Exercise 1. Think about the conference you are going to take part in (www.allconferences.com may help you) or use Annex 2. Answer to the seven basic questions: Why? To whom? What? Where? When? How long? How? Write notes.
Exercise 2. Go to the library or use Internet and find 8-10 references on your topic. Abstract the references found.
Exercise 3. Read five short passages. Which is on the topic ‘Management & Corporate Culture’?
1) Risk management and governance are also mentioned in sections regarding various elements of practice, such as planning, reporting, and engagement objectives. The nature of internal audit work itself is described in terms of evaluating and contributing to the improvement of risk management, control, and governance systems. The revised Standards even address what chief audit executives (CAEs) should do when they believe senior management has accepted an inappropriate level of risk – take their concerns to the board (Journal of Accounting and Economics, April 2001).
2) For most of the 20th century, the U.S. workforce was primarily composed of full-time employees who received long-term benefits. During the last decade, however, a contingent workforce of independent contractors; leased employees; and part-time, seasonal, and temporary workers has emerged. Management has embraced the concept of a contingent workforce largely because of perceived cost saving. In addition, a contingent workforce can offer flexibility in workforce size, decreases in contributions to employment taxes and employee benefit plans, and reductions in obligations and expenses related to labor law. Despite the potential benefits, however, the contingent workforce can create significant exposures through misclassification of employees. Although many internal auditors are aware that misclassification might result in increased tax liabilities, what they may not know is that tax liabilities are likely to be only the tip of the iceberg. Liabilities for unpaid benefits and a host of other related problems can be daunting. Internal auditors provide real value by helping their organizations to understand and mitigate risks involved in misclassification of workers (Internal Auditor, April 2008).
3) Well-developed corporate codes of ethics help organizations foster ethical environment, deter unethical behavior, and cope with problems and ethical dilemmas. The codes establish the ground rules by which the organization operates and evaluates. By its very nature, however, the zone of business ethics can be amorphous. It can be pervaded by many shades of gray, even in environments that are quite similar. When the environments are clearly diverse, boilerplate codes of ethics will not be relevant or effective. Complex cultural, individual, and market-based forces influence ethical behavior in different parts of the world. For example, the ethical demands placed on companies operating in intensively competitive, ethically hostile environments are significantly different from those of companies operating in regulated, highly stable environments (Human Recourse Management, May 2009).
4) Fund managers at American are as anonymous as the company itself. In the typical fund, six to eight “portfolio counselors”, as American calls its managers, each run a portion of the assets. In this Athenian democracy of sorts, managers buy and sell independently of one another. One can buy Philip Morris from another who wants to sell (which keeps down trading costs), or all six managers can purchase Pfizer at the same time. The president of each fund looks over the holdings frequently to make sure the stocks and weightings meet the prospectus’ criteria. So, for instance, the managers of Washington Mutual Investors must stick to a strictly screened list of S&P 500 stocks that have paid a dividend in nine of the past 10 years (Money, June 2007).
5) The typical T. Rowe Price manager starts at the firm as a business school intern, joins full time as an analyst, works his or her way up to manager and lays down roots in Baltimore (in T. Rowe’s top eight 401 (k) funds, the average manager’s tenure is 12 years). Teamwork is valued, whether at the weekly Monday morning meetings, where fund managers and analysts explain what stocks they’re buying and researching, or on the playing fields, where the firm’s 30-odd softball teams compete. In fact, analyst and manager compensation is partly based on sharing ideas. As a publicly owned company, T. Rowe can reward employees with stock options, aligning managers’ interests with those of all the funds (Entrepreneurship: Theory and Practice, July 2008).
Exercise 4. Read the following passages. Choose one and render from English into Russian.
A. Two events served as the catalyst for a recent national review of internal communications within Human Resources Development Canada (HRDC), the country’s largest federal department. First, an employee satisfaction survey showed only a slight improvement in internal communications effectiveness over the previous year, despite remedial measures. Although we were concerned, research by our internal audit team indicated that, as a general rule, employee surveys rarely report satisfaction with the quality of internal communications. We also learned that internal communications are usually a significant challenge for organization, especially during periods of uncertainly and change. In our organization, management tactics, such as personal letters, newsletters, and monthly communiqués from the deputy ministers to all employees were helping; but the message we received was that more was needed.
