Pass Cambridge BEC higher

1. 高级经贸英语 Pass Cambridge BEC higher English Department, Huzhou Teachers College

2. Corporate Culture

3. Objectives • To enable students to talk about company culture. • To practise reading for specific information.

4. Task and Plan • What’s your idea after reading “A & P” • Warming up introduction. • Reading on page 90

5. Warming-up exercises: • What is culture? Choose the four factors below which you think are the most important in creating a culture. • Climate, institutions, ideas and beliefs, cuisine, language arts, religion, geography, social customs and traditions, historical events, ceremonies and festivals.

6. Do you think cultures are becoming more alike? Is this a good or bad thing? For example, think about: • improved communications • Cheap foreign travel • Global business. • Trading groups ( EU, ASEAN, etc. ) • How important are the following things when doing business in your country? Are they: a) important, b) not important, or c) best avoided? • Exchanging business cards • Shaking hands • Kissing • Socializing with contacts • Small talk before meetings • Accepting interruption • Using first names • Formality (how your dress, how you talk to colleagues, what names you use, etc.) • Punctuality • Humour • Giving presents • Being direct (saying exactly what you think)

7. What shapes company’s culture? • Mission statement. • It clearly explains a company’s goals and focus. The fact that a company has a formal mission statement suggests it is organized and keen on promoting a cohesive attitude within the staff(提倡员工凝聚力). The fact that the mission statement needs to be explicit may suggest there is some diversity of attitudes within the staff. • Organizational hierarchy • Can show how traditional a company is , whether power is centralized and the extent to which employees are empowered. • Company building • Can reflect attitudes to hierarchy and relative importance of staff, e.g. through impressive offices（豪华气派的办公室）, separate floors or separate dining room for senior staff（高层管理人员专用餐厅）. • Dress code • Can influence or reflect the degree of formality in a company.

8. Reading on page 90 • Explanation of the text: • IKEA has a strong and living corporate culture. • IKEA: 由瑞典人Ingvar Kamprad1943年创立的“宜家家居公司” • Corporate culture: or company culture, refers to in general the values, ideas and tradition formed and shared by all the staff within a company. • Our culture and business idea are the cornerstone of our operation. • Cornerstone: a stone set at one of the bottom corners of a building, often put in place at a special ceremony基石 (touchstone)

9. A feeling of belonging 归属感 • Our corporate culture is based on shared values: a simple and optimistic lifestyle, a natural way of working and being together, without imposing exaggerated respect and complicated regulations. • 我们的公司文化基于共同的价值观， 即真诚乐观的生活方式与自然和谐的共事相处关系。这里既不强求人与人之间毕恭毕敬，也没有烦琐复杂的清规戒律。 • …, as seen in the unpretentious way we associate with each other. • Unpretentious: not showing signs of wealth, size, importance, etc., or not wishing to do so.谦虚的 • 这一点可以从人与人之间坦诚自然的关系上体现出来。

10. But we also want people who can cut across our organization, who are strong enough to question, renew and change. • Cut across: to be opposed to与…相反，向…挑战 • 但与此同时，我们也需要能力出众的人，敢于向公司挑战、质疑、更新和改变我们的文化。 • To see the person behind the professional. • The person refers to such common features as demands, personalities, character and so on. • 看到隐藏在专业技术人员身份后面普通人的一面。 • Battles are seldom won at the desk. They are won out in the real world. • 商战很少在办公桌上打赢，而是要在现实世界中一决胜负。

11. Read the text again and describe the content of IKEA’s company values, company policies and staff profile. • Company values: simplicity 直率, humility谦卑, thrift节俭, responsibility, enthusiasm, flexibility, openness. • Company policies: • absence of status symbols ( e.g. no first-class hotels, directors’ dining rooms or flashy cars ), • recruitment of people who share the company’s values • internal promotion • listening to and encouraging new ideas and initiatives主动 • managers being involved in details.

12. Staff profile: • People share IKEA’s basic values and are also strong enough to question and change things if necessary. • People are both internally promoted and recruited from outside. • People have a sense of responsibility and can follow things up. • Managers need to be willing to be involved in detail.

13. Comparing with the main points of IKEA’s culture, can you show some weakness of a Chinese company? • Centralized power中央集权 • Impose exaggerated respect and complicated regulations强求人与人之间毕恭毕敬、设立种种烦琐复杂的清规戒律。 • Pretentious way staff associate with each other员工之间关系虚伪 • Inflexible way of working工作方式死板 • Neglect of customer needs • High administration costs

14. what can be done to promote a company’s culture? • Encourage team spirit • Care for people and the environment • Be true to customers • Hold special training sessions for its staff • Offer a relaxed, open-plan office atmosphere • Attach great importance to career development of staff, and produce educational videos and brochures. • Offer in-service training sessions to keep them well informed about latest developments, upgrade their knowledge, improve their skills so that they can be better adapted to the changing nature of work. • Implement a performance-based pay scheme.

15. Homework • Collect relevant information on culture. • Preview Unit 6b. • Thank U 4 your attendance!