UNIVERSITY OF ECONOMICS HO CHIMINHCITY

SCHOOL OF FOREIGN LANGUAGES FOR ECONOMICS

READING
(Module 5)
 Focus
on
Learning

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UNIT 1: FIRST IMPRESSIONS

READING 1: IT’S NOT WHAT YOU KNOW

Activity 1: Discussion
What do you understand by the expression “It’s not what you know, but who you
know that counts”?Do you think networking is more important in some of these
professions than others?
Activity 2: Vocabulary
Vocabulary Part of Definition and Example
speech
Bump into

Aggregate

Dilemma

Manipulative

Generate

Apropos of nothing

Strategist

Networker

Referral

Accelerate

Selfless

Altruistic

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 It’s not what you know
by Mike Southon
It is often said that your personal value is not what you know, but who you know. This is
powerful motivation for recent graduates to build their personal networks. But some of us
may conclude that we already have enough friends and contacts - the challenge is making the
best use of those that we already have.
Mathematics supports this argument. If you have been in business more than 20 years, you
probably have more than 150 close contacts - people you like and respect and would
recognise if you bumped into them out of their work context. If you add to this all the people
in their close networks, this aggregates to potentially more than 20,000 agreeable and
interesting people.
It is not a problem to identify other networking prospects. We all have a drawer full of
business cards and often a large number of online connections. The dilemma is how to
successfully leverage existing contacts without appearing sleazy and manipulative.
The most important lesson to learn from the best-connected individuals is that little of their
networking activity is carried out with any specific business goal in mind. They concentrate
their effort on people they most like and who seem to like them back.
Even for the shyest individual, all that is required to leverage their network is to generate a list
of people whose company they enjoy and invite them to a private dinner. This would be
apropos of nothing in particular other than the pleasure of good company.
The tools for engineering a mutually successful outcome of such events are well explained by
one of Europe’s leading business networking strategists, Andy Lopata. His website explains
that connecting is not enough; it is important also to determine how well your contacts
understand what you do and then how inspired they might be to provide a referral.
Lopata provides networking training and is always amazed to discover how few companies
have an effective referral strategy. One investment bank merely had a system for asking for
two referrals at the end of every meeting, regardless of whether they had built up any trust
with the client. Lopata says the chances of receiving a referral are greatly increased if they
understand exactly what you do and the problems you solve, have a high level of trust and
understand how you help people. Your chances of receiving a referral are increased if you are
also perceived to have a wider purpose to your working life.
Lopata recommends making a detailed assessment of your best contacts, the people they
know, their willingness to refer you to them and how you might inspire them to make

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that introduction, for free. While some people offer direct financial rewards for referrals,
seasoned net- workers mostly make introductions on the basis that everyone gains a benefit,
including the prospect of referrals in return.
While high-level networking is primarily a face-to-face activity, Lopata agrees that online
tools accelerate the process.
Expert networkers work on the basis that if you connect with your network on this mutually
beneficial basis, the financial rewards will flow. Successful networking should be selfless and
altruistic, giving referrals without remembering your simple favour, and receiving them
without forgetting their kind gift.

Activity 3
What are your views on networking? To what extent do you agree with these
statements? Compare and discuss your answers.
strongly partially disagree
agree agree
1. Networking just means socialising
with my colleagues and friends.
2. Networking is all about finding lots of
useful business contacts.
3. Networking with business contacts is
insincere and manipulative
4. Online social networking is as useful
as face-to-face networking.
5. Networking involves getting lots of
help from others.

Activity 4
Read the article and compare the writer’s views on networking with your own. What
points does he make in relation to the five statements in activity 3?

Activity 5
Read the article again and find words and expressions which mean the following.
1. met someone you know when you were not expecting to (paragraph 2):
2. develop and use fully (paragraphs 3 and 5):
3. morally doubtful (paragraph 3):
4. not related to anything previously mentioned (paragraph 5):
5. when you recommend someone to another person for work (paragraphs 6 and 7):
6. move from one place to another in large amounts (paragraph 10):
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7. caring about other people more than about yourself (two expressions) (paragraph 10):

Activity 6
Look at these extracts from the article and indicate where the adverbs in brackets
should go. Sometimes more than one answer is possible.
1.We have enough friends and contacts. (already)
2.You have more than 150 close contacts, (probably)
3.The dilemma is how to leverage existing contacts. (successfully)
4.It is important to determine how well your contacts understand what you do. (also)
5.One investment bank had a system for asking for two referrals, (merely)
6.The chances of receiving a referral are increased if they understand what you do. (greatly,
exactly)
7.High-level networking is a face-to-face activity. (primarily)
8.If you connect with your network on this beneficial basis, the financial rewards will flow,
(mutually)
Activity 7
Which of the networking strategies mentioned in the article do you find most useful? Which
do you think you will probably never use? Why? / Whynot?

READING 2: BUSINESSES URGED TO KEEP INTERVIEW

STANDARDS HIGH
Activity 1: Discussion
What was your first impression of the organisation that you work for or the educational
institution that you study at?
Activity 2: Vocabulary

Vocabulary Part of Definition and Example

speech
Sexism

Racist

Butt in

5
 Encounter

Rate

Hygiene

Turn down

Values

On the line

Read this article from the Financial Times by John Willman and do the exercises that
follow.
Businesses urged to keep interview standards high
by John Willman
A third of job applicants come away from their interview with a bad impression of
the business, having faced questions unrelated to the job, poor interview preparation,
sexism and bad personal hygiene, a survey has found. In some cases, applicants
complained of racist questions and interviewers who were drunk.
Kevin Moran, a 29-year-old IT worker who went for a job in the City, said he had
been surprised to find it was held in a bar. "I had to shout over the noise, and one of the
interviewers kept going to the bar when I was still speaking, butting in rudely and talking
about things that were completely unrelated," MrMoran said.
The survey of more than 2,000 people, by Ipsos Mori for T-Mobile, found that
applicants judged a potential employer on their impressions of the working environment
and the people employed. They expected intelligent questions related to the job, and a clear
career-progression plan. However, 40 percent of those who judged their interview
experience as bad said the questions asked were nothing to do with the job, while a third
said the interviewer was unprepared. More than 31 per cent of those finding the encounter
disappointing had never heard from the company again.
Among the complaints about interviewers' behaviour by those who rated their
encounter a bad experience were lateness ( 18 percent), sexism (16 per cent) and bad

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personal hygiene (7 .5 per cent). Another complaint was that the interviewer ate during the
process (5.2 per cent), while 11 of the 662 disappointed applicants said the interviewer was
drunk. Almost 30 per cent complained they had not been offered any refreshments,while
10 per cent said the building was dirty. As a result, almost half those who had experienced
a bad interview turned down the job when it was offered.
"Interviewees are always under pressure to create a good first impression, but it
seems that businesses need to feel a bit of that pressure as well," said Mark Martin,Human
Resources Director atT-Mobile UK. "Candidates are beginning to place a company's
culture and values at the top of their agenda, so businesses need to think about how these
are expressed in an interview situation - or their reputation and brand could be on the line."

Activity 3
Read through the whole article. Match each of these headings (a-e) to a paragraph
(1-5).
a) Businesses should think more about the first impressions that they create
b) Job candidates' bad first impressions of potential employers
c) One candidate's bad experiences
d) Particular complaints about job interviews
e) What people expect at interviews, and what many actually get

Activity 4
Relate what these interviewees said with the complaints in paragraphs 1 and 2.
a) 'The guy looked as though he hadn't shaved for a week.'
b) 'He started slurring his words.'
c) 'She didn't really know anything about the job.'
d) 'They asked me, an experienced female executive, if I'd be willing to make tea for the
boss!'
e) 'I was talking about my previous job in IT, and suddenly he asked me which football
team I support.'
f) 'It was crowded, and I couldn't hear a word he was saying.'
g) 'They didn't let me finish my sentences when I was speaking.'

Activity 5
Decide whether these statements about paragraphs 3 and 4 are true or false.
The survey ...
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a) was carried out by Gallup.
b) covered more than 2,000 people.
c) found that interviewees were only interested in their first job in the organisation, not
their later career there.
d) found that 40 per cent of those surveyed said that the questions at the job interview had
nothing to do with the job.
e) found that about 33 per cent of those surveyed thought that the job interviewer had not
prepared properly for the interview.
f) found that nearly a third of those who had had a bad experience did not hear anything
again from the company.

