Schedule of student’s output №6

Exercises 1. Write essay about your personal opinion for Ford company strategy to improve management functions in the company.

Exercises 2. Write essay about a strong points of this strategy.

 

Exercises 3. Work out your own plan for improving management skills and style in the company you work for (writing task).

a) Elaborate a questionnaire of your own and ask the staff to fill it in.

b) Choose the three best ideas from the questionnaire and add it to your own plan.

c) Develop your own list of recommendations on company current and strategic goals.

Schedule of student’s output № 7

Before reading the text answer the following questions using the active vocabulary.

1. If you invested in a company, and then learned that it had particular activities which you object to, would you take your money out of the company and invest it somewhere else?

2. What sort of activities would you object to?

Ethical Investing Linked to Lifestyle and Image

An ethical investment is one that avoids investments in sectors such as tobacco and arms considered by some to be ethically unsound. There are 30 ethical unit trusts in the UK, worth about £750 million. Some investors also manage their own ethical portfolios. In a study of more than 1,100 ethical investors, economists at the Centre for Economic Psychology at the University of Bath have found that ethical investing correlates with other lifestyle choices. Speaking at the British Association meeting yesterday, Alan Lewis, who led the research, said: ‘Most ethical investors are healthy, educated and caring professional people, middle-aged or older. Hardly any vote for the Conservative.

The paper they read the most is the Guardian. ’ In addition, 16 per cent of those surveyed said they were members of the Labor party. Many were members of charitable organizations such as Amnesty International and Oxfam, a third-world aid charity. There is no obvious gender bias. ‘It appears that this is part of a lifestyle package,’ said Dr Lewis.

As ethical investments frequently underperform other portfolios, most ethical investors seem to be prepared to take a loss to support their moral beliefs. Some 80 per cent would be prepared to take a 2 per cent loss in income per year compared with an ordinary portfolio if their overall return was 8 per cent.

Everything, though, has its price. Some 40 per cent of those surveyed said they would reduce their ethical investments if they were underperforming ordinary investments by 5 per cent. The size of an investor’s portfolio seems to have no influence on this decision.

 

Exercise 1. The first sentence of the article means that ethical investors avoid companies that produce:

a) arms of any kind,

b) certain types of arms.

 

Exercise 2. Which of these statements about typical ethical investors in the UK are true and which false? Correct the false ones.

a) They all vote Labour.

b) They are young and working class.

c) They often read The Times.

d) They are likely to support Amnesty International.

e) There are far more women than men.

 

Exercise 3. ‘… ethical investments frequently underperform other portfolios’ means that in relation to ordinary investments they are:

a) more profitable

b) just as profitable

c) less profitable

 

Exercise 4. Expand on the following subjects.

a) At what point would ethical investors change their investments if they performed much less well?

b) If they have a lot of money invested, is this figure different?

Schedule of student’s output № 8

Before reading the text answer the following questions using the active vocabulary.

a) Do you know of any companies or business people that are famous for their ethical behaviour?

b) Do you admire them for their ethical standards?

c) Do you choose to buy from them because of this?

Being Ethical

Being ethical can be a clever marketing strategy. Increasingly, consumers are influenced by ‘non-commercial’ factors, such as whether a product harms the environment. Firms such as Ben & Jerry’s, an ice cream maker, and Body Shop International, a cosmetics retailer, have strengthened their brands by publicizing their ethical standards. Cummins Engine, a maker of diesel engines, made its products greener while lobbying for stricter pollution laws. But such ethical self-promotion can be dangerous. Body Shop was publicly forced to change a claim that its products were not tested on animals (some of the ingredients in its cosmetics had been tested on animals by other firms in the past). The error led many consumers to question Body Shop’s ethical standards.

Some think that the best way to persuade managers to think more ethically is to take more account of stakeholders. Laura Nash of Boston University’s Institute for the Study of Economic Culture argues that managers should see their role in terms of ‘covenants’ with employees, customers, suppliers and so on. Such covenants should have a single goal: to ensure that a business creates long-term value in a way that is acceptable to all of these ‘stakeholders’.

A manager would view his business in terms of relationships rather than products; and see profit as a result of other goals rather than an objective in itself. Bur such ideas tend to go against shareholder capitalism. The best answers may be simple ones. Ethics rules should be clear (for instance, should an employee pay bribes where this is accepted business practice?) and they should be regularly tested. Some companies are turning to ‘ethical audits’. In its annual report Ben & Jerry’s carries a ‘social performance report’ on the firm’s ethical, environmental and other failings. Carried out by Paul Hawken, a ‘green entrepreneur, the audit has sometimes frustrated Ben Cohen and Jerry Greenfield, the company’s founders. So far, however, they have always published it. That may be why Ben & Jerry’s reputation remains good where others fade.

Exercise 1. Answer the following questions:

a) What do these companies sell? (Ben & Jerry’s, Body Shop, Cummins)

b) Had Body Shop sold products which had been tested on animals? What was the result of its mistake?

c) Some companies like Ben & Jerry’s are starting to use ‘ethical audits’. What adjective normally comes in front of ‘audit’? What does the audit mentioned here cover? Does it only look at positive things?

d) The audit has sometimes ‘frustrated’ Ben Cohen and Jerry Greenfi eld. Do they always like what they fi nd in the audit? Do they refuse to publish it if they don’t like it?

e) Why do Nash’s ideas ‘go against shareholder capitalism’?

f) Ben & Jerry’s reputation remains good where others fade. This means that other companies’ reputations: improve, stay the same, get worse.

Exercise 2. Write essay

A covenant is a kind of promise or agreement. Laura Nash says managers should see ethics in terms of covenants with stakeholders: employees, customers, suppliers and so on. Who could be included in the phrase ‘and so on’?

Exercise 3. Find in the text the adjectives that describe these things:

a) using ethics as a marketing strategy

b) the factors that influence consumers more and more

c) the standards that Ben & Jerry’s and Body Shop have been publicizing Cummins’ products in relation to others

d) ethical self-promotion

e) pollution laws

Exercise 4. Find verbs in the text to complete these defi nitions:

a) If you inform people about something, you ___ it.

b) If a product damages the environment, it ___ it.

c) If you increase the power of something, you ___ it.

d) If you try to get the government to change the law, you ___ the government.