Listening

Ex. 4. You will hear a short extract from a talk by Professor Diamond called “How to get rich”, in which, drawing on the history of human societies, he makes a suggestion concerning the best way to organize a business. Match up the words on the left with the definitions on the right.

1) industrial belt	a) a company's ways of working and thinking
2) wealth	b) alone, placed in a position away from others
3) productivity	c) an area with lots of industrial companies, around the edge of a city
4) corporate ethos	d) breaking something up into pieces
5) collaboration	e) the amount of output produced (in a certain period, using a certain number of inputs)
6) insulated or isolated	f) the products of economic activity
7) fragmentation	g) working together and sharing ideas

Ex. 5. Listen to Jared Diamond, and then answer math companies (a–d) with part-sentences 1–8.

a) Route 128 (the industrial belt around Boston, Massachusetts);

b) Silicon Valley (the high-tech companies in the area between San Francisco and San Jose, California;

c) IBM;

d) Microsoft.

1. has lots of companies that arc secretive, and don’t communicate or collaborate with each other

2. has lots of companies that compete with each other but communicate ideas and information

3. has always had lots of semi-independent units competing within the same company, while communicating with each other

4. is organized in an unusual but very effective way

5. is currently the centre of innovation

6. used to have insulated groups that did not communicate with each other

7. used to lead the industrial world in scientific creativity and imagination

8. was very successful, then less successful, and is now innovative again because it changed the way it was organ bed.

Ex. 6. Working in pairs, rearrange the following part-sentences to make up a short paragraph summarizing Diamond’s ideas about the best form of business organization.

a) and regularly engage staff who have worked for your competitors,

b) are at a disadvantage,

c) because most groups of people get

d) but also communicate with each other quite freely.

e) creativity, innovation, and wealth,

f) into a number of groups which compete

g) Isolated companies or groups

h) most of their ideas and innovations from the outside.

i) So in order to maximize productivity,

j) You should also exchange ideas and information with other companies,

k) you should break up your business

Unit 3. Contracts and their performance Warming up

Ex. 1. Read the following abstract and discuss the questions below.

This contract is binding, and we expect all the parts involved (both clients and suppliers) to abide by the terms and conditions stated in sections 3a–37g on pages 1–17.

1. One of the underlined words / expressions in the above sentence is wrong. Identify and correct it.

2. True or false: A contract which is binding is flexible and can be changed at any time.

3. Which of these words / expressions could replace abide by?

а) Choose b) agree with c) obey d) change