Funny Creativity

CORPORATE CREATIVITY: THE NEW CHALLENGE.

I)              The Emerging Prevalence of Innovation and Creativity

1.     From Technology to Creativity

For many years now, people used to delegate tasks to the different technologies available to them. In other words, over the time, technology has replaced people in the achievement of routine jobs. However, thanks to the Globalization, technology tends to become more and more inexpensive and universally available; especially for developing countries like China and India. As a consequence, the developed countries’ competitive advantage, based on “exclusive access to advanced technology and well-trained workforce”, tends to disappear.

2.     Today's innovation driven-economy

From now on, Dyer, Gregersen and Christensen explain, in their article called “Why Today’s Business Leaders Must Be Innovators”, that organizations are more than ever under an intangible pressure to be market leaders, to overtake their competitors in other words. Furthermore, they explain that the companies who succeed in outperforming their competitors have only one but not least secret: they are innovative companies. According to them, “innovation has become integral to company’s success” and they strongly advocate that organizations must unleash the creative gene to be successful.

In his book, A Whole New Mind (2005), David Pink rationalizes this newly prevalence of innovation by demonstrating that a shift has occurred, and that global businesses are now evolving in the age of creativity. Indeed, “[left-brain linear analytical thinking are being replaced by right-brain empathy inventiveness] as skills most needed by businesses nowadays”, says Pink. “Asia, automation and abundance” are the reasons behind the shift.

3.     The importance of innovation

But how can we differentiate innovation and creativity?

The National Innovation Initiative (NII) defines ‘innovation’ as “the intersection of invention and insight leading to the creation of social and economic value”.

Linda Naiman clarifies that “creativity is the act of turning new and imaginative ideas into reality. Creativity involves two processes: thinking, and then producing. Innovation is the production or implementation of an idea. If you have ideas, but don’t act on them, you are imaginative but not creative.” As a fact, creativity appears to be an essential factor in the innovation equation. And for innovation to flourish, organizations must create an environment that fosters creativity.

Now that we are aware of the importance of capital creativity for firms, let’s analyze concretely what this revolutionary shift means in terms of business practices. Actually, the common trend is to turn the workplace into a playground: resulting not only in material offices but also through intangible environments. Mainly based on the idea that creativity and innovation can be stimulated by opening the minds to other perspectives and by feeling at ease while sharing its thinking, lots of companies have came up with revolutionary facilities and services in the office.

II)            Concrete Illustrations of the Revolutionary Shift

1.     Google

Undoubtedly, the trendsetter of these practices is Google with its “Googleplex”. Wishing to keep the atmosphere as a “small” company, Google intends to achieve its business goals, while having fun doing it. All of its offices in the world do not have the same facilities at their disposal but do have some common particularities like for example:

-       Offices are differently decorated according to the country they are located in

-       “Googlers” share open spaces, diverse workspaces and meeting rooms

-       Laptops are available everywhere so that the employee can send emails, take notes, etc wherever he wants it to

-       Various facilities such as table football, table tennis or billiard tables, a volleyball field, video games, or even gyms and dance studios

-       Various and numerous non-profit organizations are created by employees (like meditation courses, film clubs or salsa courses)

The “Googleplex”, the international headquarter of Google, located in Mountain View, California.

2.     Pixar

Pixar, the filmmaker company, is also considered as one of the most innovative companies as far as creative ways of organizing the office is concerned. Its philosophy is clear: “You get great creative people, you bet big on them, you give them enormous leeway and support and you provide them with an environment in which they can get honest feedback from everyone”. This is how we understand what really matters for Pixar and what effort the company does to achieve it. The first idea is the focus on the recruitment process: what matters is the competence of the employee, not its experience. Second, all occasions for teams to meet and share with each other, without barriers of discipline or of hierarchy, in an environment of trust, are given countenance. Finally, they intend to “create a culture of fun in the workplace [so as to] help to unleash the creative potential of employees”. Thus, one of the keys is to offer employees more than 100 training classes (sculpting, Pilates, etc.) but also “unusually” and funny designed offices.

