Английский язык. Перевод, межкультурная коммуникация и интерпретация языка СМИ. Учебное пособие

Entrepreneurship is one of the hottest courses on college campuses. At least 250 institutions of higher education in the USA have majors or at least classes in entrepreneurship. Successful entrepreneurs all over the country have poured millions of dollars to fund professorships in entrepreneurship.

What drives entrepreneurs? The satisfaction of establishing and profiting from one’s own business is the motivating force. Entrepreneurship prospered in the US during the 1980s. Some experts argue that it has been the first such growth decade in 100 years.

8.2. Этика бизнеса (Business ethics)

ETHICAL PROBLEMS AND ISSUES IN BUSINESS

Business, like every other major organization in society, has its share of ethical problems. Before discussing how and why these ethical issues arise in business, we want to correct a popular impression that frequently leads to a lot of misunderstanding about business ethics.

Business ethics is usually discussed as if much, or even most, business behaviour is ethically wrong. This viewpoint is highly misleading and inaccurate. Business practices usually conform with the society’s ethical standards. If they did not, the Iron Law of Responsibility would sooner or later reduce business’ ability to function, and other institutions would take over from business. Most people in business are very like people in other walks of life and other occupations, and they generally believe in the same kinds of values as anyone else in the society.

Business sometimes employs people whose personal values are less than desirable. In the selection process there is an effort to weed out ethically undesirable applicants, but ethical qualities are difficult to see and measure. Such people may embezzle funds or steal supplies from the company, pad their expense accounts, take unauthorized and unjustified sick leave, use inside information for their own benefit and to the detriment of outsiders, shirk their work or obligations to fellow workers, accept bribes for extending commercial favours to suppliers, or engage in other conflict-of-interest transactions.

There is little reason to believe that business employs more of these ethically undesirable persons than any other industry in society, although some businesses (banks, for example) may provide more opportunities or temptations for this kind of ethical abuse to occur.

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Business decision makers have to face various ethical situations. Included are the questions of justice: price fixing, by allowing a business to take advantage of customers, may shift an unfair share of wealth to producers; or a discriminatory wage scale may be unfair to some groups of employees.

Some ethical problems have emerged as corporations have crossed cultural boundaries and encountered ethical practices unlike those at home. Some ethic puzzles occur not because business standards are low, but because society’s ethical standards may be rising. Another factor is new technology – good examples are the computer and genetic engineering – that pose entirely new questions of ethics for business and general public to ponder on.

Clearly the ethics menu confronting business is large, varied and growing. Value issues appear at all levels of the organization and are related to all of the business functions, including marketing, production, sales, personnel and financial control, supervision, and management. The primary tasks for business are to be aware of the ethical side, to learn how to reason ethically as well as economically, and to incorporate ethical considerations into the firm’s operations.

A business firm can improve its ethical performance by encouraging its managers to set a good example of ethical behaviour for employees and having top managers who exert strong ethical leadership. Other steps include the appointment of ethics committees of the board of directors, using an ethics advocate, issuing a code of ethical conduct, supplementing regular business decision making with ethical direction rules, conducting ethics audits, and emphasizing ethics in company training programs.

Business is not alone in having to deal with ethical problems since they arise in all types of institutions. Business’ complex task is to achieve a balance between high economic performance and high ethical conduct.

BUSINESS AND ECOLOGICAL SYSTEMS

An ecosystem is a total ecological community both living and nonliving. The key point about an ecosystem is its immense complexity and interrelatedness. People are coming to understand that anything they do is intrinsically connected to many other events in the chain of life of an ecosystem. Since these intricacies have not always been understood by experts, business leaders likewise often have not realized

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the effects of their actions. This lack of understanding means that even the best of intentions may have unforeseen and undesirable results.

Ecology is the study of how living things – plants and animals – interact with one another and with their environment. There is little doubt that civilization is facing ecological problems, especially pollution, around the world.

Growing public awareness of ecological problems led in the 1970s to greater efforts to preserve the sometimes delicate balance between human beings and their environment. However, no sooner had the environmental movement got under way that a new crisis arose – this time, in the form of a threatened world shortage of energy supply, particularly petroleum. Soon it became apparent that ecology and energy are interdependent, just as well as plants, animals and human communities.