Activity 6
Complete this table with words from paragraphs 3 and 4 and related words.
Verb Noun
Survey …………………1
………………..2 applicant, .......... 3
employ employment,.......... 4, .......... 5…………..
expect ……………….6
interview …………..7,……………….8,………………..9
.........……………….. 10 encounter

Activity 7
Match the nouns in activity 6 to these definitions.
a) an informal meeting, often between two or just a few people
b) an organisation that gives people jobs
c) someone who asks for a job
d) an occasion when someone is asked questions to see if they are suitable for a job
e) the person who is asked the questions
f) the person who asks the questions
g) someone who works for an organisation
h) the act of asking for a job
i) the process of asking people about their opinions and publishing the results
j) what you think will happen

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Activity 8
Choose the best alternative (a, b or c) to complete these statements to reflect how the
expressionsin italic are used in paragraphs 4 and 5.
1. If you are disappointed, you feel unhappy because something you ...
a) expected did not happen.
b) expected did happen.
c) did not expect happened.

2. If you turn an offer down, you ...

a) accept it.
b) think about it.
c) refuse it.

3. If you feel under pressure to do something, you feel ...

a) pleased to do it.
b) obliged to do it.
c) worried about doing it.

4. A company's values are ...

a) its profits in the previous year.
b) its physical assets.
c) the ideas, ways of behaving, etc. that it thinks are important.

5. If something is at the top of your agenda, it is the thing ...

a) that you think is most important.
b) that is the most urgent.
c) in your diary that you have to do next.

6. A company's reputation is people's ...

a) good opinion of it.
b) opinion of it, whether good or bad.
c) bad opinion of it.

7. If something such as your reputation is on the line, it is ...

a) unchangeable.
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b) at risk.
c) unpardonable.

Activity 9
Discussion
Make a list of five key pieces of advice for each of a) interviewers, and b) interviewees in
your country.

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UNIT 2: TRAINING
READING 1
Activity 1: Discussion
“It’s all to do with the training: you can do a lot if you’re properly trained.” Elizabeth II,
British monarch

Activity 2: Useful Vocabulary

Word/Phrase Part of speech Definition and Example

sledge-hammer

demolish

municipal

stand

embellish

speak volumes

connect the dots

turbulent

daunting

volatile

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deploy

rejig

refine

confer

pejorative

downturn

Activity 3
Read the anecdote below about the Chinese fridge-maker Haier and answer these
questions.
1 What lesson did the new boss want his employees to learn?
2 How would you react if a manager at your organisation did something similar?

Creative destruction
by Ben McLannahan
Call it the legend of the sledge-hammer. In 1985, the Qingdao Refrigerator Factory,
a small enterprise in China’s Shandong province, was in trouble: sales were slipping,
customer complaints were high and rising.
The new boss, Zhang Ruimin, a 36-year-old economist dispatched from the
municipal government, decided to take a stand. Lining up 76 fridges found to be defective,
he demolished one with a sledgehammer, then ordered the shocked staff to destroy the rest.
The tale has probably been embellished in the telling, but it speaks volumes of Mr Zhang’s
determination. A quarter of a century on, the Chairman and CEO has transformed the
biggest fridge-maker in Shandong into the biggest fridge-maker in the world. Along the
way, he has broadened the portfolio: Haier sells more domestic appliances than any
company in 19 product categories in China, and is the world’s fourth-largest white- goods
group by sales.

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Activity 4: Read the article below about Haier and discuss these questions.
1. What is Haier’s approach to executive education?
2. What are the benefits of this approach?

Training leaders to connect the dots

by Don Sull

Firms navigating through turbulent markets face many challenges. One of the most
daunting, however, is how to develop their executives to manage effectively the range of
diverse threats and opportunities that volatile markets generate. And how to provide this
executive education in a way that offers good value for money and time.
The Chinese appliance maker Haier has risen from a nearly bankrupt collective
enterprise 25 years ago to one of the most successful companies in China. Haier’s leaders
have done many things well, among them setting up a productive system of formal
executive education designed to produce versatile general managers that Haier can deploy
against a range of possible opportunities or threats.
When I visited Haier’s headquarters in Qingdao a few years ago, I interviewed the
faculty that ran their training centre, as well as many executives who participated in the
company’s programmes. Every Saturday morning, all Haier’s senior executives based in
China (totalling more than 70) attend a weekly training session. What training, you may
ask, could possibly justify half a day of Haier’s 70 most senior leaders every week?
Executives bring current problems or opportunities to these sessions and work in
teams of six to eight to discuss their individual challenges, explore possible solutions and
discuss how best to implement proposed changes. Faculty mixes executives from different
functions, business units and provinces to increase diversity of view points and
periodically rejigs the teams to keep them fresh. During the week, executives experiment
with proposed solutions and report results back to their team-mates in later sessions,
discuss what worked and did not and explore ways to refine their actions.
This approach to executive education confers several benefits. First, it enables
managers to understand interactions between various parts of the organisation and spot
opportunities for productive collaboration. Second, ongoing exposure to the issues faced
by different parts of the business helps executives to connect the dots to understand Haier’s
situation as a whole, rather than looking at the market through the window of their own
silo. Third, this approach builds general management skills by helping executives hone the
skills to recognise and deal with a range of challenges.
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 These courses are anything but ‘academic’, in the pejorative sense of ‘divorced
from practice’. Faculty coaches provide tools and functional training closely linked to the
challenges and opportunities at hand. They also help the executives refine their action plan,
devise practical ways to track progress and facilitate mid-course correction.
A downturn provides an ideal opportunity for companies to rethink how they can
get the most value for their investment in executive development.

Activity 5: Complete these summary sentences. Read the article again if necessary.
1. Haier’s executive education involves training general managers to deal with ...
………………………………………………………………………………………………..
2. The writer of the article interviewed ...
………………………………………………………………………………………………..
3. More than 70 of Haier’s senior managers take part...
………………………………………………………………………………………………..
4. Executives on the programme discuss possible solutions to problems and then ...
………………………………………………………………………………………………..
5. Executive teams are mixed up regularly on the course to ...
………………………………………………………………………………………………..
6. Two of the main outcomes are that managers can better understand ...
………………………………………………………………………………………………..
7. Participants become more versatile as they learn to face different challenges ...
………………………………………………………………………………………………..
8. The coaches think of ways to check progress; they provide correction and ...
………………………………………………………………………………………………..

Activity 6: Match these words or phrases in italic from the article (1-10) to the correct
definition (a-j).
1 periodically rejigs the teams a) understanding something only from your
(lines 45-46) own position and not that of others
2 confers several benefits (line 54) b) record the development of something or
3 spot opportunities (lines 57-58) someone over time
4 ongoing exposure to the issues c) chance to experience new ideas and ways
(lines 59-60) of looking at things
d) arranges in a different way
5 connect the dots (tines 61-62) ... e) too theoretical
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6 looking ... through the window f ) brings/offers
of their own silo(lines 63-65) g) notice something, especially when it is
difficult to see
7 helping executives hone the skills (line 67) h) with a negative meaning
8 in the pejorative sense(line 71) i) improve/refine
9 divorced from practice(line 72) j) realise that something is related to
10 track progress (line 78) something else

Activity 7: Discuss these questions.

1. How could you adapt Haier’s approach to training to make it work in your organisation?
What issues would you have to overcome?
2. How can colleagues learn from their team-mates rather than relying on a trainer?

Activity 8:
Why is the ability to emphasise important in business communication?
Find examples in the article for each of these techniques.
1 Using lists of three
2 Using superlative forms
3 Using two contrasting ideas
4 Using interesting or extreme adjectives
5 Emphasising a negative statement

READING 2
Activity 1: Discussion
How are senior civil servants recruited and trained in your country?
Activity 2: Useful vocabulary
Part of Definition and Example
Words/Phrase
speech
bureaucracy

conjure up

red tape

overturn

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ethics

pursuit

tailored

reform

fabric

align

genesis

rank-and-file

comprise

Read this article from the Financial Times by Michael Bleby and do the exercises that
follow.