The second event occurred when we met with representatives from our regions throughout the country to consider risk and risk management issues. Problems with internal communications emerged once again, presenting themselves as risks to the organization. During that consultative process, we heard people saying, “We have a problem” and “It just isn’t working”. Our internal audit team felt we needed to act.
Recognizing that an audit confirming that “internal communications aren’t working as well as they should” would be of little value to the organization, we decided to identify and validate that the areas where it was working. Our plan was to compile and share information about best practices as a way of promoting improvement. We incorporated this focus into our audit plan proposal, and it was accepted.
The idea that effective internal communications are fundamental to good governance and good business is a given within our organization. In the business world, however, we lack generally accepted criteria for what constitutes effective internal communications. It’s still a highly subjective area (Internal Auditor, December 2006).
B. In addition, internal communication is an incredibly broad area. In this study, we defined it as the full range of ways that people communicate with each other within the organization. Communication can be written, spoken, or virtual – and it can occur among individuals or in groups. Sometimes it’s top-down information; sometimes it’s participatory dialogue. Sometimes communication is about listening. The art really lies in knowing which tool to use, which communication channel or tool is right for a certain circumstance. Having the appropriate tools at our disposal is not enough, however. The way we choose to communicate can be just as important as the message. There are times when face-to-face communications are the only effective way to resolve employee concerns. Despite the challenges, we recognized that if we looked only at hard controls – at issues that are quantitative and easy to measure – we wouldn’t have a sufficient understanding of what was going on in the organization. We don’t neglect hard controls, but we know we must also assess soft controls, and the state of internal communications is a very important soft control.
As our audit work progressed, we were not surprised to note that communication tools and practices are as varied as the people who use them. Based on extensive consultations, the validated 144 best practices. We grouped the practices into the following eight broad categories:
1) Managing Technology. Various electronic means were found to facilitate information sharing and promote effective communication.
2) Meetings. Identified practices include regular management meetings, with an agenda and record of decisions afterward confirming action items, and where all members provide updates that are then shared with staff.
3) Orientation. Several strategies helped to welcome new staff members to the organization and familiarize them with company policy/procedures.
4) Recognition. Staff cohesion and morale issues were addressed with the use of numerous informal team-building practices.
5) Supporting people. Face-to-face interactions were encouraged by activities such as workshops held off-site for specific business goals, usually for a multifunctional, widely dispersed working group.
6) Tools. Although many of the communication devices identified were quite simple, such as suggestion boxes and procedural manuals, these items were nonetheless found to be particularly effective.
7) Visible Leadership and Information-Sharing. Several group communication practices were highlighted, such as our “Breaking the Barriers” report, where clients are invited to attend group or brunch meetings to help identify barriers to service and ways we can be more helpful.
8) Work teams. Several types of collaborative formats were found to promote collective work efforts (Internal Auditor, January 2007).
C. Another week and with it comes another shocking example of the chronic inefficiences crippling Britain's railways. Last week the boss of one of the UK's train operators rang Network Rail to find out why a cable that had been accidentally cut by railway workers hadn't been fixed.
It transpired that the wrong cable had been “mended”. “It's like Fawlty Towers”, sighed an industry insider well versed in the litany of problems that plague the network. Network Rail's travails might be funny - if the amount of money it was wasting weren't sucking hundreds of millions of pounds out of UK Plc. It is calculated that waste and inefficiency on Britain's railways will cost taxpayers and passengers at least £1.5bn next year. And this is before you factor in the cost of delays to business. Everyone involved with Britain's archaic railway network has their own horror story to tell. There's Kidsgrove station in Staffordshire, where the track has had to be taken up and relaid because it was installed inches too far from the platform.
