Crivikeze

A crivikeze is a Rezese business system or economic union which is owned and operated by a Rezese house. They are broad, vertically-integrated conglomerates of companies in every industry and sector in which the crivikeze can support being. Typically, the companies which are part of a crivikeze are built around a central corporation, originally and often a financial or trade-based company, and own shares of each other to insulate them from exterior interference and economic downturns in any given industry. Due to this, a crivikeze is expected to be more capable of long-term projects as market conditions globally can be more easily offset. In the generic and original use of the term, a crivikeze could be any such conglomerate regardless of size, however most usage refers specifically to those which are otherwise known as the megacorporations of the paramount houses; as such, the term colloquially means "megacorporation" and references the seven Rezese megacorporations, of which only two actually fit into the original model of being centered on a financial institution: Azende Generale Vir and Inizatun k'Rossi. The other five of the big seven maintain various companies that deal in finance, but these are often either smaller business segments of the central megacorporation, or spun entirely off as subsidiaries.

History

Origin

The crivikeze began as the household trade companies of the Rezese who founded the Scipian trade ports now known as the Nine Cousins, and who returned to Oxidentale at first to build further fortune on both continents, and soon after to unite the various Oxidentale kingdoms together. As such, crivikeze are distinctly seen as belonging to the nobility, regardless of whether or not a similar system is built outside of the Rezese nobility. The later trade guilds of the late Kingdom of Sante Reze and which dominated the Ecclesiastical Republic had an outward appearance of a similar structure, but had a stricter hierarchy and were built with the intent of enriching those in executive positions, lacking any effective official mechanism for lower ranked workers and guild members to make or alter policy.

By the time of the dominance of trade guilds over Rezese society, the crivikeze operated largely as banks with controlling interests over land, operating essentially as landlords for majority of the country. This bestowed a great measure of wealth on the crivikeze, though much of this was lost during the Ecclesiastical Republic as the banks were seized and coastal lands were taken over first by the churches as property of the Ecclesiastical state and later by the guilds as private property. While the paramount houses had significant treasuries to build their own semi-autonomous domains in the interior of the current borders of Sante Reze, over the course of two hundred years most of this was drained between preparing to overthrow the Ecclesiastical Republic and being taxed heavily by the guilds to conduct any trade overseas. The Scipian crivikeze had by end of the Ecclesiastical Republic mostly collapsed, though they attempted to stave off their own destruction by working to federate the Nine Cousins into a cohesive economic power within the country; this did allow some of the Scipian houses to survive until the overthrow of the guild regime.

Big seven

The crivikeze of the seven paramount houses are by far the largest in existence, their central companies having business segments which are as large or larger than many of their dozens to hundreds of direct subsidaries, depending on how they govern their various child entities, much less the subordinate companies of those subsidiaries. These conglomerates are those which survived the aristocracy's exile to the Oxidentale interior, which had at that time numbered approximately twenty-three, though exact records are inconsistent and many have been lost. The houses behind these crivikeze are the ones which built the Noble Republic, and have absorbed many failing houses and smaller crivikeze in their lifetimes.

Each of these have approximately 3 million members, and several million more workers under their umbrellas, though exact figures are not considered public record. The central companies themselves, however, each directly employ somewhere between 300,000 and 600,000.

Organization

Crivikeze are formed around a central company, usually one of the original businesses started by the founding house. In some cases, this business has itself pivoted multiple times over its lifetime, especially those crivikeze which date back to the origins of the term. Most crivikeze got their start as trading firms and banks, and only two of the big seven continue to be structured around their financial services.

Culture

Ownership and management

A crivikeze is jointly owned and operated by two groups of people: its members (that is, those who are part of the owning house), and its workers. The status of these are separate, such that in any given internal election, a current worker will have one vote and a member will have one vote; those who are both members and workers have a vote from their status in each of the groups, resulting in two. Elections can happen for multiple reasons at potentially any time. The most common and high profile election is for the executive board of megacorporation, and likewise for most of its subsidiaries. The executive board, comprised of a standard C-suite amongst other positions, is elected to their positions where they will then go on to build their organizational hierarchy as necessary upon taking their seat. Electoral recalls of high level managers and executives may also occur.

Remuneration is typically in the form of a quarterly salary for workers, while members receive an accruing amount of credit which allows them to build debts that the house will pay off with its backing funds. The credit received by members is variable based on the individual member's position in the house, their own personal finances, and the overall health of the conglomerate. In both cases, "bonuses" are frequently provided for exceptional contribution to either the employing company, the crivikeze as a whole, or directly to the owning house. While at any given time there may be deviation from the norm, the standard crivikeze is set up such that roughly one quarter of its revenue goes into salaries and worker benefits, one quarter goes into backing membership credit, and half goes back into the business as either reinvestment or to pay off its own or the owning house's debts.