Ivory Coast turns to HEC business school

Michael Bleby
1. The image of bureaucracy in the developing world conjures up pictures of red tape
and demotivated, uncaring officials. But Charles KoffiDiby, Economy and Finance
Minister for Ivory Coast, is working to overturn that image. "We aim to strengthen ethics,
put in place a customer-oriented administration and put the human being back into the
heart of the administrative system," he says. "We would like to have a public
administration as competitive as the private sector."
2. In pursuit of this, MrDiby has introduced a corporate training programme for the
8,400 public servants in his Ministry of Economy and Finance. The tailored course, run
by HEC School of Management, Paris, is part of a wider programme of change that
MrDiby is promoting within his department. He hopes the HEC course will enable
managers to bring about much-needed reforms.
3. Roger Dault, an affiliate professor at HEC who designed and runs the programme,
explains where the weaknesses lie. 'These people need to strengthen their managerial

16
competencies in different areas, like how to set up a strategy, how to implement it within
the fabric of the ministry as an organisation and how to align everybody behind this
strategy."
4. The programme had its genesis in 2007, when MrDiby, who has written a book on
public-sector management in Africa, met staff from HEC. "He told us: 'I want to have real
managers … people able to run an efficient administration,"' says Professor Dault. "He
said: 'Our citizens have needs and demands. We have to understand these needs and
demands and try to answer in the best possible way. I want an administration taking care of
its citizens and taking care of companies."' Professor Dault says MrDibyrealised that
taking care of industry and investors would be another factor of differentiation for Ivory
Coast.
5. The programme consists of two courses for executive and middle managers and a
shorter version for lower-level staff. The 10-day programme for executives, run over 10
months, studies strategy and implementation, leadership, people management, ethics,
customer needs, and change management.
6. Participants also take part in a group project. HEC conducts 10 workshops for groups of
20 executives at a time, meaning up to 200 are trained in a year. A similar course trains
middle managers in similar numbers, with more emphasis on operations. At the third level,
rank-and-file staff take part in one-day "mega-workshops" comprising 20 tables of 10
people. By conducting discussions on customer needs, followed by ethics, they encourage
officials to respond to the changes being introduced by their managers.

Activity 3
Choose the correct alternative (a, b or c) to replace the expressions in italic from
paragraphs 1 and 2, keeping the closest meaning.
1. The image of bureaucracy in the developing world …
a) picture b) reputation c) icon

2. ... conjures up pictures of red tape and ...

a) evokes b) invokes c) provokes

3. ... demotivated, uncaring officials.

a) unmotivated b) disabused c) disinterested

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4. But Charles KoffiDiby, Economy and Finance Minister for Ivory Coast, is working to
overturn that image.
a) dismantle b) abolish c) change

5. 'We aim to strengthen ethics, .. .'

a) power b) reinforce c) robust

6. In pursuit of this, MrDiby has introduced a corporate training program..

a) To finalise this
b) To action this
c) To achieve this

7. The tailored course, run by HEC School of Management, Paris, is part of a wider
program of change that MrIJiby is promoting within his department.
a) specially cut
b) specially designed
c) specially conceived

Activity 4: Decide whether these statements about paragraph 3 are true or false.
Roger Dault ...
a) wrote the programme for Ivory Coast civil servants.
b) thinks that managerial skills of civil servants in Ivory Coast need to be improved.
c) thinks that strategy should be decided by business school professors.
d) believes that putting strategy into action should be part of the course.
e) thinks that strategy can be applied without involving low-ranking officials.

Activity 5
Find the five groups of people/organizations mentioned in paragraph 4. Which groups are
referred to by more than one expression?

Activity 6 :Match these areas mentioned in paragraph 5 (1-6) to a related idea (a-f).
1. strategy formulation
2. strategy implementation
3. leadership/people management
4. ethics
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5. customer needs
6. change management
a) Asking citizens what they want
b) Behaving in a moral way
c) Inspiring civil servants to work to the best of their ability
d) Persuading people to do things in new ways
e) Sitting down to discuss goals over the next 10 or 20 years
f) Thinking about how the grand plan can be put into practice

Activity 7
In paragraph 6, find
a) a verb (used twice here) that can also be used to talk about leading musicians.
b) a prefix that means 'very big'.
c) a noun that can also refer to medical procedures.
d) an adjectival expression used to refer to the ordinary members of an organisation.
e) a noun that can also refer to a place where things are made on a small scale.
f) a verb used to talk about reacting to events.
g) a verb (used in its -ing form here) meaning 'contain'.

Activity 8: Discussion
Imagine that you are Head of Training for your organisation, or one you would like to
work for. Give the outlines of an ideal management course that you would like to run for
its managers, using professors from a top management school.

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UNIT 3: ENERGY
READING 1: THE DANGER OF LOSING TOUCH WITH REALITY

Activity 1: Discuss these statements about energy, deciding whether each one is True
(T), False (F) or you don’t know (DK). Give reasons for your answers.
1. A carbon tax on industry could help to reduce greenhouse gas emissions.
2. Changing to a low-carbon world can be achieved quite quickly.
3. Rapid growth of the world’s population will soon increase demand for energy.
4. Most forms of alternative energy are easier to transport, store and use than oil and gas.
5. Private companies need government support to make technological advances.
6. Oil and gas prices will increase in the future.

Activity 2: Useful Vocabulary

Word/Phrase Part of Definition and Example

speech

curb

impose

concrete

die-hard

wear off

feasible

stifle

finite

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Activity 3: Read the article and, in pairs, compare your answers to Activity 1 with Helge
Lund’s views.

The danger of losing touch with reality

Ed Crooks

Politicians often underestimate the massive challenge of cutting greenhouse gas emissions by
moving away from fossil fuels, according to Helge Lund, Chief Executive of StatoilHydro,
Norway’s national oil and gas company, who is an adviser to the United Nations Secretary-
General on energy.
Mr Lund is far from the stereotype of the die-hard oilman. He believes it is important to
engage with the debate over climate change and is the only oil company representative on the
group advising the UN Secretary-General, on energy.
Norway has a good record for curbing greenhouse gas emissions from its oil industry,
having been one of the first countries to impose a carbon tax, in 1991. Statoil is a pioneer of
storing carbon dioxide underground, with projects in Norway and Algeria.
Mr Lund accepts that, in the future, his customers will use less of the oil and gas that his
company produces. Yet even he is concerned that politicians are in danger of losing touch
with reality in their push for a low-carbon world. Weaning the world off oil and gas, he says,
will be harder than many people realize. ‘Governments are moving away from the energy
source that our entire civilisation is built on: hydrocarbons. That is not an easy task,’ he says.
‘It is very important that the debate is based on energy realities.’
The first of those realities is demography. By 2050, the world’s population is set to grow to 9
billion, from about 6.8 billion today, while economic development lifts hundreds of millions
out of poverty, enabling them to buy cars and fridges and air conditioning. That creates
massive upward pressure on global energy demand which, given ‘business as usual’ policies,
will rise by 45 per cent by 2030, according to the International Energy Agency, the rich
countries’ watchdog.
The second is the effectiveness of hydrocarbons — oil and gas - as energy sources that can be
easily extracted, transported, stored and used. Few of today’s alternatives offer anything like
as attractive a combination of characteristics. Mr. Lund’s conclusion: ‘You can see that
planning to move away quickly from hydrocarbons is unrealistic.’
He does not deny the science of climate change, and says there is an ‘urgent’ need to respond
to it. But he does want to stop responses that he thinks will be counter-productive. ‘The
debate is sometimes too simplistic, and overstates the opportunity for quickly changing to a
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low-carbon economy,’ he says. ‘If we start the discussion on an unrealistic basis, we are less
likely to make any real progress.’ The danger he highlights is of politically driven support for
particular technologies, which he argues will stifle innovation.
Some people seem to believe that technology can be decided politically: it cannot,’ he says.
‘Technology advances best when you have competitive companies working on concrete
projects.’ That means setting a price for carbon, whether through a carbon tax or, as seems
more politically feasible, an emissions trading scheme, and letting industry respond freely to
that price to come up with profitable solutions.
‘Oil and gas are finite resources, and we should expect that over time they will become more
expensive, so we should use them more carefully,’ Mr Lund says. ‘We are going to be telling
our customers to use less of the products that we make.’
If Mr Lund is right about the transition being slow, however, there loo is still plenty of profit
to be made from Statoil’s traditional business. Its gas reserves in Norway and around the
world can also play an important role as a ‘transition fuel', providing a lower-carbon
alternative to coal-fired power generation while other forms of energy are built up.

Activity 4: Find the words or phrases in the article that are similar to or mean the
following.

