Project

Exercise 4.Work in groups. You are managers working in a company with a problem. One of the managers in your group summarizes the problem and then everyone in the group participates in trying to solve it.

Insider trading

You are financial traders for Interstellar Securities on the London stock market. You think that one of your colleagues (not present) is guilty of insider trading. Insider trading is when someone has confidential information about something that is going to happen which has not yet been made public, and uses this information, for example to buy shares knowing that their value is going to rise. Your colleague has been using information from a friend of theirs who works in a manufacturing company that is going to be bought by another company. The dealer has been illegally buying shares in the company. If the authorities find out about the insider trading, they will punish your firm and its reputation will suffer.

What should you do about your insider trader colleague? They are in their mid-30s and have worked for Interstellar for 10 years and made a lot of money for the fi rm. However, this is not the first time that you suspect them of ‘irregular’ activities. They have a very powerful personality and could cause a lot of trouble if dealt with in a way that they think is unfair. And if they leave the firm, they would probably join another company and take business away from Interstellar.

Problem Issues

Revise the material of before and be ready to speak on the following issues using the active vocabulary you acquired.

Exercise 5. Look at the following examples of arguably unethical behaviour. Choose the five you find most unethical. See if other people in your group agree. Give reasons for your point of view.

a) using child labour in developing countries to produce consumer products for developed countries

b) a company dealing in arms and selling them to any country who wants them

c) a company finding clever ways to avoid paying the full amount of tax

d) a company not providing adequate safety equipment for its workers

e) a company ignoring laws on disposal of harmful waste products, e.g. leaving it on local land or in rivers

f) producing a product such as tobacco which is known to kill people

g) a company who pays their employees less than the minimum wage

h) food companies not labelling food properly so that consumers do not know what is in the product

Exercise 6. Prepare a short talk about the following issues. How significant are they in your country? Are people interested in them? Does the government promote them?

a) green issues

b) business ethics

c) social responsibility

d) ethical consumerism

Lesson 8. Basic concepts and terms the functions of planning and organization in a foreign language.

The reading module Read the text №1: Read the text: Organizations

Organizations need to be understood and intelligently managed because they are an ever-present feature of modern life. When people gather together and formally agree to combine their efforts for a common purpose, an organization is the result. All organizations, whatever their purpose, have four characteristics: (1) coordination of effort, (2) common goal or purpose, (3) division of labor, and (4) hierarchy of authority. If one of these characteristics is absent, an organization does not exist. Coordination of efforts multiplies individual contributions. A common goal or purpose gives organization members a rallying point. By systematically dividing complex tasks into specialized jobs, an organization can efficiently use its human resources. Division of labor permits organization member to become more proficient by repeatedly doing the same specialized task. Organization theorists have defined authority as the right to direct the action of others. Without a recognized hierarchy of authority, coordination of effort is difficult, if not impossible, to achieve.

Organizational classifications aid systematic analysis and study of organizations. There is no universally accepted classification scheme among organization theorists. Two useful ways of classifying organizations are by purpose and technology. In regard to purpose, organizations can be classified as business, not-for-profit service, mutual benefit, or common weal. In regard to technology, there are long-linked, mediating, and inten sive technologies. Each of these technologies has characteristic strengths and weaknesses.

Modern organization theorists tend to prefer open-system thinking because it realistically incorporates organizations' environmental dependency. Early manage ment writers proposed tightly controlled authoritarian organizations. Max Weber, a German sociologist, applied the label bureaucracy to his formula for the most rationally efficient type of organization. Bureaucracies are characterized by their division of labor, hierarchy of authority, framework of rules, and impersonality. Unfortunately, in actual practice, bureaucracy has become a synonym for a red tape and inefficiency. The answer to this bureaucratic paradox is to understand that bureaucracy is a matter of degree. When bureaucratic characteristics, which are present in all organizations, are carried to an extreme, efficiency gives way to inefficiency.

Barnard’s acceptance theory of authority and growing environmental complexity and uncertainty questioned traditional organization theory. Open-system thinking became a promising alternative because it was useful in explaining the necessity of creating flexible and adaptable rather than rigid organizations.