limba engleza vintean

Introducere

Cursul de limbă engleză de afaceri este un instrument de lucru

pentru studenŃii FacultăŃii de ŞtiinŃe Economice. Cuprinde referiri la concepte din domeniu economic, informaŃiii specifice din această arie, vocabularul de specialitate de bază, fiind structurat pe urmatoarele teme de bază: Jobs and Advertising, Business and Businesses, Negotiations, Meetings, The Company, Leadership, Marketing and Merchandising, Tourism- the World’s Biggest Industry, Economic Theory, International Trade, The Banking System, Insurance, Macroeconomics and Microeconomics and some supplementary reading.

Am dorit promovarea unor aborări motivate în limba engleză de afaceri pentru toŃi cei doritori de îmbogăŃire a cunoştiiŃelor. Materialele din curs asigură folosirea extensivă a vocabularului, oferind subiecte pentru discuŃii şi analiză. Accentul cade pe cunoştiinŃe de specialitate, vocabular, aptitudini de comunicare. Textul este un material pe coloana căruia se lucrează prin atenŃie acordată lecturii, exprimării orale şi scrise, vocabularului.

ObservaŃii: 1. Toate trimiterile bibliografice sunt necesare pentru înŃelegerea

aspectelor descrise. 2. Testele şi exerciŃiile permit evaluarea cunoştiinŃelor acumulate. 3. DicŃionarul Oxford este cel mai recomandat 4. Textele sunt recomandate toate ca material de studiu. 5. Răspunsurile exerciŃiilor şi a testelor se regăsesc în texte. 6. Materialele suplimentare sunt o lectură facultativă. 7. Vocabularul final îmbogăŃeşte evantaiul limbajului de specialitate

Notă: Astăzi, limba engleză nu mai sperie pe nimeni pentru că ea este utilă, inestimabilă, esenŃială pentru comunicare, instruire şi progres, universală într-o lume competitivă. Citim în limba engleză to mai mult pentru a ne informa. Cu statut de limbă globală, ea va duce povara experienŃelor noastre, a gandurilor şi viselor, a realizărilor, fiind o realitate. Succesul va fi nu o destinaŃie, ci o călătorie cu geometrii în care vom ştii tot mai mult şi mai bine cum să ne mişcăm. Cu aceste gânduri bune păşim mai sigur şi mai apăsat şi motivaŃia trebuie să convingă pentru a schimba costumul viselor cu hainele de muncă.

Aşadar: 1. faceŃi un pic mai mult decât puteŃi! 2. oferiŃi un pic mai mult decât trebuie să oferiŃi! 3. daŃi-vă silinŃa un pic mai mult decât aŃi vrea! 4. ŃintiŃi mai sus decât credeŃi că este posibil!

Şi dacă uneori nu poŃi avea tot ce îŃi doreşti, totuşi poŃi dori tot ce poŃi avea: poŃi să înveŃi Limba Engleză oricând şi oriunde chiar atunci când Ńi se pare greu!

Tema I. Theme I.

JOBS and AVERTISING 1.obiectivele specifice ale temei (the main objectives) * înŃelegerea textului şi a situaŃiilor prezentate * crearea unor situaŃii- dialog cu exprimări căt mai corecte şi cursive * aprofundarea problemelor de lexic 2. competenŃe specifice dobăndite de student:(specific skills of the

student) * abilitate în comunicare folosind bagajul lingvistic de specialitate * fluenŃă în exprimare * cunoaşterea etapelor unui interviu folosind exprimarea corectă. * cunoaşterea avantajelor şi dezavantajelor reclamelor şi redarea lor

cât mai corectă în limba engleză. 3.cuvinte cheie:((key words) situation, jobs, appraisal,

advertisement, persuade 4. structura modulului de studiu:(the structure of the study) the job

interviews, the appraisal interviews, the aim of advertising, arguments for and against advertising

5.rezumat:(abstract) When people want to get a job they must go through

interviews.Interviews really aren’t out to trap people. Their purpose is to evaluate people, they help you know how to assess your qualities. Because to get a job it’s not enough to be good, but you must convince others that you are good.

You have to manage your own work easily, to be flexible in any situations, to come up with new ideas to inspire confidence, to have well established priorities, to be a good team player.And they are linked to advertising which now is exploiting every medium of communication.

The Content

People have always worked. So they have had different occupations

along centuries. All professions require much training, learning and responsibility. To get a job it’s not enough to be good, but you must convince

others that you are good. You have to manage your own work easily, to be flexible in any

situations, to come up with new ideas to inspire confidence, to have well established priorities, to be a good team player.

More and more people have part time jobs such as: babysitter, waiter/ waitress, shop assistant, paper boy, taxi driver .Among the advantages of part time jobs there might be:

• -the sense of financial independence

• -self reliance

• -getting to know other people � -stronger links to real life In different countries, different trades and different grades, the salary

that goes with a job may be only part of the package: perks like a company car or cheap housing loans, bonuses paid, company pension schemes, generous holidays, flexible working hours may contribute to the attractiveness of a job.

Everybody has to go through interviews to be offered a position. Recruiting a new member of your staff is likely to be the most expensive decision you will make as a manager. If you do it right you can make a fortune for your company. Most managers inherit a team of workers who know what they are supposed to do, who know something about your company, about the way your team works, about your customers, about the business processes within the department.

