Практикум по английскому языку делового и профессионального общения – “Supplementto 'The Business Intermediate'” (1-я часть)

CONTENTS

PART 1. Unit 1. Corporate Culture
Subject background
Vocabulary Practice
Grammar Practice
GLOSSARY
PART 2. Unit 2. Customer Support
Subject background
Vocabulary practice
Grammar practice
Reading practice
GLOSSARY
PART 3. Unit 3. Products and Packaging
Subject background
Vocabulary practice
Grammar practice
Reading practice
GLOSSARY
PART 4. Unit 4. Careers
Subject background
Vocabulary practice
Grammar practice
Reading practice
GLOSSARY

PART 1. CORPORATE CULTURE
SUBJECT BACKGROUND

What is corporate culture? There are two answers to this question, one non-academic and one academic. In the non-academic approach, the basic definition of corporate culture is ‘the personality of an organization’, or simply ‘how things are done around here’. It includes:

• core values and beliefs
• corporate ethics
• rules of behaviour.

Corporate culture can be expressed in the company’s mission statement and other communications, in the architectural style or interior decoration of offices, by what people wear to work, by how people address each other, and in the titles given to various employees.

Then, there is the academic approach to corporate culture (often called ‘organizational culture’ in this context). There are many gurus in this field, and perhaps the best known is Geert Hofstede. He has developed a Cultural Orientation Model which classifies cultures based on where they fall on five continuums (highly simplified below):

1. Individual vs. collective
(At what level in the organization is behaviour regulated?)

2. Power distance
(Do less powerful parties accept the existing distribution of power?)

3. Uncertainty avoidance
(Do employees feel threatened by ambiguity? How important are rules?)

4. Dominant values
(What are the dominant values?)

5. Short-term vs. long-term
(Do employees expect immediate or deferred gratification?)

Company culture affects employees in many ways. For example:

• the hours you work, including options such as flextime and telecommuting.
• the work environment, including how employees interact, the degree of competition, and whether it’s a fun or hostile environment.
• the dress code, including accepted styles of clothing and things such as casual days.
• the office space, including things such as cubicles, window offices, and rules regarding display of personal items.
• training and skills development available to employees.
• onsite perks, such as break rooms, gyms, daycare facilities.
• the amount of time outside the office you’re expected to spend with co-workers.
• interaction with other employees, including managers and top management.

The importance of corporate culture is growing as the result of several recent developments, some of which are listed below.

• Companies are encouraging employees to be more responsible and act and think like owners.
• With the decline of more traditional communities (e.g. neighbourhoods) companies are filling their employees’ need to belong to a community.
• Companies are encouraging teamwork.

For all these reasons, organizations need to make their culture explicit, and it is increasingly referred to in mission statements and emphasized in company-sponsored training and company communications.

Useful websites
http://humanresources.about.com/od/organizationalculture
http://www.answers.com/topic/organizational-culture
http://interview.monster.com/articles/compculture

Answer the following questions: 

• What is the  basic definition  of  corporate  culture in  non-academic   approach?
• How can  it  (the  corporate  culture  of  a  particular  organization ) be  expressed?
• How  are  cultures classified  in the  Cultural  Oriented  Model  developed  by  G. Hofstede?
• How  does  company  culture  affect  employees ?
• Why  is  the  importance  of  corporate  culture  growing ?

1. CEO is a person__________.
a) responsible for giving info to people inside and outside a company]
b) with the most authority in everyday management of a company
c) with the responsibility with everyday management of the operations or activities of a company

2. Board of Directors are appointed by ___________.
a) CEO
b) managers
c) shareholders

3. Senior managers report directly to__________.
a) CEO
b) Board of Directors
c) Chief Financial Officer

4. Workers in IT department___________.
a) study electronic processes for storing info and making it available
b) study ways of doing things that make use of materials which are available locally or are not difficult to repair
c) develop technological products that are designed for a small area of a market

5. Shareholders are people who___________.
a) own shares of a certain company
b) take an active part in the running of the business
c) have an important position in a company

6. A system of authority with different levels, one above the other, is _.
a) autonomy
b) hierarchy
c) pyramid

Task 3
Complete a manager’s vision of the company using the following words:

outsourced, functional, chief, shareholders, flexibility, workforce, effectiveness, stake, flatter, layers, stakeholders, hierarchy, empowered

A company’s ¹__________ responsibility used to be to its ²__________, but these days we prefer to talk about ³___________, not just the people with a financial ⁴__________in the company, but everyonewho has an interest in the way it’s run. A big change in the organization of this company is that we now have a much ⁵__________ structure, instead of the old ⁶__________. Now a lot of work is ⁷___________. So, we are a ⁸__________ company, with fewer ⁹___________ of management. We work in cross-¹⁰__________ teams, which gives us much greater ¹¹__________. And we aim to have ¹²__________ rather than simply loyal ¹³__________.