Some personal “offices” of Pixar’s employees

3.     SAS Institute

Last but not least, the example of SAS Institute is the perfect illustration to understand that this revolutionary shift is not only the turn of offices into physical playgrounds but also a huge change in relationships between employees and managers. SAS Institute Inc. is a major producer of software and is located in Cary, North Carolina. We can find a lot of accommodations for the employees on campus: medical facilities, a day care center for children, basketball courts, a pool, an exercise room but also massages, dry cleaner service or haircuts at reduced prices. Moreover, it is very important for SAS that the employees feel that they are part a community: they can all take advantage of these benefits, whether they are chiefs or “simple” worker. Finally, we have to highlight one of the main principles at SAS: the egalitarianism. They assume that the cooperation and the communication between managers and employees can only be better when the employees feel they are trusted and respected by their hierarchy, when the managers have also earned the respect from their employees and when they feel free to share with each other, no matter the level in the hierarchy. To achieve this goal, managers at SAS ask a lot of questions, gather frequently employees into groups “to facilitate the exchange of ideas and spur innovation”, and support them by systematically providing them with every materials they could ever need.

SAS Institute – Mumbai (India)

 Outside SAS Institute in Toronto

III.           The benefits of this revolutionary shift in Global Business Practices

1.     Creativity and Innovation

Undoubtedly all these changes in the workplace do have a cost for companies. Nonetheless, the benefits brought are much more important and are numerous. The first one is of course the development of innovation and creativity for employees. Many examples show us that employees are more apt to develop innovative and creative thoughts when they are “in a relaxed state and a good mood”. Let’s mention the Google’s 20 percent time. It is a measure that Google has implemented and that allows engineers to take 20 percent of their work time to work on whatever project of their will, to develop every ideas they could have, in a very free way. Thus, Google could have come up with a lot of innovations, including Gmail or Google News. Besides, we have seen that companies tend to foster brainstorming, the share of ideas in a respectful and trustful way: “people learn from and inspire each other”, which is undeniably a source of creativity.

Google Zurich – “From these pictures it is obvious that working in the Google is a real fun, employees must be very happy”.

2.     Motivation and Commitment

Second, this revolutionary shift is source of motivation, a greater commitment to the company, and then a superior performance.  Indeed, by being that much stimulated, workers have the feeling that they have a challenge to accomplish; hence they are much more motivated to do a good work. Moreover, the commitment of employees in such firms is higher than in other “classical” firms. Thanks to all measures that bring people together, that encourage them to share, but also that make their life easier (services, on-site leisure activities …), they eventually feel that they are part of a community, where their thinking is taken into account and respected. Thus they are much more committed to the company. As a clue for this idea, we could mention the employee turnover rate of SAS. As it were, the latter fluctuates between 3 % and 5 % while the industry average rate is about 20 %.

Selgas Cano Architecture: “SCA office is very beautiful having large windows office is below the ground level. Everywhere you can see plants and trees. Employees must be feeling like working in a jungle”.

3.     Save of Money

Then, we can also mention more “down-to-earth” benefits for the company. As we have seen, the turnover rate in such companies is lower than in others. Thus, the company can save a lot of money in some fundamental human resources functions. Not only is the recruiting process less expensive, but also the formation costs are reduced: by keeping their employees longer, they do not need to spend that much on the formation of new workers and then focus on building a trust relationship among the employees. Furthermore, by providing employees with services such as on-site leisure activities or medical services, the company can save time, so money. Indeed, they can minimize the time when employees are away from the work and then improve the productivity.

Nike - "It’s modern in parts but futuristic beyond belief in others. The Nike Office in London is one seriously cool place to work. TV’s everywhere, branded sports equipment neatly housed on shelves on every wall".