What happens when you bring an outsider in to this situation? Some of the possible outcomes if you do it wrong are: -you and your staff spend ages helping the new team member to get

started. -your team norms are threatened and possibly changed. - you discover that the perfect qualifications on the new employee’s

C.V are no more than hype. - you discover that the new employee is not fit for what you want.

Both parties the interviewer and the interviewee have to communicate effectively: open questions, right answers, positive opinions.

A job appraisal interview is one of the major tasks of the leader of a team of people. It enables to: plan the future, look at individual performance, discuss and plan training and development needs, contribute to company career planning, salary planning and job progression, evaluate the efficiency of past targets and goals, establish priorities, identify, assess, solve problems, look at resourceful needs.

Job appraisal needs to be systematic if it is to be of any use. All effective managers have day to day or week to week contact with their team, they will also be running up dating sessions where they inform the team of corporate, market or local changes in working, policy or law and any changes that affect the workings of their teams. These are day to day tasks of management. The job appraisal interview is an opportunity for the team member and their manager to think about the future months in an organized manner. Before an appraisal they both have the opportunity to think in depth about what they have been doing and where this will lead in the future, where the success and shortfalls are, and what objectives they will set each other in the future.

Applying good communication practices to the appraisal process will ensure that career progression has the best chance of success from the point of view of both parties.

Interviews really aren’t out to trap people. They evaluate people, they know how to assess your qualities. And they are linked to advertising.

Advertising is the greatest art form of the 20th century. It may be described as a science of arresting human intelligence long enough to get money from it. It stimulates debate and sometimes controversy. It has a powerful effect on the human consciousness as it is around us on television, radio, cinemas, newspapers and magazines. The way we dress, talk and behave sends a message to other people. It is about manipulating public opinion and getting a message across to an audience so that they will behave in a particular way.

The advertising industry has been in existence since the end of the 17th century when newssheets carried printed advertisements for products and information. Merchants returning from voyages overseas needed to generate markets for the products they imported and so they had to advertise. By the end of the 19th century, advertising was big business. Advertisements dominated the newspapers, posters were commonplace and spawned a whole art form. But the new communication technology gave the industry its biggest boost. Modern advertising exploits every medium of

communication. We tend to think of advertisements in terms of the mainstream media but we also have posters, billboards, point of sale displays, direct selling and cold calling by phone and fax, the internet which taps into worldwide audiences.

If you work in advertising , you will for sure be part of an influential band of people who can change public attitudes and behaviour.

The heart of this industry lies in the advertising agencies. The large ones are multinationals with in such far flung places as Beijing and Buenos Aires. If you work in a small agency, you may be expected to do everything, including account management, client liaison, concept development, creative work. In a larger one, job roles will be more structured. You will have a specific role and a greater chance of more formal career development. Advertising agencies vary in the services they offer. The most familiar names are full service agencies but there are also other companies that specialize in media services or focus on particular areas of advertising, such as recruitment or business to business advertising.

Business needs to advertise so that we should learn of the existence of different products.

Advertising is aimed at conveying information to potential customers and clients.

Advertising is used to persuade the public to buy. At the lowest level people need food, shelter, warmth and sex. Then,

people begin to think about personal possessions and finally we move on to egocentricity.

The ultimate need is for fulfillment. This would come when we have all that the advertisers say we so desperately need. For most of us it seems that that day will never come!

Sometimes advertisements are misleading. Advertisers shouldn’t make untrue statements about their products but they so often do it. They create a demand which would not otherwise exist.

Advertising goes far beyond T.V. and hoardings, newspapers and magazines, they enrich our lives.

Arguments for advertising

• It tells consumers about the products that are available, allowing them to make a wider choice.

• It encourages competition between firms.

• By creating a wider market for products it makes large scale production and sales possible.

• Media would be more expensive without it.

Arguments against

• It is expensive.

• It can be wasteful, sometimes involving the same firm advertising virtually identical products against each other. (eg. washing powder )

• It can be misleading.

• It can exert control over media.

• It can put pressure upon people to buy products that they don’t really need or can’t afford.

Advertising media

• National newspapers

• Regional newspapers

• Consumer magazines

• Business and Professional Directories

• Press production costs

• Poster and Transport

• Cinema

• T.V, Radio

• Banners on Internet sites

Television commercials

• The most effective medium for reaching large numbers of people.

• They have to be brief.

• But:

• They cannot be very informative and display images rather than information.

• They are selective – it is hard to reach a particular group of people except for certain programs.

Radio ¥ -advertising is cheap and can be effective in reaching certain types

of people: old people and housewives. National press

∆∆∆∆- it is expensive too but if has a large geographical selectivity and allows detailed information to be given.

Magazines and trade press It is a way of reaching a specialized group of customers.

There are magazines for almost any interest and for any type of product.

Posters and hoardings

-Effective if good locations can be found.

Sales promotions

-They include free gifts, competitions, give away samples, special offers.

Sponsorship -Of the arts, public works, sport can be very effective in putting a

product or company name before the public. Packaging and display -In shops; they maintain existing sales but also encourage first time

buyers. This is the information about a job advertisement: Asian Monetary Institute Computer Programmer in the Statistics Division The successful candidate will have

• A University degree in economics or statistics

• Work experience in banking and financial accounts

• Fluent English and Mandarin Applicants should send a C.V., a recent photo and references from

previous employers to the Asian Monetary Institute P.O. Box 6707 Additional Bibliography

Adriana Vintean, Practical English for Business, Psihomedia

Publishing House Sibiu, Adriana Vintean, Communication Skills in Business English, Psihomedia Publishing House Sibiu, English Collection,

L’anglais economique et commercial,(Business & Economics) translated by Daniela Nicolescu.