1. changing, especially in a way that improves a situation (paragraphs 1 and 4)

2. opposing change and refusing to accept new ideas (paragraph 2)

3. get involved in (paragraph 2)

4. controlling or limiting something in order to prevent it from having a harmful effect

(paragraph 3)

5. gradually stopping someone from doing something they do habitually (paragraph 4)

6. ready to (paragraph 5)

7. organisation responsible for making sure that companies do not do anything illegal or
harmful (paragraph 5)

8. say that something is not true (paragraph 7)

9. draws people’s attention to something by making it easily visible (paragraph 7)

10. stop something from happening or developing (paragraph 7)

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11. establishing (paragraph 8)

12. think of an idea, answer, etc. (paragraph 8)

Activity 5: Discuss these questions.

1. In what ways are Helge Lund and Statoil both pioneers?

2. In what way does Helge Lund think government intervention in the energy industry is
positive? In what way does he think it is negative? Do you agree?

3. In what ways can the pressure on global energy demand be curbed? Which do you favour?

4. Do you think energy companies should be in private or public hands? What are your
reasons?

Activity 6: Look at the nouns and articles in bold in the article. Why do we use the
indefinite, definite or zero articles in each case?

Activity 7: Fill in the blanks with the correct prepositions.

1. Helge Lund is an adviser ………. the UN Secretary-General ………… energy.

2. It is important to engage …………… the debate …………. climate change.

3. Mr. Lund is concerned that politicians are ……………. danger …………. losing touch
………… reality in their push ……. a low-carbon world.

4. The danger he highlights is ………. politically driven support …………. particular

technologies.

5. Global energy demand will rise ………. 45% ………. 2030.

23
READING 2: ALTERNATIVE ENERGY

Activity 1: Name as many sources of energy as you can think of.

…………………………………………………………………………………………………

…………………………………………………………………………………………………

Activity 2: Useful Vocabulary

Part of
Word/Phrase Definition and Example
speech

replete

in vogue

dwarf

eclipse

gigantic

Activity 3: Read this article by Hal Weitzman and do the exercises that follow.

Wind of change sparks US renewables revival

Hal Weitzman

The history of the US is replete with images of extravagant fossil fuel consumption:
smoke billowing from gleaming trains; long, sleek, gas-guzzling cars; gigantic refineries
endlessly pumping out plumes of dirty air. But the reputation is somewhat misleading. For
much of the country's history, renewable energy played a far more central role than it does
today.

By the early 1900s, hydroelectric power supplied more than 40 per cent of US
electricity needs, and by the 1940s, hydropower provided about 75 per cent of all the
24
electricity consumed in western and Pacific northwestern states. Fossil fuel consumption,
however, rapidly eclipsed hydro, and in recent years environmental criticisms of the damage
dams can have on aquatic ecosystems led to the decommissioning of some plants.

Nowadays, hydroelectric generation supplies only a small fraction of the US's

electricity. However, its history goes to show that the country was not always the great global
polluter it is today. And as the US moves to reduce its dependence on carbon fuels, alternative
energy sources are back in vogue.

In fact, renewable energy already plays a relatively significant role in US electricity

production. Discounting hydroelectricity, the US is the world's biggest consumer of
renewable energy for electricity - consuming twice as much as Germany and three times as
much as Japan. Renewable energy, including hydro, accounted for more than 7 per cent of the
US's total energy consumption in 2008, according to the US Department of Energy. Although
that is still dwarfed by energy from petroleum, natural gas and coal, alternative energy
sources are slowly but surely taking a bigger share of the country's energy use: in 2004,
renewable energy's share of total US energy consumption stood at 6 per cent; and renewable
energy consumption grew by 7 per cent between 2007 and 2008, despite a 2-per-cent decline
in total US energy consumption.

At 7 per cent of the total, alternative energy sources are rivalling nuclear power's 9-
per-cent contribution to the US's energy make-up. Although hydroelectricity remains by far
the largest source of renewable electricity in the US, the real star of the renewable energy
scene in recent years has been wind power. The sector has grown strongly in recent years.
Wind power now provides 1.3 per cent of US total electricity generation, up from 0.4 per cent
in 2004. Last year, the US overtook Germany as the world's biggest producer of power from
wind.

Activity 4: Find adjectives in paragraphs 1 and 2 that mean the following.

a) excessive

b) using a lot of petrol

c) very large

d) not giving a true idea about something

e) able to be used again

25
f) relating to power produced by water

g) relating to nature, natural resources, etc.

h) relating to water

Activity 5: Decide whether these statements about paragraphs 1 and 2 are true or false.

In thinking about the US, …

a) people imagine that fossil fuels have always been the main source of energy.

b) renewable energy has never played a big part.

c) hydroelectricity provided nearly half of energy in about 1910.

d) hydroelectricity provided three-quarters of energy in the US in the 1940s.

e) hydroelectric plants were closed because they were no longer economical.

f) fuels like oil and coal overtook hydroelectric energy.

Activity 6: Choose the alternative (a, b or c) that can replace the expression in italic
from paragraphs 4 and 5.

1. In fact, renewable energy already plays a relatively significant role in US electricity

production.

a) main b) principle c) important

2. Discounting hydroelectricity, the US is the world's biggest consumer of renewable energy

for electricity - consuming twice as much as Germany and three times as much as Japan.

a) Reducing b) Apart from c) Selling

3. Renewable energy, including hydro, accounted for more than 7 per cent of the US's total
energy consumption in 2008, according to the US Department of Energy.

a) represented b) audited c) balanced

26
4. Although that is still dwarfed by energy from petroleum, natural gas, and coal, alternative
energy sources are slowly but surely taking a bigger share of the country's energy use: …

a) very little in relation to

b) a lot in relation to

c) average in relation to

5. ... in 2004, renewable energy's share of total US energy consumption stood at 6 percent.

a) fell b) was c) rose

6. ... and renewable energy consumption grew by 7 percent between 2007 and 2008, despite a
2-per-cent…

a) although b) however c) in spite of

7. ... decline in total US energy consumption.

a) leveling off b) drop c) plummet

Activity 7: Look through the whole article and find what these percentages relate to.

a) 6 per cent

b) 7 per cent

c) 2 per cent

d) 9 per cent

e) 1.3 per cent

f) 0.4 per cent

27
Activity 8: Use expressions from paragraph 6 to answer these questions about energy in
the US, using the number of words shown.

a) Is hydroelectricity still important as a source of renewable energy?

Yes, in relation to this kind of energy, it's still ... (5 words)

b) Is alternative energy almost as important as nuclear energy in the US?

Yes, alternative energy ... (4 words)

c) Has wind power in the US become more important than in Germany?

Yes, the US ... (3 words)

d) Has alternative energy developed fast over the last few years?

Yes, it ... (3 words)

3) Does wind power provide more that 1 per cent of electricity in the US?

Yes, it provided 1.3 per cent of total … (2 words)

f) Are alternative energy and nuclear energy about as important as each other?

Yes, they each make a similar ... (1 word)

Activity 9: Answer the questions.

1. Did the information in the article about alternative energy in the US surprise you? If so, in
what ways?

2. Do some research on the Internet into the contributions made in your country by the
different forms of energy mentioned in the article.

28
UNIT 4: MARKETING

READING 1: Is the customer always right? Yes, she is. / What women really

want!
Activity 1: Discussion
Discuss the following questions:
- Is the customer always right?
- What do women really want?

Activity 2: Useful Vocabulary

Word/ Part of
Definition and Example
Phrase Speech

predominantl
y

child-minding

strive

uber-

comprise

appeal

subtle

viral
marketing

hook

29
fare

stark

contemporary

Article 1

Is the customer always right? Yes, she is.

by Jonathan Birchall
Women want more is the latest title from Michael Silverstein, a senior partner at
Boston Consulting Group. According to Silverstein and his BCG co-author Kate
Sayre, women control 72 per cent of purchasing and consumer spending in the US and
about $20,000bn of consumer spending globally. And the earnings gap with men is
expected to narrow further as the number of women being educated grows at a faster
rate than men.
Many retailers and consumer-goods companies already theoretically
acknowledge that women are in charge of shopping and households: executives at
Wal-Mart, Tesco and Procter & Gamble talk about customers as ‘she’, rather than
‘he’. But the top management ranks of the consumer industry remain predomi nantly
male, even amid signs that some companies have worked out where the money is.
Ikea, the Swedish home furnishing retailer, provides a child-minding room. Best Buy,
which is a seller of electronic toys for children, has beenpromoting more female staff
and trying to make stores more appealing to women and girls. Home Depot, the US
home improvement retailer, also seems to agree. As it strives to increase sales, the
uber-male DIY store has launched a range of home products by a woman designer.
Silverstein and Sayre offer an ambitious and systematic view of the
opportunities, based on a market study of 12,000 women in 21 coun tries from the US
and Sweden to Saudi Arabia via China, Mexico and India. The research also asked the
open question of what a ‘dream day’ wouldcomprise, delivering some insight into the
30
 needs of female consumers.
Some interesting statistics emerge. ‘Demands on time’ is the top challenge for
47 percent of respondents; 72 percent say their mother is the dominant person in their
lives; 42 percent are made extremely happy by pets but only 27 percent by sex.
Overall, the book argues that consumer companies, still predomi nantly run by men,
need to listen to female customers and that politicians might be well served by
listening too.

