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If a firm has … cash, it may … it in short-term securities, building a reserve against future obligations. Negative … flow, however, may force a firm to … from banks to cover immediate expenses. A firm must also manage its credit granted to … and inventories. Firms offer customers credit as a way of expanding sales; the risk of not being paid must be taken if … customers are to be won. Firms must also maintain inventories to assure steady supplies for customers and to take advantage of economies of scale, but inventories are … to hold, since the costs of manufacture and storage must be paid without recording a sale. Financial officers play an important role in judging the … of extending credit to customers and in determining the optimum level of inventories.

VII. Read the information about some tools of financial management and make up 5 questions concerning the main contents of the text. Answer the questions of your partner without looking at the text.

Financial management employs a variety of tools to gauge the performance and requirements of a firm. Ratio analysis is an important way of judging a firm’s current health. For example, the ratio of current assets to current liabilities (current ratio) is an index of the firm’s ability to meet short-term obligations. Activity ratios, measuring turnover of such assets as inventory and accounts receivable, indicate how intensively a firm is employing its assets. Profit ratios, (e.g., as a percentage of sales or assets) indicate whether a firm is earning a good return on its invested capital.

Financial forecasting is important in planning for the firm’s future growth. Generally, management develops a long-term plan, deciding what types and quantities of products it will manufacture or what markets it will emphasize. Shorter-term budgets are then devised to fit this scheme. For example, if a firm is contemplating expanding or entering new markets, it must estimate its future costs and sales. Financial officers must analyze whether increased sales or the firm’s own cash reserves will pay for the expansion; if new financing is needed, financial officers must decide on the best kind to seek.

VIII. Who can be the best financial manager: a man or a woman? Write a composition expressing your ideas on this problem (not less than 200 words).

Answer keys to the crossword on page 42:

across: 1) credit; 2) prepayment; 3) profit; 4) expense; 5) management; 6) ratio; 7) bankruptcy; 8) dividend; 9) interest; 10) liabilities; 11) securities;

down: 1) competition; 2) currency; 3) assets; 4) effectiveness; 5) market; 6) liquidity; 7) bond; 8) capital; 9) inflation.

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Text 10

I. Listen to a native speaker and try to memorize the pronunciation of the words. Try to imitate the pronunciation.

II. What positions are more important: managers or employees? Why do you think so? Is it possible to work without interest? What makes every work easier and more interesting? Does it depend on a human resources manager? Read the text and give more detailed answers.

HUMAN RESOURCES MANAGEMENT

Managers perform various functions, but one of the most important and least understood aspects of their job is proper utilization of people. Research reveals that worker performance is closely related to motivation; thus keeping employees motivated is an essential component of good management. In a business context, motivation refers to the stimulus that directs the behaviour of workers to achieve company goals, managers must beawareof their needs.

Many managers believe workers will be motivated to achieve organizational goals by satisfying their fundamental needs for material survival. These needs include a good salary, safe working conditions and job security. While absence of these factors results in poor morale and dissatisfaction, studies have shown that their presence results only in maintenance of existing attitudes and work performance. Although important, salary, working conditions, and job security do not provide the primary motivation for many workers in highly industrialized societies, especially at the professional or technical level. Increased motivation is more likely to occur when work meets the needs of individuals for learning, self-realization, and personal growth. Be responding to personal needs – the desire for responsibility, recognition, growth, promotion, and more interesting work – managers have altered conditions in the

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workplace and consequently, many employees are motivated to perform more effectively.

In an attempt to both fundamental and personal needs of workers, innovative management approaches, such as job enrichment and job enlargement, have been adopted in many organizations. Job enrichment gives workers authority in making decisions related to planning and doing their work. A worker might assume responsibility for scheduling work-flow, checking quality of work produced, or making sure deadlines are met. Job enlargement increases the number of tasks workers perform by allowing them to rotate positions or by giving them responsibility for doing several jobs. Rather than assembling just one component of an automobile, factory workers might be grouped together and given responsibility for assembling the entire fuel system.

By improving the quality of work life through satisfaction of fundamental and personal employee needs, managers attempt to direct the behaviour of workers toward the company goals.

But probably the most powerful and basic of all elements necessary to attract and keep people is happiness.

Employees who are happy in their jobs will work hard and well – and won’t leave.

So how do you create happy employees? The first step is to be happy yourself. Employees are happier in a workplace run by managers who enjoy themselves; their work, and their employees.

 Workbook Ex. 24on page 114.

III. Try to read the following sentences decoding one word in each sentence. Do you agree with the statements? Give examples to illustrate them?