Oxford Business English Dictionary,2008

Questions:

1.When do you have to go through an interview? 2.How important is the advertisement for an interview? 3.What does the job appraisal ask for? 4.Is advertising a big business? 5.What does modern advertising exploit?

Exercices and tests:

I.Complete the sentences: 1.You must be neat and well groomed when….. 2. If you are natural, friendly, relaxed but not sloppy or overly

casual, then….. 3. Sometimes advertisements are……. 4. Direct selling…. 5. Modern advertising….. II.Choose the correct form of the verb:

1. Merchants (need) to generate markets for the products they

imported. 2. We (to be willing) to consider advertisements in terms of the

mainstream media. 3. Competition (to be encouraged) between firms. 4. T.V commercials (to have)to be brief. 5. He(to work) in the advertising industry for 10 years.

III. Match the correct meanings:

Advertising outlays/tarife de publicare a reclamelor Expense account/cifră de afaceri Advertisement rates/cheltuieli de reclamă Rate of turnover/cont de cheltuieli Persuasiveadvertising/publicitatepentru consumatori Consumer advertising/tarife de publicare Sales promotion/reclamă de convingere Advertisement rates/vânzare promoŃională

IV.True or false?

When you work in management , you will for sure be part of an

influential band of people who can change public attitudes and behaviour. The best of the advertising industry lies in the advertising agencies.

The small ones are multinationals with in such far flung places as Beijing and Costa Rica. If you work in a big agency, you may be expected to do everything, including account management, client liaison, concept development, creative work. In a larger one, job roles will not be more structured. You will have any role and a smaller chance of more formal career development.

V.Fill in the blanks with the correct words: 1. Business must advertise so that it… learn of the existence of

products. a) should b)must c) may 2. The advertisements allow…. to make a wider choice a) consumers b)transport c)market 3. Media would be more…. without advertising. a) better b)expensive c)cheap 4. Posters can be ….. if they have good locations. a) objective b)effective c)creative 5. The higher the audience……the more expensive advertising space

is likely to be. a) rating b) working c)planning

VI.Make the logical and grammatically correct sentences from

the following words: has/powerful/human/is/around/effect/as/us/on/T.V/it/consciousness/

a/on/radio/the/it/cinema/and/newspapers/magazines/. VII.Find the mistakes in the following sentences: 1.We looking at the commercials every day. 2.What do you prefer: magazines or posters? 3. Hoardings are located in towns. 4. Informations are conveyed to clients.

5. If you hard sell you make efforts in persuading consumers buy.

6.An admen works in advertising industry. 7.To soft sell a product means persuade consumer to buy not

aggressive. 8.Outdoor advertising is find everywere. 9.An impact on advertising has been a mater of considerable

debate. 10.The biger the company are the bigger the relations

became.

VIII.Make an advertisement for a hypermarket.

IX.Find out about your partner’s career. Using different forms of verbs ask about: -present job -work experience -education and training -ambitions and prospects for the future -its rewards and frustrations

X.Imagine that a friend of yours is about to attend an interview. Write at least ten pieces of advice that you would give him. You have as

suggestions:

• Wear smart, formal clothes

• Don’t smoke

• Sit up straight

• Arrive on time

Tema II. ThemeII.

BUSINESS and BUSINESSES 1.obiectivele specifice ale temei:(the main objectives) * înŃelegerea textului şi a situaŃiilor prezentate * crearea unor situaŃii- dialog cu exprimări căt mai corecte şi cursive * aprofundarea problemelor de lexic 2. competenŃe specifice dobăndite de student:(specific skills of

the student) * abilitate în comunicare folosind bagajul lingvistic de specialitate * fluenŃă în exprimare * cunoaşterea proceselor în economia de piaŃă * definirea într-un limbaj corect a parteneriatului, acŃionarilor, a

societăŃilor, a profesionalismului. 3.cuvinte cheie:(key words) trader, partner, shareholder,

stockholder, excellency. 4. structura modulului de studiu:(the structure of the study) the

simplest form of the business, shareholder and stockholder models, professionalism in business life.

5.rezumat: (abstract) Many of today’s well known businesses were started by one or two

people and the ownership of those businesses was very simple. It was during the 19th century that businesses wanted to expand and increase the number of owners. To do this they needed to sell shares. To encourage people to buy shares, governments around the world passed laws which gave people limited liability.

During the 20th century many people bought shares in sucessful businesses for the following reasons: to have a share in the profit made by the business, the hope that a profitable business would attract more and more people to buy shares and this will make the price rise so that shares could be sold at a profit.

Business is a long term, highly repetitious activity, frequently requiring people to do the same thing today, tomorrow, the next day. Business is the production,buying, and selling of goods and services.

The Content Business is a long term, highly repetitious activity, frequently

requiring people to do the same thing today, tomorrow, the next day. Many of today’s well known businesses were started by one or two

people and the ownership of those businesses was very simple. It was during the 19th century that businesses wanted to expand and increase the number of owners. To do this they needed to sell shares. To encourage people to buy shares, governments around the world passed laws which gave people limited liability. During the 20th century many people bought shares in sucessful businesses for the following reasons: to have a share in the profit made by the business, the hope that a profitable business would attract more and more people to buy shares and this will make the price rise so that shares could be sold at a profit.