There was the time last summer when Network Rail contractors announced at the eleventh hour on Sunday morning that a key route, the west coast mainline, would not open that Monday as expected. Just weeks later 20 sections had speed restrictions imposed because the steel rails had not been properly treated and had buckled in the extreme heat. Then there was the time when Network Rail, which has been awarded £5bn a year to run the track, signals and stations for the next five years, sent no fewer than 15 managers to a two-hour meeting with one company executive. And then there are the eye-watering costs accrued, some of which would seem inconceivable even under its privatized predecessor, Railtrack.
Perhaps the most infamous case at present is in north Wales, where Network Rail quoted up to £243m to upgrade a 28-mile freight line. An independent consultant estimated the upgrade should cost only £4m, a move that prompted Network Rail to reduce its quote - which it says reflected uncertainty over the problems - to £11m. But Roger Ford, the technical editor of Modern Railways magazine, said the problem of rising costs was still common, albeit on a less extravagant scale. In Scotland, for example, Network Rail quoted a price of £72,000 to install automatic station doors while the local operator, Scotrail, managed to do the job for less than half of this (The Observer, December 14, 2003).
D. The concept behind computer-based simulation in e-learning is simple, and compelling: Practice makes perfect. Pioneered in the 1970s by the military and airlines, simulation training has since become part of the training regimen for nuclear engineers, telecom technicians, and financial forecasters — disciplines where making a mistake in the real world can be costly. And increasingly, e-learning vendors and corporatetraining departments are applying that logic to mainstream business skills such as team building, project management, consultative sales, customer service, and strategic thinking.If simulation can train a pilot to land a jumbo jet, and a technician to configure a router correctly, why can't it be applied to business tasks where the cost of failure — alienating a subordinate or customer, blowing a major sale, bungling a Web development project — can be just as high?
Computer simulation merely automates an age-old teaching method in which the apprentice received hands-on tutelage from a master artisan; experiencing failure was part of the process. In essence, we're going back to the future, using technology to recreate the best elements of the historic way of learning. The most powerful way to learn something is to try something and not succeed, figure out what went wrong, go back, dust yourself off, and do it again. More powerful processors, high-end graphics cards, and animation tools such as Macromedia Flash have brought simulation to the desktop over the past two years, allowing employees to practice their newfound skills during lunch breaks and at home as well as in a traditional e-learning lab. Flash technology is probably the greatest single advance that's enabled simulation in e-learning. Last fall, Gartner Research dubbed simulation the new "killer application" in e-learning, predicting that by 2006,70 percent of all e-learning content would incorporate simulation. A multitude of e-learning vendors incorporate some type of simulation into their courseware, often as a component of “blended learning” that mixes online courses with live classroom instruction. Besides Accenture Learning, leading suppliers of computer simulation for business “soft” skills and management training include Ninth House Network, NETg, and CognitiveArts. Other small, innovative companies such as SimuLearn (creator of “Virtual Leader”) and Pulse Entertainment have developed simulation technology that is truly immersive and game-like, capable of responding instantly and subtly to user input (The Observer, December 14, 2003).
Exercise 5. Read the following passages. Choose one and render from Russian into English.
А. Общепризнанно, что экономическая действительность является большой сложной динамической вероятностной системой. Однако модели экономики в официальных теоретических и, следовательно, прикладных экономических науках в основном были детерминированы до последнего времени. Образование внедряло научные положения в знания и навыки людей и определяло их последующую практику и мышление. Результатом стало экономическое мировоззрение, основанное на детерминированном восприятии, детерминированных приемах анализа информации о состоянии и изменениях хозяйствующих субъектов (бизнеса, человека, государства). Причиной этому является уровень развития технологий, в том числе технологии обработки данных.
Рассмотрение в экономической теории понятий, связанных с неопределенностью и риском, послужило толчком к поиску в бизнес-науках идей, учитывающих неопределенность формирования информации для принятия решения. Это прежде всего связано с большой денежной оценкой цены риска (финансовых рынков, стоимости капитала, инвестиционных проектов). Образование становится отражением перехода от традиционной модели мира к новой: компьютерная грамотность, дополнительные темы о риске в учебниках, дисциплина «Риск-менеджмент». Основным институционным элементом является бухгалтерский учет. Его правила формируют основу экономической культуры общества, принципы построения информационной базы управления экономикой. Можно предположить, что целенаправленно подготовленные специалисты попробуют применить новые знания на практике. Это позволит быстрее адаптировать и развивать теоретические концепции риска и неопределенность, технологии работы с использованием новых представлений и приемов.