Article 2

What women really want!

by Robert Craven, Kiki Maurey, and John Davis
It is time to design products and marketing campaigns that actually appeal to the
buying needs and habits of women. Women do buy differently from men _ they like to
research more and are less likely to be influenced by ads. So, one lesson is that less direct/
print/traditional advertising will be effective and subtler ways of communicating, such as
word-of-mouth marketing and viral marketing, might work.
In the States, women are dramatically changing how products are designed and
marketed. It is only a question of time before this theme reaches across the Atlantic. In 2001,
3.6% of all new products were specifically tailored to women. That number more than
doubled to 7.9% by 2005, according to Datamonitor’sProductscan Online. Some were just a
marketing hook to target women, but others fare better.
In 2006,80% of women planned on doing some home-improvement project, and 75%
of them did it themselves. Barbara K’s 30-piece tool kit is designed to help. These tools are
not only better looking but are also made for a woman’s hand and strength, and weigh a little
less than regular tools.
Harley-Davidson, long a symbol of male pride, has added a section on its website
dedicated to women motorcyclists, with tips on how to ride a bike safely with the right gear.
Women now buy 10% of all Harleys sold, which is a stark contrast to a mere 2% in 1985.
Barclays’ market research suggests that the majority of women do not want woman-
specific products.Female business owners have a continued desire to be treated as equals
with their male contemporaries. Marketing Director at Barclays Local Business, John Davis,
comments: ‘We know that women small business customers are less risky and more
profitable for us, so it makes business sense to attract women to buy from us. We do put
effort into communicating specifically with women. Examples are sponsoring “Women In

31
Business Awards” and running marketing seminars. What we do not do is provide specific
financial products aimed at women only; our range of products has been designed to be
flexible enough to accommodate the individual requirements of each customer.’
from Critical Eye

Activity 3: Work in pairs. Student A, read Article 1, and Student B, read Article
2. Then discuss these questions and compare your answers with the information
from both articles.
1. What percentage of consumer spending would you say is controlled by women?
2. Do you think the difference in salaries between men and women will narrow or widen?
3. Which retail sectors would you consider traditionally ‘male’?
4. Why might a business run by a woman be more/less risky than one run by a man?
5. Can you name two companies that have successfully marketed their products for women?

Activity 4: Complete these marketing expressions from both articles

Article 1
1. c________ spending
2. make store more a_________ to women
3. l_________ a range of home products
4. based on a market s____
Article 2
5. women are less likely to be i__________ by a__
6. ways of communicating such as w___-of-m____ marketing and v___ marketing
7. a marketing h___ to t____women
8. accommodate the i________ r___________ of each customer

Activity 5: Identify four examples of defining and/or non-defining clauses in the

articles. When do we use these kinds of clauses?
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
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32
Activity 6: What are the missing word(s) in these sentences from the articles? Why
have they been left out?
1. Women want more is the latest title from Michael Silverstein, ________ a senior
partner at Boston Consulting Group. (Article 1)

2. … the number of women ______________ being educated grows at a faster rate than
men. (Articles 1)

3. Silverstein and Sayre offer an ambitious and systematic view of the opportunities,
_____________ based on a study of 12,000 women in 21 countries … (Articles 1)

4. …the book argues that consumers companies, __________ still predominantly run by
men, need to listen to female customers … (Articles 1)

5. Harley-Davidson, _______ _ long _____ a symbol of male pride, has added a section
on its website ______________ dedicated to women motorcyclists … (Articles 2)

6. Women now buy 10 per cent of all Harleys _______________ sold … (Articles 2)

7. What we do not do is provide specific financial products _______________ aimed at

women only …(Articles 2)

READING 2: TARGETED MARKETING

Activity 1: Discussion
With the growth of the Internet, how long do you think newspapers will last as an
advertising medium in your country?

Activity 2: Useful Vocabulary

Part
Word/ of
Definition and Example
Phrase Speec
h

trendsetter

tap

33
misperceptio
n

Activity 3: Read this article from the Financial Times by Matthew Garrahan and do the
exercises that follow.

MARKETING TO MINORITIES
Matthew Garrahan

Marketing was fairly straightforward when newspapers and television were the only
media that brands much cared about. The Internet offers plenty of challenges for advertisers
but has also made it easier for companies to target specific ethnic and demographic groups.
For UrbanAdserve, a New York digital marketing agency, tailored online campaigns, e-mail
newsletters, and social media websites are the means by which brands can reach influential
Latino, African American, and Asian consumers.

The company focuses on “urban trendsetters”- predominantly affluent black and English-
speaking Latino consumers in the top 10 US metropolitan markets – running advertisers’
banners everywhere from nightclubs and dating websites to career and parenting sites. Staffed
and owned by five women, the agency has built a network of 300 digital-publishing partners;
websites aimed at Latino men, for example, or online TV shows targeted at African American
women.

When a client such as Ford or Procter & Gamble wants to reach one of these groups,
UrbanAdserve distributes the campaign to the desired audience, says Sheila Marmon, co-
founder. “The US multicultural market has $2.2 trillion in buying power.” she adds, pointing
to research from the World Bank and University of Georgia’s Selig Center. “It’s the largest
domestic market, but it hasn’t been tapped into the highest potential.”

The multicultural market is sophisticated, says Ms. Marmon, a former investment banker.
“There is a misperception that people of color are not on the Web, but we show our clients
that they are.” Internet penetration among university-educated black and Latino people is as
high as it is among whites, at about 90 per cent, while a Pew Center report shows that more
blacks and Latinos use the Web via a handheld device than whites (48 per cent and 47 per
cent respectively, compared with 28 per cent).

34
 UrbanAdserve recently secured a digital campaign with Chanel, the first time the fashion
brand has targeted the multicultural market online. The agency is distributing the campaign
for Chanel’s new men’s fragrance alongside a series of profiles it has complies of black and
Hispanic rising stars, including Julian Castro, the mayor of San Antonio and Laz Alonzo, an
actor who appeared in Avatar.

Demographic trends are on the side of companies targeting the multicultural market. In
California, the biggest media market in the US, Latinos are forecast to become the largest
racial or ethnic group by 2020 and will constitute a majority by 2050, according to the Public
Policy Institute of California.

Activity 4: Look through the whole article and find …

a) a New York digital-marketing agency. ___________________

b) its co-founder. ___________________
c) three of its clients. ___________________
d) three consumer groups and a sub-group within one of these. ___________________
e) three ways in which they can be reached. ____________________
f) two Hispanic celebrities. ____________________
g) four bodies that do research into population and marketing trends. _______________
h) four types of websites. ____________________

Activity 5: Find adjectives in paragraphs 1 and 2 that mean the following in the context
of the article.

a) relating to the Internet ___________________

b) relating to computers and/or the Internet ___________________
c) relating to a particular race ___________________
d) relating to a particular part of the population ___________________
e) prosperous ___________________
f) living in the cities ___________________
g) designed for a particular audience __________________
h) easy and simple ___________________

35
Activity 6: Match the expression (1-7) from paragraphs 2, 3 and 4 to their definitions (a-
g)

1 ___ desired audience a. consumers un the US

b. consumers who live in cities and star using

2 ___ domestic market
particular products before other consumers
3 ___ Internet penetration
do

4 ___ Latino consumers c. people living in very large cities

5 ___ multicultural market d. people making up different ethnic groups

e. people of Central and South American origin

6 ___ metropolitan markets
f. the degree to which people us the Internet
7 ___ urban trendsetters
g. the people that advertisers want to reach

Activity 7: Decide whether these statements about expressions in Italic from paragraphs
5 and 6 are true or false.

a) ___ If you secure something, you lose it.

b) ___ If an agency distributes an advertising campaign, the campaign is only run on
TV and in newspaper.
c) ___ If something happens alongside something else, it happens together with it.
d) ___ A demographic trend is a fall in population.
e) ___ If something is forecast, it is predicted.
f) ___ If a particular group constitutes a majority, it is the biggest compared to
others.