The simplest form of business ownership is the sole trader. Here, one person owns the business, takes all the decisions and risks his own money. People enjoy to be self employed and they are happy to have complete control of their own business. But there is no one to share the responsibilities involved in decision making and raising finance is a problem. Sole traders finance their business through a bank loan and the bank will charge a high rate of interest. A bank will ensure that it can get the money back, if the loan is not repaid, by requiring security on the loan. Sole traders are liable for any debts they have, even if they are not the trader’s fault. A trader may do a job for a larger business; it may be worth 20 000$ but it will not be paid until the job is complete. The sole trader must spend 9 000 $ on equipment, but when the job is complete the larger business closes down and the 20 000$ are not paid; still, the sole trader has to cover the 9 000 already spent as he has unlimited liability.

Sometimes, a pair of a small group of people will get together to run a business. This is called a partnership. Partnerships face unlimited liability as sole traders do.

Partners may put some money into the partnership in return for a share of the profits but take no part in the running of the partnership, do not work for it and have „no say” in any decisions.Under these circumstances, it is only the money that has been invested that is liable to be used in order to pay off any debts. This is a silent partner and he has only limited liability.

The technical name for both private and public limited companies is joint stock company. It means that the stock in a company is owned jointly by several people.

Some business activity is carried on by the government and this forms the public sector.

Profit maximisation may not be the only aim of a busines; in public companies there is a separation of ownership and control, so that directors and managers may run a company in their own interests.

Business is the production,buying, and selling of goods and services. A business, company or firm is an organization that sells goods or services. A business may be referred to formally as a concern. Then, it may be referred to approvingly as an enterprise in order to emphasize its adventurous, risk taking qualities and business in general may be referred to in the same way, in combinations such as free enterprise and private enterprise.

A business requires tremendous effort to get it going and once going, it requires minimum effort to keep it going. The role of business is to stay in business, providing wages, goods and services into the community and meeting the profit needs of the business and the key stakeholders in the business. The source of funding and capital is considered to be the main difference between the stakeholders and the shareholders. In the stakeholder model, funding is being supplied through bank loans. This means that they will ask for managerial consideration and response from those running the company.

In the shareholder model, stockholders advance capital to managers who act as their agents in pre-authorized ways. Shareholdes buy shares to maximise the return on their investment; the responsibility of the manager in a firm is to engage in activities designed to increase the profits, that is to engage in open and free competition. To create shareholder wealth, the management needs to outperform the expectations shareholders had when they made their investment decisions. In the shareholder model of corporate governance, the focus is on institutional agents monitoring corporate agents in order to enhance the investment prospects of investors. In the stakeholder model, the premise is that a company is more likely to perform well and the shareholders are more likely to benefit, if opportunities are created for the various groups holding an interest in the company to enter into binding relationship. The emphasis in the stakeholder model is the way enterprises are governed while in shareholder model the emphasis is on the way enterprises are managed. The shareholder based entity is more responsive to changes in market conditions.

Both approaches take account of the issues of board checks and balances, abuse of authority and power, the role of boards, director rewards

and participation in setting standards for accounting, safety, employee relations and risk management.

In today”s business world we have to take into consideration the two models. The shareholder model encourages a top down, command and control leadership approach whereas in the stakeholder model a team based, shared decision making, servant leadership approach is more likely.

Stakeholder based governance refers to how the organization makes cost effective decisions in terms of wealth creation but with consideration of stakeholders’ rights. Corporations have multiple responsibilities and need to balance competing conditions, such as long and short term notion of gain, profit and sustainability, cash and accounting concepts of value, democracy and authority, power and accountability. This model is more common in continental Europe and Japan.

The micro approach to corporate governance refers to shareholders. This is concerned with maximizing wealth creation for shareholders. Control is linked here to profitability, an Anglo American model.

Then business may be referred to as commerce, commercial distinguishing the business sphere from other areas such as government or arts or from non money making activities.

The social role of any business is linked to what we call as serving the future: sufficient profits to satisfy the business and the stakeholders meet today’s profits needs. But as the expectations increase society has to invest in ideas and technology that expands the economic base and the wealth of the society. An essential requirement is that each and every business strives to achieve profits over and above immediate business needs and the stakeholders’ needs. Without this „surplus profit” there can be no venture capital. Without venture capital, economic growth will struggle to match population growth and the growth in social expectations.

Any business requires true professionalism- the courage to care about people, clients, career.

True professionalism means the pursuit of excellence. If you value something, then you must monitor your performance in that area, acept nothing less than excellence and actively work to learn what to do differently every time you fall short of excellence. Firms must provide help and counsel to those who are encountering difficulties in living uo to their standards, in order to help them get back on track. Once professionals have confirmed their core values, they need to design systems which provide consequences for noncompliance. By leaving each individual professional to decide for himself what level to achieve in key value areas, firms say that the company as a society has no standards that must be adhered to. Excellence in such

areas become a matter of personal professional choice. Professionals must live by the slogan „ you are allowed to fail, you are not allowed to give up trying.”

The oposite of the word professional is not unprofessional, but rather technician. These may be highly skilled, but they aren’t professionals until they demonstrate characteristics such as:taking pride in their work, showing a personal commitment to quality, reaching out for responsibility,getting involved, looking for ways to make things easier for those they serve, listening to the needs of those they serve, being team players, honest, trustworthy, loyal, open to constructive critiques.

Professionalism is an attitude not a set of competences. A true professional is a technician who cares. And if finding people with technical skill is usually easy, finding people who are filled with energy, drive, enthusiasm personal commitment to excellence is hard. Because real professionalism has little to do with which business you are in, what role within that business you perform, how many degrees you have. It implies a pride in work, a commitment to quality, a dedication to the interests of the client, a sincere desire to help.

