accordance with the values, beliefs and culture of people, whether private or public companies, for-profit or non-profit organizations, the important thing is to be consistent with the actions carried out.
For any company, achieving the goals implies being efficient and to achieve the above, a high level of confidence must be achieved.