Activity 8: Choose the best alternative headline (a, b or c) for the article.

a) Urban trendsetters are the ones to watch

b) Internet marketers ignore ethnic groups at their peril
c) Ford and Procter & Gamble’s Internet marketing campaigns

36
UNIT 5: EMPLOYMENT TRENDS
READING 1
Activity 1: (A and B, page 46, Course Book)
1. How many people do you know that have a ‘job for life’? How many do you know who do
different jobs at the same time?
2. What do you think ‘giganomics’ might be? Read the first two paragraphs of the article to
check your ideas.
.....................................................................................................................................
.....................................................................................................................................

Activity 2: (C, page 46, Course Book)

Discuss these questions.
1. In which fields or sectors would you tend to find portfolio workers?
2. What are the benefits and disadvantages of being a portfolio worker? Discuss with a partner
and report to the group.
.....................................................................................................................................
.....................................................................................................................................
.....................................................................................................................................
.....................................................................................................................................

Activity 3: Useful Vocabulary

Part
Word/ of
Definition and Example
Phrase Speec
h

giganomics

portfolio
worker

dub

37
attest

directorship

lucrative

zero
tolerance

pick-and-mix

Giganomics: And what don’t you do for a living?

by Judith Woods
If you ever meet John Lees at a party, he might talk about being a career coach,
mention that he writes books on business or drop in the fact that he’s also a part-time
Anglican priest. ‘I’ve got a classic portfolio career,’ says Lees, 50. ‘The advantage is that by
working for a variety of employers, no one has complete power over you to switch work on or
off. The drawback is that I have an immensely complicated diary.’

These days, many of us are juggling one-off projects, short-term contracts, and
assorted consultancies in a bid to survive. Job security used to be a given. But growing
numbers of professionals are reinventing themselves by setting up as portfolio workers in a
new employment phenomenon dubbed giganomics. Instead of jobs for life, they rely on a
series of ‘gigs.
38
Former Vanity Fair and New Yorker editor Tina Brown, who coined the term, writes: ‘No one
I know has a job anymore. They’ve got gigs: a bunch of free-floating projects, consultancies
and bits and pieces.’

Tina Brown paints a bleak picture of freelancers’ lives, burdened with all the ‘anxieties,
uncertainties and indignities of gig work’, grafting three times as hard for the same money as
a salaried employee, without any of the benefits, such as sick and holiday pay or a pension.

Nick, 37, a graphic designer based in London, can attest to the stress felt by portfolio workers.
‘I was made redundant two years ago and went freelance,’ he says. ‘I hated it, because I am
terrible at selling myself and I’m not laid-back enough to live with the insecurity of not
knowing where I’ll be in six months. I managed OK, and I earned as much as I had done
previously, but there was a price to pay in terms of sleepless nights.’

Suzy Walton, a former senior civil servant, and mother of four, with a background in central
government, including the Ministry of Defence, has taken up a series of non-executive
directorships. A portfolio career has proved a lucrative alternative to corporate life.

‘I sit on the boards of a military organization Combat Stress, which looks after veterans with
post-traumatic stress disorder, the Internet Watch Foundation, and Birmingham Children’s
Hospital, and a few others,’ says Walton, 45.

Walton admits that none of these roles generates a substantive salary on its own – a FTSE 250
company might pay about £30,000 a year to a non-executive board member – but when
combined, her directorships provide a good income. Just as importantly, she enjoys the
challenges. ‘It’s hard to keep up to speed with the issues in each, but I enjoy doing that. A
portfolio career isn’t for the fainthearted; there’s a zero-tolerance attitude to being late or
missing a commitment. But it’s a fantastic lifestyle.’

Anyone with this pick-and-mix approach to work needs to be excellent at time management.
The upside is the freedom to pick and choose work and to do it at a time that suits. Cary
Cooper, Professor of Organizational Psychology and Health at Lancaster University, says it’s
a classic swings-and-roundabouts scenario. ‘The good news is that you’re supposed to have
control over what work you do. The bad news is that you feel you can’t say no to anything,
‘he says. ‘You should also be able to have a better work-life balance. But the people who
employ you expect you to be on call whenever they want you.’

39
 The creative industries such as advertising, graphic design and the media already rely heavily
on freelancers, as does IT. Many more companies will need portfolio workers in future.
‘There’s going to be much more multiple part-time working,’ says Professor Cooper.
‘Organisations are getting rid of staff, but they will buy back some of them on a portfolio
basis.’

Activity 4: (E, page 47, Course Book)

What do the words and expressions in italic mean? Correct the definitions, according to
the context in the article.

1. ‘These days many of us are juggling one-off projects ...’ (paragraph 2)

happening or done several times, not as part of a regular series

2. ‘... consultancies and bits and pieces.’ (paragraph 3)

various kinds of big things

3. ‘... paints a bleak picture of freelancers’ lives ...’ (paragraph 4)

gives the impression that something is or will be good

4. ‘It’s hard to keep up to speed with the issues ...’ (paragraph 8)

continue to learn about a subject so that you know all the historical facts, etc.

5. ‘A portfolio career isn’t for the fainthearted ...’ (paragraph 8)

used humorously to say something is easy and doesn’t need a lot of effort

6. ‘... it’s a classic swings-and-roundabouts scenario.’ (paragraph 9)

when two choices have more gains than losses so that there’s little difference

Activity 5: (F, page 47, Course Book)

Choose the correct meaning of these words as they are used in the article.

1. drop in a) mention something casually in conversation

40
(paragraph 1) b) visit someone without arranging a particular time

2. juggling a) changing things or arranging them in the way that you want

(paragraph 2) b) trying to fit two or more jobs or activities into your life, expecially with
difficulty

3. bid a) an attempt to achieve or obtain something

(paragraph 2) b) an offer to do work or provide services for a specific price

4. setting up a) starting your own business

(paragraph 2) b) preparing the equipment that will be needed for something

5. gig a) a job, especially one that does not last a long time

(paragraph 2) b) a performance by some musicians or a comedian

6. coin a) make pieces of money from metal

(paragraph 3) b) invent a new word or expression

7. grafting a) working very hard

(paragraph 4) b) getting money by the dishonest use of influence

8. commitment a) hard work and loyalty that you give to a company

(paragraph 8) b) something you have promised you will do, or have to do

Activity 6: (G, page 47, Course Book)

Work in pairs. How would you feel about being a portfolio worker? Use information
from the article and expressions like these.

I am pretty good at selling myself, so I ...

I think there’s a price to pay in terms of ...

I enjoy having the freedom to pick and choose, so I ...

I’m a laid-back sort of person, so I ...

41
Activity 7: (H, page 47, Course Book)

How many examples of the –ing form or the infinitive (with or without to) can you find
in the article? Which forms do we use in these cases?

1. after a preposition

2. after a modal verb

3. as a noun

4. after It + is + adjective

5. to express purpose

6. when we want to avoid repeating the subject + a relative + verb

7. with certain verbs, e.g., decide, expect, be able, afford, etc.

8. after certain expressions, e.g., in a bid, be + adj. + enough, be supposed ...

READING 2: THE FUTURE OF WORK

Activity 1: Discussion

Which will be the boom industries of the future?

Activity 2: Useful Vocabular

Part
of
Word / Phrase Definition and Example
Speec
h

salvation

crop up

42
 obligation

maternity leave

paternity leave

commercialise
commercialisatio
n

erode

think-tank

Activity 3: Read this article from the Financial Timesby Luke Johnson and do the
exercises that follow.

Time to work on the jobs of the future

by Luke Johnson

What the hell are the jobs that everyone is going to be doing in the future? That is the
question that no one seems able to answer. Not many of those in power even appear to be
thinking seriously about it. Yet it is perhaps the most important single issue facing the West:
what are the industries and professions that represent our salvation, and how do we prepare
our citizens for them?

43
 Paying jobs do not just crop up through chance or political dreaming. New jobs in the
private sector that add value generally only arise when there is optimism and new capital
information, in locations that are competitive in terms of costs and skills.