Traditional definitions of professionalism are filled with references to status, educational attainments, noble calling. Now, we refer to attitude and character. So, firms should hire people for attitude and train for skill. Being a professional asks for treating people as professionals that is invest in them. Then professional success requires more than talent, it asks for initiative, involvement, enthusiasm, commitment. Being good at business development involves nothing more than a sincere interest in clients and their problems and a willingness to go out and spend the time being helpful to them.

Success in business life means not only good professionalism but effective functioning of the firms, positive outlook.

Additional Bibliography



L’anglais economique et commercial,(Business & Economics) translated by Daniela Nicolescu,


Questions:

1. What does a business encourage people to do? 2. When are people attracted to start a business? 3. What do you invest in a business? 4. What do shareholders buy? 5. How do sole traders finance their business?


I. Complete the sentences: 1. I hope that a profitable….. 2. To encourage him you…. 3. He has bought shares…. 4. The source of funding…. 5. What do you consider….. II. Choose the correct form of the verb: 1. These traders(finance) their business two years ago. 2. I (to be encouraged) at all lately. 3. He (to own) a business for two years. 4. They (to set up) a firm this winter. 5. This activity(to carry on) by the government. III. Match the correct meanings: Business forecast/repartiŃie a profitului Profit sharing/prognoză economică Share market/acŃiuni în creştere Investment funds/burse de acŃiuni Growth stocks/fond de investiŃii Economic growth/creştere a profitului Profit increase/creştere economică IV. True or false? The crucial role of any business is linked to what we call as serving

the future: insufficient profits to satisfy the business and the stakeholders meet today’s profits needs. But as the expectations decrease, society has to invest in profits and technology that expands the economic base and the

sustainability of the society. An essential demand is that each and every business tries to achieve profits over and above delayed business needs and the stakeholders’ needs.

V.Fill in the blanks with the correct words: 1. He owns the business and….all decisions. a) takes b)has c)answers 2. A bank ensures that it can get the…..back. a)shares b)money c)profit 3. Profit maximization may not be the only……of a business. a)fault b)aim c)partner 4. The source of funding and capital is a difference between

the…….and shareholders. a)stakeholders b)traders c)government 5. We must take into….. several models. a)business b)relation c)consideration VI. Make the logical and grammatically correct sentences from

the following words:

business/on/is/some/activity/by/carried/government/the/this/and/sect

or/public/the/forms/. VII. Find the mistakes in the following sentences: 1. Do you buy shares to get successful? 2. I profitable business does not attract people. 3. he take all decisions by himself. 4. There are the money that have been invested. 5. We mustn’t take into consideration any model. 6. Every business doesn’t strive to achieve profit. 7. Where do you take the notion to? 8. What are you concern with? 9. Can you invest moneys into this? 10. What will economic growth struggle from?

VIII. Enlarge upon the following: 1. One good rule for being successful is: realize that knowledge

power!

2. The social role of any business is linked to what we call as serving the future

3. A business requires tremendous effort to get it going and once going, it requires minimum effort to keep it going.

IX. Start a business with some daring ideas

Tema III. ThemeIII.

NEGOTIATIONS 1.obiectivele specifice ale temei (the main objectives) * înŃelegerea textului şi a situaŃiilor prezentate * crearea unor situaŃii- dialog cu exprimări căt mai corecte şi cursive * aprofundarea problemelor de lexic 2. competenŃe specifice dobăndite de student:(specific skills of the

student) * abilitate în comunicare folosind bagajul lingvistic de specialitate * fluenŃă în exprimare * cunoaşterea procesului de negociere, a principiilor, în economia de

piaŃă 3.cuvinte cheie:((keywords):communication, bargain, persuade,

manager,effectiveness 4. structura modulului de studiu:(the structure of the study) the

process of negotiation,negotiating skills, positive aspects. 5.rezumat:(abstract) Negotiation in business is no doubt about facts, costs, profits, logical

decision making but also about people, their emotions(joy, surprise, fear, doubt, anger, sorrow) , goals and the kind of human beings they are. An understanding of people’s motivation and how their personalities can affect their behaviour can be vital in discovering how you can do business with them better and better.

To negotiate effectively one must communicate as such. The message has to be conveyed, received, understood, accepted in order to entail the right actions or responses.

The Content Negotiation is not a science nor is it a branch of technology. It is a

life skill. We start to negotiate when we are very young and as we grow older we build up patterns of behaviour that reflect what we feel “works for us”. And this will be based partly upon the kind of personality we may have inherited and partly upon the kind of personality we have lived and grown up.

Negotiation in business is no doubt about facts, costs, profits, logical decision making but also about people, their emotions(joy, surprise, fear, doubt, anger, sorrow) , goals and the kind of human beings they are. An understanding of people’s motivation and how their personalities can affect their behaviour can be vital in discovering how you can do business with them better and better.

To negotiate effectively one must communicate as such. The message has to be conveyed, received, understood, accepted in order to entail the right actions or responses. The process of transmission is very important – not all negotiations are conducted face to face but there are other choices too: letters, the fax, the electronic mail, the phone. Still there might be some problems such as: they may get missed or misunderstood.

To many personnel managers, negotiation implies collective bar-gaining. To a sales executive, it will be thought of in terms of making a commercial deal. Quantity surveyors, purchasing managers and lawyers all have their own specialist interpretations of what, in essence, is a process common to all managerial work. In reality, all managers negotiate, if not with outside parties then with each other.