Ecology is concerned with the relationships of living things and their environment. As a contributor to pollution, business is involved in global ecological problems. The latter are complex and their solution requires many environmental trade-offs. Pollution has accumulated because of compound growth arising from three primary factors: the industrial revolution, a higher standard of living, and rapid population growth. Social value changes in technologically advanced nations have driven more attention to environmental problems. Pollution, though, presents a problem in all types of economic and political systems. It is not limited to one nation or social culture.

Energy use and pollution are closely linked, requiring business and society make trade-offs between production of necessary goods and services and protection of the environment. To ensure adequate longrun energy supplies, nations attempt to store energy, create new forms and sources of energy through science and technology, and allow free market to ration scarce energy. Slow-growth or non-growth policies have been advocated by some but are unpopular in both developed and developing nations.

Some of the effects of environmental issues on business are more regulation, increased costs, more complex decisions, and more global thinking on the side of business. Society expects business to consider the ecological side of its activities.

Ecological issues can be put together into a few basic guidelines for business. As society’s major economic institution for production of goods and services, business cannot ignore ecology; the damage must be brought to minimum. So, here are the guidelines to follow.

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Reduce pollution to the extent that is ecologically and technically reasonable.

Design future facilities and activities to preserve natural harmony. Included is the obligation to find better ways of living in harmony with the environment.

Develop thorough ecological inputs from social systems and respond thoughtfully to them.

WOMEN IN BUSINESS

Today, women work in virtually all industries and career fields. Many have moved into middle management, and it is quite likely that some of them will progress to top positions in their organizations as they acquire the relevant experience. This growth is likely to accelerate in the future. Nearly half of all business graduates are now female, up from less than 10% in the early 1970s. Still, even today, women face a variety of career obstacles that cannot be overlooked if contemporary business is to reach its goal of career opportunity based solely on merit.

What are some of the specific problems faced by women who choose a business career? Women often lack the sort of career development model that is common for men. Young women entering industry today often represent their family’s first generation of female businesspeople. They may lack the career perspectives that business executives provide their sons with. Once employed, they sometimes lack peers to base a career development pattern on. In the past, women tended to enter business with educational background in such nonbusiness areas as elementary education or home economics. They had no business-oriented connections from their college days. Finally, the limited number of female executives provides few career models for young women advancing in a company, so business-women break new ground at each stage of their careers.

Male co-workers can also create specific problems for female executives. Unaccustomed to working with women of equal of higher managing rank, they are sometimes ill at ease in such situations. Some may disregard or circumvent directions or suggestions of female executives.

Married women face the dilemma created by their husbands’ career aspirations and traditional family responsibilities. This problem should become easier to solve as more husbands and wives consider both careers in making their job decisions. While such situations can mean difficult choices, successful executives do cope with the problem and

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go on to pursue their professional goals. Success in any field has always required hard work and tough decisions, and contemporary businesswomen are proving they can and will make the sacrifices necessary to succeed.

One of the major reasons women are treated like outsiders in the world of business is their lack of professional contacts. They simply do not know the people who make decisions. But networking may eventually help to change the situation. Networking refers to development and use of contacts to get ahead in business.

8.3. Международный бизнес

(International business)

CONCEPTS OF INTERNATIONAL BUSINESS

The main patterns of international business are determined by a combination of economic and political factors. To understand trade and world business, it is essential to become familiar with such concepts as balance of trade, balance of payments, and exchange rates.

A country’s balance of trade is the difference between its exports and imports. If a country exports more than it imports, it has a favourable balance of trade, called a trade surplus. If it imports more than it exports, the balance is unfavourable, and it is also called trade deficit.

A nation’s balance of trade is of major importance in determining its balance of payments – the overall flow of money into or out of a country. Other factors affecting the balance of payments are overseas loans and borrowing, international investment or remittance of profits from such investments, and foreign aid. A favourable balance of payments, or balance of payments surplus, means a net inflow of money from abroad. An unfavourable balance of payments, or a balance of payments deficit means a net outflow of money from the country. The effect of other components of the country’s balance of payments can offset or intensify the deficit or surplus resulting from its balance of trade.

