Ethical Issues in Profession: With the smartphone industry, I noticed that many of the companies relied on data collection, usage, and selling to make a profit and to make their companies successful. Even in the new business model that my group made for our project, we proposed that we would rely on such means to make sure we would bolster our profits. However, with such collection and handling of data there are ethical issues that arise. For instance, a person may not know that data on them is being collected, the company may inappropriately use the data in forms of manipulation, and sell them to questionable groups in order to simply make a profit.
Educational Breadth as Professional Development: With the broad introductory business classes I took freshmen year I definitely felt prepared for the content introduced in the company visits. I even noticed that I understood some of the business lingo! Although some of the concepts were a bit too advanced (i.e., marketing tactics, supply chain functions) I managed to quickly learn about them through the speaker.
Lifelong Learning, Continuing Education as Professional Development: In a technology-based industry such as the smartphone industry, new technology and new concepts to streamline the business are introduced almost everyday. I believe that continuously staying informed and receiving education on such matters will definitely advance one’s professional development.
The Social Environment of Professional Life: Because our company site visits were brief and strictly professional, I could not fully observe the social environment of professional life in China. From the small instances I could observe, however, I noticed groups of professional men and women eating lunch together, walking together, working in team rooms harmoniously together. I also often saw groups of men and women in business casual attire walking the streets, eating dinner, hanging out… This aspect of professional life resembled ones I’ve seen back in America.
Functioning on Multi-Disciplinary Teams: Functioning on multidisciplinary teams is vital but, in my opinion, difficult. In the smartphone industry the engineering side and the business side need to work together in order for the business to be efficient. However, each side knows little about the other sides’ functions and tools. Functioning on multidisciplinary teams productively seems to take effort, time and patience.