1.Keeping employees tmoitevda is an essential component of good management.

2.Workers will be motivated to achieve organizational goals by ssatiiyngf their fundamental needs for material survival.

3.Increased motivation is more likely to occur when work meets the needs of individuals for learning, self-realization, and personal wrotgh.

4.A rokwre might assume responsibility for checking quality of work produced, or making sure deadlines are met.

5.Managers attempt to direct the behaviour of workers toward the company goals by improving the luaitqy of work life.

IV. Read the conversation. What other documents should the human resources manager have looked through? What else would you ask about if you were the human resources manager? Ask your partner and let him answer.

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-How do you do, Miss Evans?

-How do you do.

-Won’t you sit down?

-Thank you.

-I know you’re looking for a job. Have you worked for an engineering company?

-No, I haven’t. I have graduated from the Automobile Academy this year.

-Have you got a diploma?

-Yes, I have. Here it is. And here is a letter of recommendation from the rector of the Academy.

-I see. He seems to have a very high opinion of you. Did you do any cursive writing in the Academy?

-Oh, yes. I’m good at it.

-There is a vacancy of a secretary. To be frank, we wanted someone with work experience, Miss Evans. But I’ll tell you what you’ll do. Can you start next week?

-Oh, yes, of course. Thank you very much, Mr Palmer.

V. Read the ABC’s of Happiness, translate and answer the questions:

1.The most powerful and basic of all elements necessary to attract and keep people is happiness, isn’t it?

2.What is the first step to create happy employees?

3.Is it difficult to be happy? Why?

THE ABC’s OF HAPPINESS by Robert Vallet

Aspire to reach your potential. Believe in yourself. Create a good life.

Dream about what you might become. Exercise frequently.

Forgive honest mistakes. Glorify the creative spirit. Humor yourself and others.

Imagine great things. Joyfully live each day. Kindly help others.

Love one another. Meditate daily.

Nurture the environment. Organize for harmonious actions. Praise performance well done. Question most things.

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Regulate your own behavior.

Smile often.

Think rationally.

Understand yourself.

Value life.

Work for common good.

X-ray and carefully examine problems.

Yearn to improve.

Zestfully pursue happiness.

VI. Look at fig. 3 and compare the employers. Whom do you like to work with? Why?

Fig. 3

 Workbook Ex. 25, 26on page 114.

VII. You are an employee. Look at your fellow students and imagine them being employers. What person would you like to work with? Explain your choice using the model.

Model: I think … is the best employer in the world. I would like to work with him/her because …

VIII. Write down about:

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a)happy managers and happy employees;

b)what makes your life happy.

Text 11

I. Listen to a native speaker and try to memorize the pronunciation of the words. Try to imitate the pronunciation.

II.Readthearticleandanswer thequestions:

1.Are thereanydifferences in theselectionprocess invarious cultures?Prove it.

2.What do most French companies rely on and what is important for the British ones?

3.What can you sayabout“SWANs”?

RECRUITMENT AND SELECTION

Approaches to selection varysignificantly across cultures. There are differences not only in the priorities that are given to technical or interpersonal capabilities, but also in the ways that candidates are tested and interviewed for the desired qualities. In Anglo-Saxon cultures, what is generally tested is how much the individual can contribute to the tasks of the organization. In these cultures, assessment centres, intelligence tests and measurements of competencies are the norm. In Germanic cultures, the emphasis is more on the quality of education in a specialist function. The recruitment process in Latin and Far Eastern cultures is very often characterized by ascertaining how well that person ‘fits in’ with the larger group. This is

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determined in part by the elitism of higher educational institutions, such as the “grandes ecoles” in France or the University of Tokyo in Japan, and in part by their interpersonal style and ability to network internally. If there are tests in Latin cultures, they will tend to be more about personality, communication and social skills thanaboutthe Anglo-Saxon notionof‘intelligence’.

Though there are few statistical comparisons of selection practices used across cultures, one recent study provides a useful example of the impact of culture. A survey conducted by Shackleton and Newell compared selection methods between France and the UK. They found that there was a striking contrast in the number of interviews used in the selection process, with France resorting to more than one interview much more frequently. They also found that in the UK there was a much greater tendency to use panel interviews than in France, where one-to-one interviews are the norm. In addition, while almost 74 per cent of companies in the UK use references from previous employers, only 11 per cent of the companies surveyed in France used them. Furthermore, French companies rely much more on personality tests and handwriting analysis than their British counterparts.