Nations with a balance of payments deficit normally try to solve this problem by some combination of reducing their dependence on foreign goods, devaluing their currency, and increasing their exports. Often this requires politically unpopular moves that slow economic activity and the demand for foreign goods but produce increasing unemployment and/or higher prices as a result.

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The value of a nation’s currency in relation to that of other ones or to a fixed standard such as gold is called its exchange rate. A currency’s exchange rate is usually quoted in terms of other important currencies.

A country’s exchange rate can be changed by both market conditions and government actions. Devaluation is the reduction of a currency’s value in relation to other currencies or to gold. Devaluation of the US dollar makes US goods sell for less abroad and reduces costs for visiting foreigners. On the other hand, devaluation increases the price US consumers pay for imported goods and makes foreign vacations more expensive as well. Finally, it would make it more expensive for US firms to buy assets abroad and less expensive for foreign firms to purchase US assets.

Revaluation is upward movement of a currency’s value in relation to other countries currencies or to gold. Revaluation of the US dollar would make US goods more expensive abroad and make it more expensive for foreigners to visit the United States. At the same time, it would make foreign goods less expensive for American consumers and make overseas vacations more affordable. Finally, it would make it less expensive for US firms to buy assets abroad and make domestic US assets more expensive for foreign firms.

INTERNATIONAL PRODUCTION

JOINT VENTURES

Total international business involvement occurs when a company produces as well as markets its products abroad. A firm enters foreign markets in this way either by starting a subsidiary or acquiring an existing firm in the country where it is expanding. Sometimes, a company will enter in a joint venture with a local firm or government, sharing the operation costs, risks, management, and profits with its local partner. For example, the Chevrolet Prizm is produced by a joint venture between General Motors and Toyota, called New United Motors Manufacturing Inc., at a plant in Fremont, California. Chrysler and Mitsubishi Motors operate a joint venture in Bloomington-Normal, Illinois, to produce sporty cars.

THE MULTINATIONAL CORPORATION

It is important to distinguish between an international firm and a multinational corporation. An international firm is limited to the first

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two levels of international business selling abroad either through exports or overseas marketing. A multinational corporation, by contrast, operates both production and marketing facilities on an international level. A multinational corporation considers the whole world as its market.

INTERNATIONAL TRADE REQUIREMENTS

International trade requirements can be seen in various agreements existing among nations. The Untied States has many friendship, commerce, and navigation (FCN) treaties with other nations. Such treaties consider many aspects of international business relations including the right to do business in the treaty partner’s domestic market. Other international business agreements concern standards for products, patents, trademarks, reciprocal tax treaties, export control, international air travel, and international communications.

THE INTERNATIONAL MONETARY FUND

AND THE WORLD BANK

Originally set up to coordinate international financial relations, the International Monetary Fund (IMF) lends money to countries that require short-term assistance in conducting international trade. Since the onset of the Latin America debt crisis, the IMF has played a major role in overseeing agreements between the debtor countries and their lenders to renew their loans while ensuring repayment. The World Bank was established to make long-term loans for economic development projects. Both financial institutions help to facilitate international business activity.

DUMPING

The problem of dumping is sometimes a threat to firms engaged in international business. Dumping, selling goods abroad at a price lower than that charged in the domestic market, is prohibited in many countries. US law requires that imported items be sold for at least production costs, plus 10% overhead and a minimum 8% profit margin. If dumping is proved, punitive trade restrictions may be assigned to the dumped products. Firms dump products for a variety of reasons, but the most important one recently has been to increase market share. This is similar to predatory pricing in the domestic market to undersell rivals and force them out of business. For instance, American semi-

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conductor manufacturers accused Japanese rivals of dumping to increase their market share. Another motivation for dumping comes when a country’s domestic market becomes a tempting target. Alternatively, a firm might dump surplus goods or technologically obsolete products overseas.

MULTINATIONAL ECONOMIC COMMUNITIES

Several multinational economic communities were formed after World War II. The European Community (EC), also known as the Common Market, is the best known of them. Others include the European Free Trade Area in Northern Europe and the Andean Pact in South America. Member countries in such regional associations often have strong political as well as economic ties.

Three basic formats for economic integration are: a free trade area, a customs union, and a common market. Within a free trade area, participants trade freely among themselves without tariffs or trade restrictions. However, each maintains their own tariffs for goods from outside the area. In a customs union, the member nations impose a common tariff on the goods from outside of their membership. In a common market, the member nations go beyond a customs union to try to bring all government trade rules into agreement.

