题目内容
•Read the article below about common problems affecting mergers, and the questions on the opposite page.
•For each question (13-18), mark one letter (A, B, C or D) on your Answer Sheet.
Achieving a successful merger
However attractive the figures may look on paper, in the long run the success or failure of a merger depends on the human factor. When the agreement has been signed and the accountants have departed, the real problems may only just be beginning. If there is a culture clash between the two companies in the way their people work, then all the efforts of the financiers and lawyers to strike a deal may have been in vain.
According to Chris Bolton of KS Management Consultants, 70% of mergers fail to live up to their promise of shareholder value, not through any failure in economic terms but because the integration of people is unsuccessful. Corporates, he explains, concentrate their efforts before a merger on legal, technical and financial matters. They employ a range of experts to obtain the most favourable contract possible. But even at these early stages, people issues must be taken into consideration. The strengths and weaknesses of both organisations should be assessed and, if it is a merger of equals, then careful thought should be given to which personnel, from which side, should take on the key roles.
This was the issue in 2001 when' the proposed merger between two pharmaceutical companies promised to create one of the largest players in the industry. For both companies the merger was intended to reverse falling market share and shareholder value. However, although the companies' skill bases were compatible, the chief executives of the two companies could not agree which of them was to head up the new organisation. This illustrates the need to compromise if a merger is to take place.
But even in mergers that do go ahead, there can be culture dashes. One way to avoid this is to work with focus groups to see how employees view the existing culture of their organisation. In one example, where two global organisations in the food sector were planning to merge, focus groups discovered that the companies displayed very different profiles. One was sales-focused, knew exactly what it wanted to achieve and pushed initiatives through. The other got involved in lengthy discussions, trying out options methodically and making contingency plans. The first responded quickly to changes in the marketplace; the second took longer, but the option it eventually chose was usually the correct one. Neither company's approach would have worked for the other.
The answer is not to adopt one company's approach, or even to try to incorporate every aspect of both organlsations, but to create a totally new culture. This means taking the best from both sides and making a new organisation that everyone can accept. Or almost everyone. Inevitably there will be those who cannot adapt to a different culture. Research into the impact of mergers has found that companies .with differing management styles are the ones that need to work hardest at creating a new culture.
Another tool that can help to get the right cultural mix is intercultural analysis. This involves carrying out research that looks at the culture of a company and the business culture of the country in which it is based. It identifies how people, money and time are managed in a company, and investigates the business customs of the country and how its politics, economics and history impact on the way business is done.
According to the text, mergers can encounter problems when
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？Read the following letter.
？Choose the best word to fill each gap.
？For each question (19-33), mark one letter (A, B, C or D) on your Answer Sheet.
？One answer has been given as an example.
Dear Mr. Jackson,
Further to our recent exchange of communications, we are happy to confirm having (19) the deal with you in the (20) of processing goods from buyers' raw materials.
Our factory has informed us that they can, at present, (21) an order of processing 1,000 dozens of gloves. (22) your email of 26 Aug., 20--, you expected that the shipment of raw materials would be (23) from Japan late November or early December. Emphasis has, however, to be laid on the (24) that shipment must be made according to planned time. You know, if you can't (25) the raw materials in time, our factory will run (26) of raw materials and it will be impossible for our factory to (27) the commodities.
We are now attaching our Sales Contract No. 79 P52076 in (28) Please countersign and return us one copy for our (29) . You may rest (30) that we shall start production without any (31) after receiving your raw materials. We (32) your cooperation and trust that our products will (33) to your satisfaction.
Sincerely,
(19)
There are two main methods of organizing governments —the unitary system and the federal system. The unitary state places most power in the hands of central government officials, whereas the federal state allocates strong power to units of local government within the country. A country's cultural and physical characteristics influence the evolution of its governmental system.
In principle, the unitary government system works best in countries that have both relatively few internal cultural differences and a strong sense of national unity. Therefore, states whose boundaries coincide closely with the boundaries of nations are more likely to consider a unitary system of government. In addition, because the unitary system requires effective communications with all regions of the country, smaller states are more likely to adopt it. If the country is very large or has isolated regions, strong national control is difficult.