Three main structural trends are apparent in the world of work in the West. First, jobs
are being shipped offshore to lower-cost economics such as China and India. Second, perhaps
more significantly, technological advances mean many sectors such as manufacturing, mining
and agriculture are much more efficient than they used to be, so less labor is required for a
greater output. And third, employing people in countries such as Britain has become much
more expensive: not simply because of wage inflation but other obligations such as increased
holiday, entitlements such as maternity and paternity leave, higher payroll taxes and so on.

The three sectors that I hear about most are healthcare, education, and green energy.
But who is doing the research, who is placing the crucial bets? Poor venture capital returns
mean the asset classes are attracting much less money and talent. This is likely to mean less
innovation and commercialization of new ideas.

There is superficial talk of “green” jobs and clean energy. Perhaps inventions will
emerge to replace fossil fuels and create new industries. But the short-term burden of carbon-
limiting legislation will increase costs and lead to more job losses, as companies shift yet
more production to cheaper places. Service and support professions such as healthcare and
education will no doubt require more people – if we can afford to pay them. Yet even in
growth sectors such as pharmaceuticals and software, our competitive advantages are being
swiftly eroded.

Think-tanks, civil servants, trade associations and business schools should be

combining their intellectual resources to tell us where investors, entrepreneurs and the state
should be directing their energies so as to boost job prospects. Because a nation without
enough real jobs is a miserable place.

Activity 4: Look through the whole article to find the order in which these ideas occur.
Two of the ideas do not occur.

a) What remains of the coal industry will decline even further.

b) Some industries are more productive than before.

44
c) No one in government seems to be thinking about how jobs are to be created in the future.

d) New industries may emerge based on new fuels.

e) Jobs are not created by accident.

f) Healthcare is often cited as an industry of the future.

g) Four types of organisation should pool resources to develop thinking in this area.

h) Companies need tax concessions to encourage them to create jobs.

i) Drug manufacturing is an area where the West is less efficient in relation to other countries
than it was before.

Activity 5: Find expressions in paragraphs 1 and 2 that could be replaced by these

expressions without changing the meaning.

a) in government

b) arguably

c) are the things that will save us

d) occur

e) positive sentiment about the future

f) creation

g) places

Activity 6: Decide whether these statements related to expressions used in paragraph 3

are true or false.

a) You can refer to big changes in the economy as structuralist.

b) If jobs are shipped offshore, they are done on ships going to developing countries.

c) If less labour is required for greater output, there is a fall in productivity.

45
 d) Wage inflation is when workers’ pay rises.

e) Obligations could be replaced by entitlements, entitlements by obligations with no change

of meaning.

f) Payroll taxes are a form of personal income tax.

Activity 7: Match the two parts of these expressions from paragraphs 4, 5 and 6.

1. asset a) jobs

2. clean b) advantages

3. fossil c) fuels

4. competitive d) resources

5. crucial e) classes

6. green f) energy

7. intellectual g) bets

Activity 8: Match each of the expressions in Activity 7 to one of these examples.

a) Coal and oil

b) Different activities in which venture capitalists can invest

c) The ideas produced by think tanks, etc.

d) Jobs making wind turbines

e) The activities of the future that investors decide to back

f) The ability to do or make something more efficiently than others

g) Tidal power

Activity 9: Complete this table with words from paragraphs 4, 5 and 6, and related words.
46
noun verb

boost ____________________ 1

____________________ 2 burden

commercialisation ____________________ 3

____________________ 4 erode

innovation ____________________ 5

legislation ____________________ 6

shift ____________________ 7

Activity 10: Discussion.

Identify a competitive advantage that our country has. Will this advantage increase or
decrease over the next 30 years? Give your reasons.

47
UNIT 6: ETHICS
READING 1: THE CORPORATE CONSCIENCE: SHERRON WATKINS, ENRON
WHISTLEBLOWER/ DRUG WHISTLEBLOWER COLLECTS $24M

Activity 1: What do you think a whistleblower is? Read either of the articles on
the opposite page quickly and choose the correct definition (a, b or c).
a) someone who behaves illegally or immorally in order to get promotion
b) someone who sells company secrets and commercial information to rival
organisations
c) someone who reveals dishonest or illegal practices at the place where they work

Activity 2: Useful Vocabulary

Part
Word / of
Definition and Example
Phrase Speec
h

mired

cross the
line

aggressive
accounting

stumble
across

48
work up

guts

take the
helm

to date

cook the
books

hefty

lavish

fraudulent

off-label

ghostwrite

Article 1

The corporate conscience: Sherron Watkins, Enron

whistleblower
by Lesley Curwen
49
Sherron Watkins, one of the world’s best-known whistleblowers, made global headlines in
2001 for telling her boss, Ken Lay, that Enron was mired in accounting fraud.

Back in 1996, Watkins was working with Andrew Fastow, the Chief Financial Officer later
convicted of fraud, when she began to witness aggressive accounting. ‘I was starting to see
Andy Fastow cross the line,’ she says, claiming he asked her to lie to one of Enron’s partners
about an investment. ‘It should have been a huge warning flag,’ she admits. It merely
prompted her to move to a different part of the empire, Enron International, where she later
became a vice-president.

All this time, Harvard graduate Jeffrey Skilling had been growing in influence at Enron,
reinventing what it did for a living to include power trading, selling retail electricity and even
the provision of broadband internet services. In 2001, he became Chief Executive Officer.
By mid-2001, Watkins was working for Fastow again. This time, she stumbled across
evidence of massive accounting fraud. ‘I thought, I have got to get out of here. I can’t work
for a company that is doing this. I’m gonna work up the guts, if I can, to confront Jeffrey
Skilling on my last day.’ But soon after, Skilling resigned unexpectedly, for what he said
were personal reasons.

So Watkins sent an anonymous memo to the man who’d taken the helm, the founder and
Chairman, Kenneth Lay. Later, she met Lay to convey her fears face to face. Enron began an
inquiry, but it failed to use independent investigators, and her claims were largely dismissed.

Shortly after, Enron, the world’s biggest energy trader and once the seventh-biggest company
in America, filed one of the biggest US bankruptcy cases to date. Thousands of workers lost
their jobs and their pensions invested in its shares, and other investors lost billions of dollars.

Watkins never took her concerns outside the company, to the financial regulator or a third
party. Why not? ‘When a company cooks the books, it rarely has a chance of surviving, but to
do that, it has to come clean itself, to admit its problems and re-state its financials. I felt here
was Enron’s chance to come clean.’ Watkins now gives lectures about corporate ethics.

Article 2

50
 Drug whistleblower collects $24m
by Lloyd de Vries
Pfizer, the world’s biggest pharmaceutical company, has agreed to plead guilty and pay $430
million in fines to settle criminal charges. The settlement includes a $24.6 million payment
for whistleblower David Franklin, the scientist who first uncovered wrongdoing of one of its
subsidiaries and reported the marketing abuses to authorities.

The company acknowledged spending hundreds of thousands of dollars to promote non-

approved uses for the drug Neurontin, in part by paying doctors hefty speakers’ fees and
flying them to lavish resorts as ‘educational’ trips.

“This illegal and fraudulent promotion scheme corrupted the information process relied upon
by doctors in their medical decision-making, thereby putting patients at risk,” said U.S.
Attorney Michael Sullivan.

“We believe we have exposed an illegal practice in the pharmaceutical industry that caused
the Medicaid program—funded jointly by the states and the federal government— to pay tens
of millions of dollars for off-label prescriptions that were not eligible for reimbursement
under the Medicaid program,” said Franklin’s attorney, Thomas Greene.

The case began in 1996, when Franklin filed a whistleblower lawsuit against Parke-Davis and
its parent company Warner-Lambert, alleging it used an illegal marketing plan to drive up
sales of the drug Neurontin in the 1990s. Pfizer bought Warner- Lambert in 2000.

The lawsuit alleged that while Neurontin was approved only as an epilepsy drug, the company
promoted it for relieving pain, headaches, bipolar disorder and other psychiatric illnesses.
While doctors can prescribe drugs for any use, the promotion of drugs for these so-called
“off-label uses” is prohibited by the Food, Drug and Cosmetic Act.

Pfizer said the activity alleged in Franklin’s lawsuit and charged by prosecutors occurred
years before it bought Warner-Lambert. “Pfizer is committed to compliance with all
healthcare laws and to high ethical standards in all aspects of its business practices,” the
company said in a statement.