The procedures and language of formal negotiation vary with the type of negotiation involved. A set-piece pay bargaining session has its own system and jargon that differ from those of a meeting of solicitors to settle a claim for libel damages. Yet the underlying principles and much of the psychology of the process are the same for all forms of negotiation.

It is also easy for managers to overlook the fact that much of their informal daily activity is, in effect, negotiation. All managers spend a large proportion of their time trying to influence and persuade other managers over whom they have no executive authority. Consider two examples:

A personnel manager attempts to 'sell' the need for a more systematic form of employee consultation to a reluctant office manager. The company has a general policy of support for employee involvement practices, but has not laid down any specific system or procedure. Neither the extent to which the personnel manager can use the general policy to require the office manager's

cooperation, nor the right of the office manager to reject the personnel manager's suggestions is clearly defined. The outcome will be influenced by their possibly differing perceptions of the formal position, and by the powers of argument or persuasion of the personnel manager.

A sales executive tries to persuade the production manager to change a manufacturing schedule to fit in a small order for a special customer. The production manager has full authority to decide production schedules against a weekly output plan set by top management. Officially, the sales manager should make a request through the sales director for an urgent variation to this plan but because the order is only a small one, he approaches the production manager informally and must, therefore, rely on persuasion.

Negotiating skills are, therefore, a very important element in the effective manager's portfolio of personal competencies.

Recognizing when negotiation is occurring is the first step towards acquiring the necessary skills, and this is aided by an understanding of the basic principles involved.

Negotiation is a process, not a single skill. A range of skills are involved in handling this process effectively, but to identify the skills relevant to any negotiating episode, it is important to recognize which elements or principles of negotiation are involved. There are seven principles common to all forms of negotiation:

• Negotiation involves two or more parties who need or think they need each other's involvement in achieving some desired outcome. There must be some common interest, either in the subject matter of the negotiation or in the negotiating context that puts or keeps the parties in contact.

• Although sharing a degree of interest, the parties start with different opinions or objectives, and these differences initially prevent the achievement of an outcome.

• At least initially, the parties consider that negotiation is a more satisfactory way of trying to resolve their differences than alternatives such as coercion or arbitration.

• Each party considers that there is some possibility of persuading the other to modify their original position. It is not essential - though it is usually highly desirable for each party to be willing to compromise. But negotiation can begin when parties have an initial intention of maintaining their opening positions, but each has some hope of persuading the other to change.

* Similarly even when their ideal outcomes prove unattainable, both parties retain hope of an acceptable final agreement.

* Each party has some influence or power - real or assumed -over the other's ability to act. If one party is entirely powerless, there may he no point in

the other party committing itself to a negotiating process. The matter can be settled unilaterally by the party with the untrammeled power to act. This power or influence may, however, be indirect and bear on issues other than those that are the direct subject of negotiation.

* The negotiating process itself is one of interaction between people in most cases by direct, verbal interchange. Even when the negotiation is being conducted through correspondence, there is an essential underlying human element. The progress of all types of negotiation is strongly influenced by emotion and attitudes, not just by the facts or logic of each party's arguments.

Negotiation is a process of interaction by which two or more parties who consider they need to be jointly involved in an outcome, but who initially have different objectives, seek by the use of argument and persuasion to resolve their differences in order to achieve a mutually acceptable solution.

It will probably be readily accepted that this definition is relevant to formal negotiations such as pay bargaining or the settlement of a legal claim for damages. Trade unions and employers or the solicitors representing two parties to litigation obviously accept that they need jointly to evolve a mutually satisfactory outcome, starting from differing positions. Each party knows that the other has some power to influence the outcome. A trade union might apply the sanction of industrial action: an employer might reduce the labor force: the claimant's solicitors might stop negotiating and take the case to court: the respondent has some defense if this occurs.

In the second of these examples, the sales executive has no direct power to require the production manager to alter production schedules: the production manager can just say no -- so where does negotiation come in? A willingness at least to consider the request and thereby become involved in a discussion about a possible jointly satisfactory outcome - will stem from several aspects of common interest, or from a recognition of more subtle forms of power.

The sales executive wants the production schedules altered, the production manager does not, but both managers, it is to be hoped, share an interest in the success of the business. To disappoint an important customer may be of more immediate concern to the sales executive than to the production manager, but a good production manager will pay heed to the importance of good customer service. Similarly, the sales executive will recognize the costs and perhaps delays to other orders that a change in the production schedule might give rise to. So a common interest in the good of the business enables both to see something in the other's point of view, and

thus encourages a dialogue, rather than the simple exercise of formal authority.

It may be that the sales executive (or the customer on whose behalf the request is being made) is known by the production manager to be highly regarded by the managing director. It might thus be unwise, in terms of company politics, for the production manager to run the risk of being considered unhelpful.

Both managers also know that they have to continue to work together. Without anything being said, both will probably be influenced by knowing that this long-term working relationship could be adversely affected by mishandling the particular incident. The production manager may have the right to say no in other words, not to negotiate but will wonder whether this would cause avoidable friction. There may also be the thought that by agreeing some concession, an obligation may be created that might be capitalized on at some future date.

In the other example, considerations of a similar kind might also lead to the office manager's being willing to discuss the personnel manager's advice. Both have an interest in the smooth running of the company and in compliance with the company policy: the personnel manager may be known to have top management backing: the managers have to go on working together, and therefore the office manager will have to consider the implications of re-jecting the personnel manager's advice if employee relations are then seen to deteriorate.