In reality, multinational states often have unitary systems so that the values of one nationality can be imposed on others. In a number of African and Asian countries, for instance, the mechanism of a unitary state has enabled one ethnic group to extend dominance over weaker groups. In some cases, a minority group is able to impose its values on the majority of the population. When communist parties controlled the government of Eastern European countries, for example, the unitary systems enabled the imposition of uniform. cultural values on otherwise multinational societies.
In a federal state, local governments possess more authority to adopt their own laws. Multinational states usually adopt a federal system of government in order to give power to different nationalities, especially if they live in separate regions of the country. Under a federal system, local government boundaries can be drawn that correspond to the regions inhabited by different nations. The federal system is also more suitable for very large states. The national capitals of very large states may be too remote to provide effective control over isolated regions.
In the late twentieth century, a strong global trend occurred in favor of the federal system of government. Most of the world's largest states were already federal, including the Soviet Union, Canada, the United States, Brazil, and India. During the late 1980s and 1990s, unitary systems have been sharply curtailed in a number of countries and scrapped altogether in others.
In the last paragraph, the word "scrapped" can be best replaced by ______.
Commercial Vices
The commercial vices are gambling, prostitution, and drugs. The appeals of the commercial vices are so strong and widespread that attempts to prohibit them in western democracies have always failed. Even in totalitarian regimes with unrestricted police and draconian punishments, such as Islamic countries, there is only partial success.
The evils of these vices are threefold: those who practice them suffer, the criminals who sell them prosper, and the enforcement organizations are expensive, unsuccessful, and often corrupt bureaucracies.
Two commercial vices have been accepted as unstoppable but their evils have been minimized by legalization and regulation. These are the particular drug, alcohol, and gambling.
The United States attempted to prohibit alcohol and failed, The Mafia made its accumulated capital by bootlegging alcohol. The gangsters of the twenties and thirties were in the alcohol business just as the drug peddlers of today are in the drug business. Both settled trade disputes with gunfire. When alcohol prohibition was repealed and sale by licensed dealers was instituted, the Mafia went out of the liquor business and the revenue agents assigned to stop the illegal business went out of business too. The quality of regulated liquor became assured and taxes, not high enough to motivate bootlegging, became a source of public revenue. Consumption of legal alcohol became only slightly greater than the consumption of illegal alcohol had been.
If we follow the alcohol example with all other drugs, the same benefits will obtain. Much more than that, the temptation of "forbidden fruit" will disappear. The jailing of petty drug pushers will stop, together with their training as future serious criminals in the crime schools which are our jails. If we transfer the huge sums wasted on fruitless interdiction efforts and on punishment to serious education and rehabilitation programs, the drug problem will retreat to the trivial level it was fifty years ago.
Gambling is another example of "If you can't lick'em, join'em.” At one time all but private gambling at home was illegal. So the Mafia ran the numbers rackets and the secret games and the bookmaking where "law abiding" citizens did their unstoppable gambling. Now governments run lotteries and license and supervise casinos so the gangsters are largely out, cheating is minimal, and governments earn revenue instead of paying police. Here, again, an education program would cost little and do much good.
Prostitution is an even more emotional problem. Addiction to sex is genetic and permanent and deprivation has many penalties. Here, again, legalization and regulation will immediately eliminate the pimps and gangsters and reduce the police force. With periodic medical examination and licensing of the practitioners, and perhaps of the customers, there will be a radical reduction in the spread of venereal diseases, including AIDS. For those already diseased there can be a matching of buyer and seller by coding their license cards.
A valid objection to legalization (or de-criminalization) of vices is that this very action will encourage their practice by seeming to be an official endorsement. This objection can be finessed by what was done with "Blue Laws" which tried to impose unacceptable "virtues" but which could not be repealed. They were not repealed but merely stopped being enforced.
The enforcement budgets can then be converted to treatment and education to discourage and diminish practice of the vices. Laws providing regulation and licensing can still be passed. Logically they are inconsistent with laws forbidding, but so what？ They can be enforced anyway.
Legalization and regulation of commercial vices would bring all of the following benefits EXCEPT that ______.
A．SupposingB．ConsideringC．RegardingD．Involving
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