4.     Customer’s Satisfaction

Finally, as far as SAS is concerned, the main goal of its implementations is “to harness the creative energies of all its stakeholders, including its customers, software developers, managers and support staff”. Thanks to this revolutionary shift, we can realize that all the people and organizations involved or concerned by the company can find benefits. We already mentioned those from people who are in the company (employees and managers) but what about the customers? They have an important place in the company’s way of thinking as interactions between customers and employees, feedbacks or conferences to understand and anticipate what they need are more than encouraged. Moreover, we have seen that the workplace environment provided by the company is a source of a superior performance for the employees. All in all, this provides ultimately better products for the customers, which is actually one of the major goals of every company.

So far, the most known examples of creative space and workplaces transformed in playgrounds are: Google, 3M, Lego, Pixar, Aol (Patch's venture), Red Bull (London), Skype (in Palto Alto), Hyves.net, Selgas Cano Architecture, Nike (London).

References:

Managing for Creativity, by Richard Florida and Jim Goodnight, Harvard Business Review, July-August 2005.

How Pixar fosters collective creativity, by Ed Catmull, Harvard Business Review, September 2008.

The Bias Against Creativity: Why People Desire But Reject Creative Ideas by Jennifer S. Mueller, Shimul Melwani and Jack A. Goncalo, 2011.

Why Today's Business Leaders Must Be Innovators: The Importance of Creativity and Innovation in Maintaining Your Company's Competitive Edge, by Jeffrey H. Dyer, Hal B. Gregersen, Clayton M. Christensen, Harvard Business Press Chapters, 2011.

A Whole New Mind, by David Pink, 2005.

http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_m3495/is_5_52/ai_n19170717/

Creativity and innovation: key drivers for success, by Susan Meisinger

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/10/21/jobs/21pre.html

The Google Way: Give Engineers Room, by Bharat Mediratta; as told to Julie Bick.

http://blog.neosusa.com/2010/11/office-or-playground/

Office or Playground?? , by ‘Staci’.

http://www.creativityatwork.com/what-is-creativity/

What is creativity? , by Linda Naiman.

http://www.spaziale.org/?cat=8&paged=4&lang=en

            How many post-its can we handle?, by Naomi den Besten, 2011.

            Room to explore, by Naomi den Besten, 2011.

http://www.hcamag.com/resources/hr-strategy/magic-in-the-workplace-8211-how-pixar-and-disney-unleash-the-creative-talent-of-their-workforce/115686/

Magic in the workplace – how Pixar and Disney unleash the creative talent of their workforce

Weekly Topic 2 : Global Story

Global Story in International Management Contexts

Tricky Tourism

For the second blog assignment, tRIple A chose to tell a global story that concerns tourism globalization and its impact in International Management contexts. 


First of all, a description of our global indicator (GI) will be done, then this GI will be linked to the globalization process in general. Finally, we will uncover some tricky truths about tourism by explaining how the global indicator informs international management in the global context. 

Definition of Tourism

To begin with, we should first define what tourism is. You certainly think that the tourism is simply the fact to travel. But the definition is much more complex. There are moreover many definitions. The one that we are going to retain is one issued by The World Tourism Organization: Tourism is defined as “the activities of persons traveling to and staying in places outside their usual environment for no more than one consecutive year for leisure, business and other purposes.”

Therefore, it is clear than tourism has a direct impact on the national revenue for all of the "touristic" countries. At the first glimpse, we may say that tourism globalization creates work opportunities, new industries, and several investments to serve and raise nations performance and cultures, also distributes their history, civilization, and traditions.

The Global Indicator

After some researches, we all agreed that the pertinent global indicator that we are going to use would the number of inbound tourist arrivals per year and per city.

Basically it is possible to define our global indicator as “the number of individuals who travel to a country other than the one in which they have their usual residence, but outside their usual environment, for a period not exceeding 12 months and whose main purpose in visiting is other than an activity remunerated from within the country visited”.

Method of calculation

The number of inbound tourist per year and per city is known thanks to border statistics like the police, immigration, and supplemented by border surveys. But the calculation method can differ across countries. Then, for some countries, number of arrivals is limited to arrivals by air while for others, to arrivals stating in hotels.

Difficulties and Biases

It appears though that it is difficult to compute this global indicator and to have a real estimation since the calculation method differs upon the country. It would be very difficult and restrictive to impose only one calculation method for all the country around the world!

We have to figure that the data on international tourists is the number of arrivals, not the number of people traveling. One person visiting the same country several times during the year is counted each time as a new arrival. Then, the same person visiting several countries during the same trip is counted each time as a new arrival.

Moreover, not all of the data are completed and many countries fail to submit their statistics on time. 
For example, Barcelona and Rome just give statistics on arrivals stating in hostel. New York and Antalya do not precise if their calculations include visitors who are staying less than 24 hours…

The 10 most visited cities in the World

To gain on clarity in our story, we decided to restrain our subject and limit our linkage between our global indicator and the top 10 most visited cities in the World. 

Indeed, we wondered what is magnetic with those cities? What is done (and by whom) for those cities that create a unique worldwide "identity" and thus make them so attractive around the world? In other words, what is really influencing the tourism rate (our global indicator) in the top 10 most visited cities in the World? 

We found many different rankings due to the various collection methods that depend on the countries. However, even if all the rankings were different, the same 10 cities were always quoted.

Based on a 2010 ranking released by The WTO, the current top 10 most visited cities are:

How the globalization process allowed to our global indicator to increase over time.

The link between the globalization and the number of inbound tourist arrivals per year and per city.

The characteristics of globalization help improve tourism in many different aspects. Economically speaking, tourism would help push the economy to improve as a whole. For example, with tourism becoming increasingly popular, foreign investment in hotels and tourist attractions to attract more visitors would help the economy group in a couple of ways, such as job employment for the construction of hotels, etc. Not only would foreign investment increase, global players and strategic alliances would help the economy rise as well.The demand for services such as air companies, hotels and tour operators would attract many businesses in the market, yet again increasing the productivity of the economy. These are very specific improvements in the economy, broadly speaking, the increase in the market of tourism would increase global competition of holiday resorts overall, companies competing would also help boost the economy. 

Other than economic benefits, globalization help in technological terms as well for tourism. Companies competing in this competitive arena would boost their services such as allowing services like global booking systems online, and standardized technologies in transport systems. Globalization's linkage to tourism also help in political terms, the rise in demand for tourism services increase importance of international tourism organizations. The increased amount of inbound tourists would also create the necessity for global coordination and regulation of passenger circulation, all these terms help the government to revise their political policies. Many of the forces and consequences of globalization will benefit tourism and the service sector. Overall, technology, information and the reduction of boundaries have created new forms of service companies, not only large trans-national corporations, but small companies can also take advantage of the benefits such as international communications, and marketing positions.

How the global indicator informs international management in the global context

How terrorism, diplomatic, economic (...) relations between countries affect the number of inbound tourists per year and per city

«Tourism […] is often described as a «fragile» industry in that demand for travel is highly susceptible to numerous shocks such as wars, outbreaks of deadly contagious diseases, incidents of terrorism, economic fluctuations, currency instability, energy crises and so on. »[1]

Thus, from one year to another, the number of inbound tourist arrivals per year and per city can vary a lot. For instance, the September 11 attacks in United States, more especially in New York City and Washington DC, made the tourism in New York City plummeted. Few days after the catastrophe, the hotel occupancy fell below 40% [2].  In addition of the economic effects, the financial markets suffered from the attacks. Gold prices went up from 215.50$ to 287$, the currency trading of the United States dollar fell sharply against the other currency.  

These lead to a «crisis in consumer/investor confidence»[3].  The government had to take actions to reassure the financial system. For instance, « the Federal Reserve entered into or expanded existing agreements with the European Central Bank, the Bank of Canada, and the Bank of

England to swap dollars for foreign currency in order to support foreign financial

institutions operating in the United States»[4].  In addition, many resources were used to reinforce the country’s security procedures. For instance, the visa application procedures for higher risk travelers (Muslims) became more complicated[5]. The number of visas delivered to Iran and Iraq dropped by 39% and 40% respectively[6]. This highly contributed to the decrease in the number of inbound tourist arrivals.

How International Organizations affect the number of inbound tourists per city and per region

«A tourist destination is a complex of attractions, equipment, infrastructure, facilities, businesses, resources, and local communities, which combine to offer tourists products and experiences they seek». [7] NGOs  and International Organizations can influence the number of inbound tourists visiting our 10 cities by promoting certain aspects. Indeed, in Thailand, the Tour Operators’ Initiative for Sustainable Tourism Development or TOI  (an international alliance of tour operators engaged in advancing the UN goal of sustainable development) and the World Wide Fund for Nature or WWF ( support biodiversity conservation in areas of high-volume tourism) «are focusing on improving waste water treatment, training hotel and resort staff, and ensuring that fragile areas and endangered species (like turtles) are protected [8]». Another example is the list of the UNESCO World Heritage Sites contributing a lot in attracting tourist in certain areas, such as The Palace and Park of Versailles, a suburb of Paris[9].

How strategic partnerships influence the number of inbound tourists per city and per region. What are the impacts of this influence?

What also explain the magnetism of our ten cities are undoubtedly the creation of strategic partnerships that greatly influence the development and attractiveness of some destinations. A strategic alliance, which may take on various forms (franchising, management contracts, joint ventures and acquisition[10]), is defined as “an agreement between two or more individuals or entities stating that the involved parties will act in a certain way in order to achieve a common goal.”[11] The strength of strategic partnerships lies in the fact that they can rapidly take advantage of the brand recognition of several multinational firms.  

Concretely, largest hotel companies, tour operators and the air travel industry collaborate to offer a touristic “product” that is aimed to be the most complete and consistent possible in order to satisfy tourists. For those companies, the possibility of profits and gains is huge: for instance, in most all-inclusive package tours, about 80% of travellers' expenditures go to the airlines, hotels and other international companies.

No lone participant can pretend to take the entire charge of looking after visitors and organizing the touristic development of a destination in an integrated way. Moreover, all big lead firms, whether they are hotels, tour operators or air companies, have a very important coverage in our top ten destinations. Thus, we assume that this pooling of actions proves to be essential, in a context of globalization, for destinations to be boosted.

For hotels alliances, Knowles (2001) mentions Four Seasons Hotels, which used the strategic partnerships with Regent International Hotels Ltd. (the group of most important luxury hotels in Asia) to take over the management of hotels in Bangkok, Hong Kong, Kuala Lumpur, Melbourne and Sydney. In this way they obtained the results, which would have taken them far more time without the partners.

How the private sector is involved? What is hidden in the involving of the governments and the relationships they have with the lead corporations?

Tourism is a big business for the private sector and for governments alike. Given the fact that “any country with still-pristine areas of forests, beaches, mountains, and parklands or with ethnic tribes and other unique rural cultures” has something to market in the global economy, it becomes clear that even the public sector of a country can influence on the number of inbound tourists per year per city.

The first case scenario is when governments decide by themselves to create “lax trade environments” in order to attract the tourism industry, lifting restrictions that are applied to other industries and offering many incentives.

As Alexander Goldsmith explains that “Free Trade Zones (FTZs) are regions that have been fiscally or juridically redefined by their ‘host country’ to give them a comparative advantage over neighboring regions and countries in luring transnational corporate activity. Indeed, most of the FTZs share the following characteristics: lax social, environmental, and employment regulations; a ready source of cheap labour; fiscal and financial incentives that can take a huge variety of forms, although they generally consist of the lifting of customs duties, the removal of foreign exchange controls, tax holidays, and free land or reduced rents.]”

So far, the travel industry benefits greatly from these FTZs. The concerned cities have seen their tourist flow increase consequently. For instance, among our top 10 most visited cities, some of them belong to a FTZ.

For instance, Jebel Ali Free Zone in Dubai, a free economic zone located in the Jebel Ali area at the far western end of Dubai, United Arab Emirates, near Abu Dhabi. Another good example of that is the entire city-state of Singapore, which is located on the heavily trafficked Straits of Malacca, and essentially made its entire territory into a free trade zone early on in its independence. 

The tricky part appears when it becomes clear that wealthier organizations in the tourism network often have political influence. This is the second case scenario possible.
In fact, when a well-established foreign firm chooses a site or area to develop business activities, it may influence not only the operations of local firms but also the local or regional authorities in different ways. For example, a large investor may oblige the authorities in a potential area of the investment to comply with certain conditions or even change local law before going ahead with the development. Or else, developers may want the government to improve the airport, roads and other infrastructure, and possibly to provide tax breaks and other financial advantages, which are costly activities for the government.

As a consequence, “corporations might have become dominant governing institutions, often exceeding governments in size and power”.

Concrete examples for our top 10 cities are challenging to find, but most of our findings revealed that this situation of corporations overstepping governments mostly occurs in countries that depend the most of the tourism; in Asia for instance.

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[1] http://scholarspace.manoa.hawaii.edu/bitstream/handle/10125/3683/ECONwp087.pdf?sequence=1

[2] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Economic_effects_arising_from_the_September_11_attacks

[3] http://www.fas.org/irp/crs/RL31617.pdf  p 13

[4] http://www.fas.org/irp/crs/RL31617.pdf   p 15

[5] http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052970204616504577171213380461968.html

[6]http://marquette.academia.edu/LouiseCainkar/Papers/555496/Post_9_11_domestic_policies_affecting_US_Arabs_and_Muslims_A_brief_review

[7] http://www.cbd.int/development/doc/cbd-good-practice-guide-tourism-booklet-web-en.pdf

[8] http://www.cbd.int/development/doc/cbd-good-practice-guide-tourism-booklet-web-en.pdf p 43

[9] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_World_Heritage_Sites_in_Europe

[10] (Teare, Boer 1993, 221).

[11] http://www.investorwords.com/4772/strategic_alliance.html
Knowles, T., Diamantis, D., El-Mourhabi, J. B. 2001, «The Globalization of Tourism and Hospitality: A Strategic Perspective. London: Continuum»
Evans, N. 2001. «Alliances in the International Travel Industry: Sustainable Strategic Options? International Journal of Hospitality & Tourism Administration 2 ».
McLaren D., June 2003, « Rethinking Tourism and Ecotravel », Second Edition, Kumarian Press, Inc., Bloomfield.

Weekly Topic 1 : A myth about Globalization

Twenty years after the beginning of our modern Globalization, we are able to measure its outcomes. Indeed, the integration of economics and societies all over the world, involving technological, economic, political, and cultural exchanges, has had innumerable consequences on our world[1]. Among these consequences, we can hear lots of “stories” that are not necessarily rational or proved: they are called myths. One of them is that Globalization has led to the increase of the wage gap on a world scale and the arrival of low-wages countries is mainly responsible for the spread of this belief. Thus, our purpose is to discover whether this myth is founded or can be invalidated.

            The wage gap is defined as “the difference in rates of pay between two different groups of people”[2] and it does not include gains from financial assets, which is known as the income gap. Thus, whether we can acknowledge that Globalization has lead to a wider inequality in terms of income, things are different for wages. Due to the increasing demand for top corporate managers, companies are becoming more valuable, which has boosted executives’ income from salaries, stock options and capital gains. But, as far as wages are concerned, the evolution has not been that fast and that extraordinary, since only the real economy (that pays wages) is called into play[3].

            On the one hand, in developed countries, while the wages of less-qualified workers are overstrained by low-wages countries, the wages of qualified workers increase. For instance, according to Swagel and Slaughter, “the United States wages of less-skilled workers have fallen steeply since the late 1970s relative to those of the more skilled”[4]. The national wages distribution is more and more unequal and leads to a feeling of injustice. On the other hand, the average wage increases as well in developing countries thanks to Globalization. This way, the gap between developed countries and developing countries is slowing to a trickle. Thus, the wage repartition is becoming “fairer” at an international level, while it is more unequal at a national scale[5].

                In a nutshell, this myth has to be invalidated. Then, we can easily understand the reason, this myth is still believed. It is a common mistake to confuse the notion of wage gap and income gap. Moreover, the feeling of injustice growing in developed countries appears to be founded and has overtaken the vision on a world scale, which is still way more relevant in our globalized world.

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[1] http://hotbabefatchicks.hubpages.com/hub/Definition-of-Globalization

[2] http://lexicon.ft.com/Term?term=wage-gap

[3] “The Income Gap : Is globalization to blame? Only in part”, By James Pethokoukis, Posted 1/14/07, US News

[4] « Does Globalization Lower Wages and Export Jobs?”, Matthew J. Slaughter and Phillip Swagel, E C O N O M I C I S S U E S, ©1997 International Monetary Fund

[5] Les effets de la mondialisation sur les salaires et l’emploi : le salaire minimum constitue-t-il une protection ? Intervention prononcée par Tobias Seidel, Chercheur à l'Institute for Economic Research de Münich, au colloque du 17 mars 2008

Welcome to our blog !

Welcome to our blog !

Anissa, Inès, Alina, Assamah

Our team :

• Anissa Belhaq

Nationality : French, Toulouse

Studies : HEC Montréal, Canada

Hobbies : Music, Traveling 

• Inès Djafour

Nationality: French, Strasbourg

Studies: Audencia Nantes, France

Hobbies : Gymnastics, Music

• Alina Tchjan

Nationality: French, Paris

Studies: HEC Montréal, Canada

Hobbies : Ice Skating, Cinema

• Assamah Guenneguez

Nationality: French, Ivorian

Studies: HEC Montréal, Canada

Hobbies : Dance

Our group name and logo :

Our group name is trIple A. In our own way, we are all related to the same country, France. 
Thus, we wanted to find a name that would be an allusion to our country, while being related to International Management. One of the most recent international economic news about France during the last months was the triple A that the credit rating agencies were about to downgrade. Meanwhile, France lost its triple A! But this name is even more relevant to our group as it describes us well. Indeed, three of our surnames begin with A and the last surname that begins with I is contained in trIple!


This is the reason why our logo represents three A's, with one of them completely 'broken'. Besides, the letters are placed in front of the Earth, representing the domination of the cotation agencies and their "Triple A" weapon. 

Our group goals :

We are living in a world where everything is interconected. Thus we definitely cannot intend to be a part of this world without having a strong knowledge of the current crucial crisis and burning issues, goals, and problems of international organizations in terms of economics, culture, environment, politics or even society. Hence we aim at increasing our knowledge and our consciousness in this field, in order to be able to tackle the issues that we will undoubtedly have to face in our future careers.

What excites us about the weekly topics and our additional expectations :

Online blogging is a completely new method to realize our assignments that we find very interesting in many ways. Indeed, working on a weekly topic will enable us to approach a subject in depth thanks to the use of different medias like videos, photos, etc.  The other benefit of doing the assignment through a blog page is to connect with others bloggers (and others students) by creating an interaction, through the comments for example. 

The additional expectations we hope to fulfill concern the knowledge of the crisis management and the ethics among worldwide organizations. 

Our myth :

The myth about globalization we wanted to talk about is : the wage gap tends to increase because of Globalization.