8.4. Формы организации бизнеса

(Forms of business organization)

The form of business organization affects the firm’s ability to obtain financing. It also affects both the personal and tax liability of the owners. The three primary forms of business organization are sole proprietorship, partnership, and corporation.

Sole proprietorship is a business owned by one person.

One individual is solely responsible for all aspects of business. This individual owns all the firm’s assets and is responsible for all its liabilities. Sole proprietorships are generally small businesses and are common in wholesale, retail and service industries. More businesses are sole proprietorships than any other form of business organization.

A partnership is a legal arrangement where there are two or more owners.

Partnerships may operate under varying degrees of formality. For example, a formal partnership may be using a written contract known

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as a partnership agreement. Partnerships are most common in accounting, law, consulting, and medicine. Partnerships may be either general or limited.

–A general partnership is one where each partner has unlimited liability for the debts incurred by the business. General partners usually manage the firm and may enter into contractual obligations on the firm’s behalf. Profits and asset ownership may be divided in any way agreed upon by partners.

–A limited partnership is one containing one or more general partners and one or more limited partners. Personal liability of a general partner for the firm’s debt is unlimited but personal liability of limited partners is limited to their investment. Limited partners cannot be active in managing.

A corporation is a separate legal entity founded by the state.

This legal entity may own assets, borrow money, and engage in other business activities without directly involving its owners. In most large corporations the owners, also called shareholders or stockholders, do not directly run the firm. Instead they select managers to run the firm for them. The firm’s managers are considered agents of the corporation and are authorized to act on the corporation’s behalf. Thus, a corporation is an institution, distinct and separate from its owners. Most middle – and large-size businesses are corporations. The corporation is a dominant form of business organization in the United States in term of asset size and sales volume.

LEGAL FORMS OF BUSINESS:

SOLE PROPRIETORSHIP AND PARTNERSHIP

Having decided to set up your own business, you should choose the legal form it will take. There are three legal forms to choose from: sole proprietorship, partnership and corporation (limited company). No one form is better than another. Each has its advantages and disadvantages. The important thing is to be sure the chosen form is best for you.

Many businesses are sole proprietorships, which means that they are owned and run by one person. Setting up a sole proprietorship is easy, it does not need many formalities. As a sole trader, a person is fully responsible for the success or failure of their business. Any profits go to the owner, any losses are their responsibility as well. If losses become greater than the investment, the owner is responsible for paying them, even if it touches all personal assets. This is called unlimited liability.

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There is no legal difference between the owners and the business. As the business is personal to the owner, it is liquidated upon the death of the owner. Finance for a sole trader is usually limited to their own savings or to what can be borrowed from family or friends. Therefore sole proprietorships are usually small businesses.

When a proprietor wants to expand a business one way to do so is to form a partnership, a business started for profit by two or more coowners. The rights and duties of a partnership are regulated by laws and by a legal agreement made by the partners. Usually an agreement states how much capital each partner has put up, how profits will be shared, and how the business will be run between the partners.

All partners are legally responsible for any of the firm’s activities, in other words, each partner has unlimited liability, meaning that all partners are liable for the debts of the business. They share the risks and the profits or losses associated with their business.

A way to avoid the risks of unlimited liability is to form a limited partnership. In a limited partnership there are two kinds of partners – general and limited, General partners have unlimited liability for the business. The liability of limited partners is limited to the amounts of their investments. However, in exchange for this limited liability, limited partners are usually not allowed to take an active part in the firm’s management. There must be at least one general partner in such kind of partnership.

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One of the advantages of a sole proprietorship is that an owner can make decisions quickly and decide without having to consult others. And an individual proprietor, by law, pays fewer taxes than does a corporation.

As a sole trader, you decide on hiring and firing employees, on better ways of investment; in fact, you take full responsibility for your business. If the business is profitable, you can enjoy all the advantages of being self-employed.

There are disadvantages to this form of business, however. A sole proprietor is responsible for all business debts or legal judgments against the business. If the debts exceed the assets of the business, your own personal assets – home, automobile, savings, investments – can be claimed by creditors. In other words your financial liability is unlimited.

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