Monthly salaries may differ significantly between any two individuals, but the ratio between the lowest paid and highest paid workers is often between 5:1 and 3:1. This is complicated, however, by the nature of executives receiving low stipends if they are given a salary at all. Their own compensation comes from their higher levels of membership credit and in many cases their own personal investments in other companies, especially those headquartered outside of Sante Reze.

Workplace culture

Due to the familial nature of crivikeze membership, the entire system has a familial bent to how employees interact with one another. This includes a common maxim in the Rezese business world: "Act as though they [will complain] to your ancestors"; while at its core this refers to invoking the spirits of deceased elders, in practice it can be taken quite literally to mean that anyone in the family may ask living elders to intervene and shame those who are either mistreating others or shirking necessary responsibilities.

Most crivikeze members are also directly employed by one or more of the companies within the ownership structure, so this is seen as a natural extension of the family. Workers who lack membership in the crivikeze are generally not open about their lack of membership, and while each crivikeze can manage this as they wish, most do not share information regarding membership status. Unofficially, however, this is often difficult to hide especially of the worker in question is a member of another crivikeze.

Many companies within a crivikeze will strictly enforce either a 6-hour work day or a 30-hour work week, barring workers from exceeding their allowed number of hours to prevent wasted productivity, burn-out, and potentially generating a culture of expectation for longer work periods which may in turn reduce the salary-to-hour ratio to below-optimal levels. The prevailing concern with this possibility is that the reduction in ratio would demand either higher pay to cover what are near-guaranteed to be unproductive hours, which is seen as an unacceptable cost to bear; or else it would risk workers leaving the company or even the conglomerate entirely, an issue as it is seen as wasting time onboarding (a destruction of productive hours) and potentially in losing trade secrets entirely to another conglomerate. Similarly, keeping pay high enough to avoid employees taking second jobs is often deemed a necessity due to the decrease in productive hours and a drop in quality of production as a typical result of a person moonlighting rather than resting off-hours.

A common trait of crivikeze is that when constituent companies are facing a downturn, they are generally supported by the conglomerate to avoid any loss of productive hours. In the cases where support from the rest of the business family is insufficient and costs must be lowered, it is common for pay cuts to be taken prior to downsizing. The loss of entire positions and experienced staff is seen as the worse of the two options, especially if long-term projects and basic maintenance functions are threatened by the loss.

List of crivikeze

Name	Owning House	Headquarters	Primary Industries
Azende Generale Vir	House Giarelle	Eporte Vir, Oxidentale	Aerospace, chemicals, computers, financial services, pharmaceuticals, semiconductors, shipping and logistics
Dinamikun Ayeya	House Kondozi	Pazovane, Oxidentale	Automation, chemicals, computers, defense, electricity, finance services, internet services, shipping and logistics
Enestri Uaju	House Palazin	Korrezolle, Oxidentale	Aerospace, construction, defense, mining, oil and gas, pharmaceuticals, shipbuilding, telecommunications
Entratenimezun Cazini	House Cazini	Donzelle, Oxidentale	Advertising, cloud computing, film and television production, media publication, telecommunications
Idokow Zakanahiya	House Venzurin	Ca' Venzurin, Oxidentale	Architecture, chemicals, computers, construction, engineering, shipping and logistics, mining
Inizatun k'Rossi	House k’Rossi	Rossi, Oxidentale	Agriculture, automobiles, aquaculture, defense, internet services, shipbuilding, shipping and logistics
Soluzini Hade	House Cardiki	Zardoyare, Oxidentale	Aerospace, agriculture, automobiles, defense, electricity, engineering, financial services, semiconductors
_TBD_	House _TBD_	Eporte Kiriz, Scipia	Aquaculture, financial services, engineering
_TBD_	House _TBD_	Eporte Kiriz, Scipia	Aquaculture, chemicals, pharmaceuticals
_TBD_	House _TBD_	Ypau Qipie, Scipia	Aquaculture, financial services, electricity, internet services
_TBD_	House _TBD_	Eporte Kayal, Scipia	Computers, financial services, shipping and logistics
_TBD_	House _TBD_	Eporte Gizal, Scipia	Advertising, media publication
_TBD_	House _TBD_	Tuv Qwahi, Scipia	Film and television production, oil and gas
_TBD_	House _TBD_	Tuvtsarki Morotutse, Scipia	Cloud computing, defense
_TBD_	House _TBD_	Eporte Qwarepotiju, Scipia	Construction, financial services, internet services