Essay on How Technological Change and Falling Barriers to Trade Affect Uber's Success

Uber is a postmodern taxi service deliverer which uses the most current technology to satisfy his customers. Uber is outperforming other taxi companies due to their advanced use of GPS to trace customer locations, the use of self-driving cars to minimize the cost of operations, and the use of mobile applications to ease their operations. In Uber, this is known as technology stack. The technology stack entails gathering sufficient data about the market and bundling it up to allow for smoother movements of both the customers and the drivers.

The falling barriers to trade allowed Uber to spread in at least 633 cities worldwide within a period of six years since its inception. As such, Uber is one of the companies which is increasingly embracing globalization as the best strategy. However, it is facing a number of legal suits regarding the legitimacy of its business in some countries.

Corporate social responsibilities in Uber.

Uber has been a subject of a critic as far as their role in corporate social responsibility is concerned. This follows their action during the taxi boycott of services at JFK airport to protest against the detention of some travelers. However, in the recent year, Uber began to implement the LadyTech, a program which serves as an affirmative action to promote women in technology. However, the labor conditions in uber are more deplorable than in the competing firms. According to Boland (2017), Uber is under scrutiny to determine its alleged poor working relationships, especially with the drivers. There are accusations that Uber pays its workers lower than the minimum wage due to unclear policies of wages in many countries. In a report entitled, Sweated Labour: Uber and the Gig Economy, Uber appear to pay the workers wages that are up to a third the national minimum wage (Andrew, 2016). This happens even if the labor is harder and the working hours longer. Among the issues detailed in this report are lower take-home pay per fee, a hike in the number of drivers interfering with fares and general negligence from the Uber administration.

In terms of the environment, however, Uber implemented UberGREEN with the main objective to conserve the ecosystem. In this project, Uber increasingly encourages the use of electric cars to replace the polluting gasoline cars. For example, the use of BMW i13.

Recommendations for successful globalization.

Uber is already established in terms of technological advancement and control of market segments. The only area of concern is the labor practices. Hence, it should review its policies of labor to suit the international labor organization standards as well as the local policies in the countries within which they operate. Other multinational corporations can enhance positive development in the global economy by empowering the local Small and Medium Enterprises (SMEs) because these are the powerhouses of economic developments. In developing countries, there is an increasing number of middle-income earners. Globalization among the multinational corporations should take advantage of this to work in close association with local SMEs.

Moreover, the multinational corporations should implement proper wage policies that other local companies can emulate. Sustainable wage policy is one of the recommendations suggested by the World Bank in the 2015 report. Good pay helps alleviate poverty and promote social development through education.

References

Beata Javorcik (2015). Multinationals indeed bring good jobs to host countries heres why.. Let's Talk Development. Retrieved 10 January 2018, from http://blogs.worldbank.org/developmenttalk/multinationals-indeed-bring-good-jobs-host-countries-here-s-why

Boland, H. (2017). Uber faces more scrutiny over pay and working conditions. The Telegraph. Retrieved 10 January 2018, from http://www.telegraph.co.uk/technology/2017/07/05/uber-wages-centre-department-transport-probe/Frank Field and Andrew Forsey (2016). Sweated Labour: Uber and the Gig Economy.