Additional Bibliography:





Questions:

1. When do we negotiate? 2. Is negotiation in business different than in life? 3. How can you become a better negotiator? 4. How important is compromise? 5. What are face to face discussions important for?

Exercises and tests:

I. Complete the sentences: 1.The message… 2.An understanding of people’s……. 3.Negotiation implies….. 4.The manager must….. 5.Each party…….. II. Choose the correct form of the verb: 1. There(may) be some problems here. 2. It(to be) also easy to overlook this fact. 3. (spend) more time here, there (not be) so many disputes. 4. Neither the manager, nor the staff(can) require more cooperation. 5. This policy (influence) the involvement of the executives in

future. III. Fill in the blanks with suitable words: Negotiation… two or…parties who need or think. They need…

other's……in achieving some desired outcome. There… be some common interest,….in the subject……..of the negotiation or in the negotiating …….. that puts or keeps……..parties in contact.

Although sharing a degree… interest, the parties start with different opinions… objectives, and… differences initially prevent the achievement…. an outcome.

IV. True or false? To negotiate effectively one must not communicate as such. The

message should be conveyed, received, understood, accepted in order to have the expected actions or responses. The process of transmission is not very important – all negotiations are conducted face to face but there are

other choices too: letters, the fax, the electronic mail, the phone that we must not take into account. Still we never meet problems such as: they may get missed or misunderstood.

V. Make the logical and grammatically correct sentences from

the following words: the/to/neither/the/extent/which/ manager/ personnel/

use/can/policy/general/ the/ require/ to/ cooperation/ manager’s/the/office/the/right/nor/ the/ of/ to/reject/ office/manager/suggestions/the/manager’s/ personnel/ defined/clearly/ is/.

VI. Enlarge upon the following: 1. There are three kinds of people: those who make things happen,

those who look at things to happen, those who do not understand what is happening!

2. Never negotiate without being afraid, but never be afraid to negotiate!

3. There is no failure but results, only results! VII. Negotiate the price of a product in a dialogue.

VIII. Consider compromise as constructive and comment upon this.

IX. Outline the bad parts in a negotiation.

Tema IV. ThemeIV.

MEETINGS

1.obiectivele specifice ale temei (the main objectives) * înŃelegerea textului şi a situaŃiilor prezentate * crearea unor situaŃii- dialog cu exprimări căt mai corecte şi cursive * aprofundarea problemelor de lexic 2. competenŃe specifice dobăndite de student:(specific skills of the

student) * abilitate în comunicare folosind bagajul lingvistic de specialitate * fluenŃă în exprimare * cunoaşterea impactului şedinŃelor, a dialogului în şedinŃe. * crearea unor dialoguri tipice 3.cuvinte cheie:((keywords): to chair, listen, decision, conversation,

ideas, dialogue 4. structura modulului de studiu:(the structure of the study) the

importance, types of meetings, principles,rules. 5.rezumat:(abstract) Meetings can be invaluable tools for getting things agreed or

discussed. Enjoyable meetings that are productive and help to get the job done are an ideal that becomes possible with a little effort. An unsuccessful meeting may do more harm than one which never takes place. So, the success is judged by the actions that result from it.

We hold or attend meetings which serve a number of purposes. People have to be sure why the meeting is being held. Not only does the meeting need to achieve business but also people have to be satisfied that this has been done. Meetings are at the very heart of management. More and more time is spent in attending them. They can be inspiring, energizing and fun.

The Content Meetings have to be an efficient tool to assist us in getting decisions,

information and action. We discuss, decide, decree, demolish. Sometimes they can take over our life. Some are efficient, others are not and for some of us they have even become a way of life. The objective of a meeting should never be to have a meeting. They are a means to an end, never an end.

If handled well, meetings can be invaluable tools for getting things agreed or discussed. Enjoyable meetings that are productive and help to get the job done are an ideal that becomes possible with a little effort. An unsuccessful meeting may do more harm than one which never takes place. So, the success is judged by the actions that result from it. And this is linked to running the meeting as the responsibility of the whole group not only the chairman.

We call a meeting for: briefing people, exchanging and evaluate information, negotiating a deal, making decisions, taking things through solving a conflict, establishing a plan.

We hold or attend meetings which serve a number of purposes. People have to be sure why the meeting is being held. Not only does the meeting need to achieve business but also people have to be satisfied that this has been done. Meetings are at the very heart of management. More and more time is spent in attending them. They can be inspiring, energizing and fun. Sometimes meetings fail because of:

interruptions such as noisy rooms, mobile phones, messages, people arriving late.

• lack of focus: irrelevant discussions

• objective not achieved: decisions are not taken, people say they need more time.

• politics motives are being brought in: confronting discussions

• poor preparation: research has not been done properly.

• poor chairing

• poor environment: people crammed into a room, tables covered with tea and coffee cups and room for the papers.

• poor timing: people arriving late, meetings starting and ending late.

• right people absent: people with necessary input or information are not invited or not available.

• unnecessary meetings: you need a quick decision

• wrong people present: they can ruin a meeting.

It is important to know in a meeting:

• to clarify the purpose of the meeting

• to have meetings only if they are necessary

• to invite people who need to give approval, have the required expertise or information, have the creativity or intelligence to help the group generate ideas, will carry out decisions made, will support your issue, will be directly affected by the outcome.

• to send out a background information

• to create an agenda in order to give the start time of the meeting and location, list participants expected to attend, list issues, give the order in which they will be dealt with.