Таким образом, экономическое и бизнес-образование исполнит свое назначение – формирование экономической культуры общества (Качество образования. Достижения. Проблемы. – Новосибирск, 2008).
В. Современная автомобильная дорога представляет собой комплекс сложных инженерных сооружений, обеспечивающий движение транспортного потока с высокими скоростями и необходимую безопасность и комфортабельность движения. Автомобильные дороги должны проектироваться и строиться таким образом, чтобы автомобили могли полностью реализовать свои динамические качества при нормальном режиме работы двигателей.
Дороги подвержены активному воздействию многочисленных природных и климатических факторов (снежным заносам, увлажнению выпадающими осадками, поверхностными и грунтовыми водами и др.). Эти особенности функционирования автомобильных дорог обязательно должны быть учтены при проектировании проектной линии продольного профиля (назначение руководящих рабочих отметок, контрольных отметок водопропускных сооружений) и земляного полотна.
При проектировании автомобильной дороги необходимо в совершенстве владеть приемами оптимального выбора трассы на местности и сбора данных, необходимых для обоснования проектных решений, уметь рассчитывать технические нормативы дороги, обеспечивающие удобство и безопасность грузовых и пассажирских автомобильных перевозок. Многообразие природных условий Российской Федерации не допускает использования типовых проектов и трафаретных решений. Поэтому от проектировщиков прежде всего требуются творческий подход к проектированию автомобильных дорог, умение находить технически правильные и экономически целесообразные инженерные решения (Автомобильный транспорт. - №3. - 2008).
С. Железнодорожный транспорт обеспечивает свыше 40 процентов грузовых и пассажирских перевозок Российской Федерации, а для отдельных регионов страны является единственным доступным видом транспорта. Поэтому значимость транспортного машиностроения, которое обеспечивает железные дороги России надежным подвижным составом, трудно переоценить. По прогнозу, суммарный объем внутреннего рынка транспортного машиностроения увеличится со 150 миллиардов в 2006-м году до 300 к 2015-му, а объем российского экспорта транспортного машиностроения может вырасти до 40 миллиардов рублей. Для сравнения, в 2006-м году рынок всего транспортного машиностроения в мире составил около 50 миллиардов долларов с прогнозным ежегодным ростом 10-12 процентов в год. То есть на долю России приходится от 8 до 10 процентов этого рынка.
Надо отметить, что в последние годы российские производители железнодорожной техники сумели существенно нарастить объемы производства продукции, обеспечивающей функционирование железнодорожного транспорта. В достаточно короткие для машиностроения сроки был освоен выпуск тех видов продукции, производство которых осталось за пределами России. Особенно следует отметить прорывные технологии, направленные на внедрение на железнодорожном транспорте передовых достижений научно-технического прогресса.
В настоящее время на сети российских железных дорог парк железнодорожного подвижного состава составляет более 22 тысяч локомотивов, более 800 тысяч грузовых вагонов, 26 тысяч пассажирских вагонов и более 15 тысяч вагонов электро- и дизельпоездов. Большая часть парка принадлежит акционерной компании «Российские железные дорогие». По прогнозным данным, которые закладываются в стратегию развития транспортного машиностроения до 2010-го года, определены потребности железнодорожного транспорта, исходя из двух вариантов: инерционного и умеренно оптимистического. Даже по минимальному варианту до 2010-го года транспорту необходимо получить более тысячи секций электровозов, тысячу секций тепловозов, 178 тысяч грузовых вагонов и 4 тысячи пассажирских вагонов (Железнодорожный транспорт.- № 11.- 2006).
Exercise 6. Read the following abstracts, and then compose your own annotations (English and Russian) of the proposed articles.