51
The whistleblower lawsuit alleged that the company’s publicity plan for Neurontin included
paying doctors to put their names on ghost-written articles about Neurontin and to fly them to
lavish resorts. One doctor received almost $308,000 to speak at conferences about the drug.

Activity 3: Student A, read Article 1. Student B, read Article 2. Answer these

questions, then tell each other about your answers.
1 What type of company did the whistleblower work for?
2 What type of wrongdoing did the whistleblower expose, and how?
3 Did the person blow the whistle internally or externally?
4 Do we know if the whistleblower gained financially from the situation?
5 What, if anything, do the two whistleblowers have in common?

Activity 4: Read both articles and find the words or expressions which have a similar
meaning to the following.
Article 1
1 stuck in a bad situation and unable to get out or make progress (paragraph 1)
2 discovered something by chance and unexpectedly (paragraph 4)
3 find the courage (paragraph 4)
4 started being in charge of something such as a business or organisation (paragraph 5)
5 refused to consider someone’s idea, opinion, etc. because you think it is not serious, true,
or important (paragraph 5)
6 dishonestly changes official records and figures in order to steal money or give
people false information (paragraph 7)
7 finally tell the truth about something you have been hiding (paragraph 7)
Article 2
8 to state in a court of law that you are responsible for a crime (paragraph 1)
9 to end an argument or solve a disagreement (paragraph 1)
10 officially gave information to someone in authority (paragraph 1)
11 a very large amount of money paid to a professional person for their work (paragraph 2)
12 repayment of money to someone when their money has been spent (paragraph 4)
13 gave a document to a court of law so that it could be officially recorded and dealt with
(paragraph 5)
14 someone obeys a law, rule, agreement, or demand (paragraph 7)

Activity 5: Read this extract from a discussion between two people, commenting on
52
Article 1. If you had been in Sherron Watkins’s position, would you have done
anything differently?
A: Don’t you think Sherron Watkins should have done something sooner? She herself says
she should’ve seen the warning signs.
B: Maybe it was a case of too little, too late. She could’ve gone outside the company.
But with the benefit of hindsight, it’s easy to criticize.
A: Yes, I would’ve gone to the company’s auditors.
B: I doubt that would’ve helped. The auditors were taken to court after Enron collapsed and
went out of business too.

Activity 6: What language is used in Exercise D to hypothesise about and comment

on the past, to criticise past actions and to express regret?
→ Language reference: modal perfect page 134

Activity 7: Discuss these questions.

1 Sherron Watkins said, ‘It should have been a huge warning flag’ when she first spotted
unethical practices. Why is it sometimes easier to ignore warning signs?
2 Is it a good idea to pay whistleblowers? Why? / Why not?
3 Is anything gained by the actions of whistleblowers in companies?
4 What unethical business practices have you heard about in your country?

READING 2: ETHICAL SUPPLIERS

Activity 1: Discussion
List some of the issues that must be considered in deciding if goods are being produced
ethically.

Activity 2: Useful Vocabulary

Part
Word / of
Definition and Example
Phrase Speec
h

unravel

53
boycott

sanction

permutation

traceability

pressing

exploitation

tipping
point

provenance

54
yarn

patchy

Activity 3: Read this article from the Financial Times by Paul Tyrrell and do the
exercises that follow.

Buyers unravel the ethics behind the label

Paul Tyrrell

If you ever buy an item of clothing from Tesco, the UK supermarket chain, you can be sure it
will not contain any cotton from Uzbekistan. The company decided to boycott Uzbek cotton
following reports of forced and state-sanctioned child labour. "It was an enormously complex
task,” says Alan Wragg, the company’s Clothing Technical Director. "Even the production of
a simple garment such as a T-shirt requires materials to pass through four to seven pairs of
hands, so the number of possible permutations in the supply chain was huge."

Traceability has become an especially pressing issue for the clothing industry in recent years,
as stories of worker exploitation have emerged from the developing world.
However, some supply-chain experts believe all retailers and their suppliers should be
preparing for the sorts of challenge faced by Mr. Wragg. We are approaching a tipping point,
they say, beyond which everyone will want to know the provenance of their products.

At Tesco, Mr. Wragg knew that in order to monitor his supply chain, he first needed to see it
more clearly. "We learned quickly that our supply chain was very complicated and diverse,"
he says. "We knew that Uzbek cotton was taken mainly to Bangladesh, Turkey and China, but
most producers of yarn don't use a single source, they blend cotton from a variety of
55
countries." The quality of raw cotton can vary depending on local factors such as weather
conditions, he explains, so blending prevents inconsistencies in the finished yarn.
.
The solution was provided by Historic Futures. This UK company has developed an online
application called String, which enables users to see at a glance what has happened to a
particular product at every stage in its supply chain. String can capture data about any event
resulting in an output - for example, when raw materials are purchased from a third party,
when production processes are performed on those materials and so on - including
documentary evidence uploaded to the site. If anyone fails to provide such evidence, this is
clearly visible to those further along the supply chain.

"We’re not in the business of guaranteeing the data, we're in the business of automating the
audit process,'' says Tim Wilson, Managing Director. "If you wanted to falsify your data, then
you’d have to get everyone below you in the chain to falsify their data too. It's a tiny problem
compared with the patchy recording of data, which is already commonplace where no such
system exists. We want String to be the Facebook of supply chains."

Activity 4: Look through the whole article to find the name(s) of …

a) a UK supermarket chain
b) its Clothing Technical Director
c) a country that produces cotton
d) three countries that this cotton is taken to
e) a company that provides information on supply chains
f) an Internet application that it has developed
g) the company's Managing Director

Activity 5: Complete the answers to these questions about paragraphs 1 and 2.

a) Do Tesco's clothes contain Uzbek cotton?
No, Tesco has ….... ............ .............
b) Does the Uzbek government allow children to work in cotton production?
Yes, child ............ .............. …….... - .......... .
c) Is it easy to trace where cotton comes from?
No, it's an ........... ............ ..........
d) How many firms does the cotton for T-shirts go through before it reaches Tesco?
56
Between .............. ............... ………….
e) Are there many different routes for T-shirts through the supply chain?
Yes, the number of ............. ............ ……….. ……….
f) Is the supply chain an ethical concern for suppliers and customers?
Yes, ... ....... is an .......... ............. ...........
g) Are workers always treated fairly in the developing world?
No, ………. is an issue.
h) Will the origin of supplies become more and more important?
Yes, interest in the issue is reaching a ……. ………

Activity 6: Choose the correct alternative (a, b or c) to complete these statements about
expressions from paragraphs 3 and 4.
1. Something that is complicated is ………
a) compound. b) complex. c) competent.
2. Things that are diverse are …….
a) different from each other.
b) the same as each other.
c) contradictory to each other.

3. Things that are blended are .........

a) separated from each other.
b) mixed together.
c) sorted out.

4. Inconsistencies are ………

a) deformations.
b) similarities.
c) irregularities.

5. If you see something at a glance, you see it .......

a) clearly. b) immediately. c) in focus.

6. A computer application that captures data …….

a) incorporates it. b) catches it. c) arrests it.

57
7. If a process is performed on a material, it is ……...
a) carried off. b) carried away. c) carried out.

8. Evidence is a way of providing …….

a) proves of something.
b) probes of something.
c) proof of something.

Activity 7: Find one verb and three -ing forms in paragraph 5 used in relation to data.
Complete this table with them and related forms. (Be careful with spelling.)
verb ing-form noun
guarantee 1. 2.
3. 4. 5.
6. 7. 8.
9. recording 10.

Activity 8: Choose the correct alternative (a, b or c) to complete this sentence.

When Tim Wilson says, 'We want String to be the Facebook of supply chains,' he means that
he ...
a) wants it to provide photographs of users, updates about their private lives, give
information on the status of their 'friends', etc.
b) is realistic in thinking that it will be as popular and profitable as Facebook.
c) thinks it can provide information about materials and products in the supply chain
in the same way that Facebook provides information about people.

Activity 9: Look at the headline again and explain the use of unravel in the context of
the article.

Activity 10: Discuss these questions.

1. Would you boycott goods produced in a way you considered unethical? Why? /Why
not?
2. Research on the Internet a website that allows you to trace the provenance of products
and prepare a short report on it. (Hint: Do an Internet search on traceability.)

58
59