• to anticipate and prevent problems: problem people, hot topics, alliances and politics, support.

• the agenda can do half of your work before the meeting even starts: assessing items, standard items, have an order for the items, time each item, write the agenda.

• to chair the meeting carefully and well balanced: bring in quiet people, be open about input, stimulate a debate or discussion, listen actively, control discussions, gain agreement and approval by bringing discussions to an end, by letting people know it is time to make decisions or to agree, summarize different viewpoints, discourage interruptions, ask for a decision or consensus, make sure the quiet people speak up, take a vote if necessary.

• to satisfy the participants as well as the agenda.

• to consider that a compromise could achieve both completion of business as well as satisfying the participants.

• to be a good communicator by: making people feel good and value them and their opinion, getting them involved in the meeting, by showing you understand the way someone feels.

• to handle challenges by focusing on the issue not the behaviour or opinion of others, bring in others on your side, do not lose temper, give in and then raise the matter with a higher authority or at another time.

• to announce a finishing time, to limit the number of items on the agenda to the time allowed.

• to allocate a task owner to each item who will control the conversation and take responsibility for any decision.

• to summarize within items, at the end of them and at the end of the meeting.

Types of Meetings

• Team Meetings

• Consultancy and client meetings

• Negotiations I. Team briefing develops the team meeting into a management

information system. The objective is to ensure that every employee knows and understands what they and the others in the organization do and why. Team leaders and their teams get together regularly to talk about issues relevant to them and their work. There are some benefits to team briefing such as:

• it reinforces management

• it increases commitment

• it prevents misunderstandings

• it helps to facilitate change

• it improves upward communication II. Whenever you meet a client to present a proposal, however

uncommercial the situation, something is being sold. So, the meeting will fail if the client’s requirements are not defined adequately beforehand. Part of our job may be to help the client to clarify what he wants. So preparation becomes essential, a pre- meeting is useful to define the problem and agree the client’s requirements as clearly as possible. First stage thinking has to be used to clarify what the client wants, before suggesting solutions. The following guidelines have to be used:

• create agreement with the client.

• identify the client’s need.

• present your solution.

• explain the proposal in detail

• anticipate any objections you know the client has.

• restate the proposal by summarizing, discussing.

• keep discussion separate from your presentation. III. Doing deals is a fundamental way to achieve goals; but it is a

means not an end. A successful negotiation closes with everybody satisfied, the negotiator is delighted when the meeting creates genuine agreement. Once you recognized a meeting as a forum for negotiation we have established as adversarial situation. As a result, scoring over the opposition

becomes an important strategy. The negotiation becomes an exercise in game playing: secrecy, bullying, hood-winking. So, this tacit agreement entails stress, wastes time and catastrophe may follow, new problems may arrive, commitment will suffer, promises will be broken, reputations will be bruised.

The responsibility will be to seek agreement: a specific plan of action to which all parties can commit themselves.

Conflict is undoubtedly one of the most common sources of anxiety in meetings. Many meetings seem to collapse into argument, hostility and ritual recrimination almost as a matter of course. Do not regard conflict as inevitable or desirable. You are not powerless in the face of emotional hostility; but, in order to handle it well, you need to distance yourself from it.

Begin by trying to locate the source of the problem. Sometimes this is obvious: insecurity at a time of great change, stress, a new set of working relationships or pressure from public exposure. On other occasions, it may seem to bubble up from nowhere, starting with something small and escalating quickly as it takes hold of the group. Conflict thrives on confusion and doubt. Some group members may seek to manipulate it for their own ends or use it to justify their cynicism about all matters managerial. As conflict grows through a group, it becomes more emotional, generalized and unfocused. Looking for a target, it can find the Chair, turning the meeting into an all-purpose 'grouse session'.

Hostility often results from a sense of powerlessness. It is the feeling of being at the mercy of forces outside our control that is so disabling.

This is why anger often centers on what has happened in the past, and in particular on what 'they' have done: senior management, other teams, department heads ,rogue operators' who have bucked the system, engineers or sales staff who are never in the office, customers, suppliers, competitors. Be prepared. If you are facing conflict or group resistance, you must give yourself a single overriding objective: to empower the group to do something practical. Only by focusing their thoughts on the future, and on what they can do will you transform people's energy from conflict into purposeful activity. Arm yourself with a few guiding principles.

- Make the objective of the meeting clear at the outset. Write it up on a flip chart and be ready to refer back to it frequently.

Challenge people to explain the relevance of their remarks to the meeting's objectives.

- Remember that your task is to control the conversation. Resist being drawn into the emotional maelstrom, however hard that

may be. -Slow the conversation down. Do not mirror the tone, pitch or speed

of others' speech. - Do not interrupt or cut people off in mid-sentence. - Listen to the points people are making and display them openly on

the flip chart. - Do not be tempted to argue, or to contradict opinions or

generalizations: about what 'they' do, or what 'always' happens. A good response to such remarks would be: 'In what circumstances?

- Turn complaints into objectives by asking people to restate them as 'how to' statements. Write these up on the flip chart and display them.

- Stop people from talking about others who are not at the meeting. Insist that 'they' are not here and we are, and that only we can address our objectives.

-Focus on solutions, not problems. -Be a broken record! Repeat your questions to the group, over and

over - 'What are we trying to do? What can we do about it? How does this relate to our objectives?'

Be specific. People should know what contribution they are being asked to make, and how their contribution will contribute to wider objectives. