Human capital and globalization

I joined a research forum this afternoon on human capital issues in relation to globalization. It was a very informative exchange of views on how Philippine businesses, most of them family-based, are approaching people development to remain competitive.

As it turns out, investments in people development remains very low in our country. Which is a shame since we are blessed with so much human resource and it's only logical that they be developed for us to be competitive.

What we are seeing is the opposite -- more violations of the minimum wage laws, more contractualization and more use of women who tend to be more accepting of unfair labor arrangements (as hypothesized by one of the researchers).

I certainly hope that more business financiers and managers can adopt more people partnership approaches in their enterprises so that they can unleash the creativity and commitment so essential today for competitiveness.

Starting up

I've decided to start blogging to share my thinking on how management can be a force for the common good. It's also a way to explore this blogging phenomenon which many are saying is an information revolution of sorts. Only time will tell.

As to managing for the common good, management schools mainly focus on achieving private good. As a management educator, I've always been worried about this.

This is nothing new, of course. Management writers from Russell Ackoff to Henry Mintzberg have complained about the lack of social concern reflected in much of management education. More recently, David Korten and Joel Bakan have made more pointed comments about the damaging nature of business corporations. Although radical, their message needs to be studied carefully, if only to find antidotes to some of the valid problems they point to -- such as the tendency for many corporations to abuse the environment and to ignore workers' rights.

I've shared some of my thinking on managing for society in a Manila Times column of the same title which comes out every Tuesday. See for example:

What is business for?
Number games
Stocks and shareholder voice
Pope John Paul II: A great management thinker
Pope John Paul II: A great management thinker–Part II

Nowadays, I'm developing a course on Catholic Social Teaching and Management which I may be able to run in September. I'm developing the course in memory of Pope John Paul II whose writings, especially Centesimus Annus, have had a great deal of influence on my thinking about the role of business and the manager in society. I hope to write here about my experience in developing and running this course.

I'd like to get comments from people who are also thinking about the positive role that management can play in society.