Many organizations operating across cultures have tended to decentralize selection in order to allow for localdifferences intesting and for language differences, while providing a set of personal qualities or characteristics they consider important for candidates. Hewitt Associates, a US consulting firm based in the Mid West, has had difficulties extending its key selection criteria outside the USA. It is known for selecting“SWANs”:people who are Smart, Willing, Able and Nice. These concepts, all perfectly understandable to other Americans, can have very different meanings in other cultures. For example, being able may mean being highly connected with colleagues, being sociable or being able to command respect from a hierarchy of subordinates, whereas the intended meaning is more about being technically competent, polite and relatively formal. Similarly, what is nice in one culture may be considered I or immature in another. It all depends on the cultural context. Some international companies, like Shell, Toyota, and L’Oreal, have identified very specific qualities that they consider strategically important and that support their business requirements. For example, the criteria that Shell has identified as most important in supporting its strategy include mobility and language capability. These are more easily understood across cultures because people are either willing to relocate or not. There is less room for cultural misunderstandings with such qualities.

III. Imagine that you put the following advertisement in the local paper and got two answers. What letter would you choose and why?

Girl required from May to August. Two children, aged 10 and 8. Lots of free time. Modern house near the sea. Knowledge of English essential. Reply in English, with recent photograph to Mrs Williams, 8 The Fairway, St Leonards-

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on-Sea, Sussex, England.

Pay attention to: English (good, bad, correct, incorrect); spelling (good, poor, many mistakes, few mistakes); appearance (neat, untidy, attractive, unattractive); experience (experienced, inexperienced).

Letter A.

Dear Mrs Williams,

I am writing in answer to your advertisement. I was born in

Sweden am 18 years old. I like children very much and was an au-pair in Germany for three months last summer. I have studied English for nine years and I was at Cambridge with my school two years ago. I can cook and I also like doing housework. I hope you will give me the opportunity of working for you.

Yours faithfully,

Anna-Christina Tranzen

Gronegatan 10

21127 Malmo

Sweden

Letter B.

Hauptstrasse 102

Munchen

Germany

Dear Mrs Williams,

I have seen your advertisement for an au-pair girl in May and August. I am nineteen years old. I studied English at school, but I do not speak

it as good as I want.

I was born in Munchen and I live there now. Next year I am going to the university.

I have never been to England before, but I have looked after children in Hamburg, and I enjoyed it very much. I can swim very well, and can take the children to the sea if you want.

I look forward to hearing from you.

Your sincerely,

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Helda Grabert

IV. Read the poem. Can such a person be a good manager? Why?

Well, he eats like a pig, he can’t get enough. He works like a dog, He looks real tough,

He smokes like a chimney, Four packs a day.

He sleeps like a log, What more can I say? He drinks like a fish, Scotch on the Rocks.

When he gets real mad, he hardly talks.

He cries like a baby When he’s feeling sad. He’s the dearest friend I’ve ever had.

Carolyn Graham

V. Think of a job. Guess the occupation of your partner asking him some questions such as: Do you work outside or inside? How many hours do you work? Do you work at weekends? Do you wear a uniform? Do you get a big salary? Do you travel a lot? Is your job dangerous? Do you …?

VI. Do you know how Volkswagen cares about its employees? If you do not know it, read the information and answer the question.

Behind every job there is a person – that is our motto at Volkswagen. By reducing the working week to as little as 28 hours in some cases, we have been able to redistribute work and thereby safeguard some thirty thousand jobs. Now we are determined to go even further: The AutoVision project in Wolfsburg – Volkswagen’s birthplace – will create 10 thousand new jobs and generate additional value added. According to the AutoVision concept A human resources agency will be set up to provide a central focus for the environment market. It will offer a complete spectrum of needs-driven services, ranging from permanent recruitment via the supply of temporary staff to the initiation of training measures.

 Workbook Ex. 27on page 114.

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VII. You are going to listen to the dialogue. Look at fig. 4. After listening, try to define the situation and say if the given picture reflects the content of the conversation. Prove your answer.

Fig. 4

VIII. Read the following sentences and be ready to fill in not more than three words while second listening.

1.Olga’s brother cut out an advertisement for her from ___________________.

2.Olga graduated from the _______________________.

3.She worked at the State Bank as __________________________ to the director.

4.Olga left the Bank because there were _____________________.

5.The working hours at the firm she is going to work for are ______________.

6.The starting salary is _____________________.

7.Olga will know the results of the interview by ________________________.

IX. Work in pairs. You are the interviewer who talked to Olga and your partner is the head of the Personnel Department. Tell everything you have found out about Olga and let your partner express his opinion about the applicant.

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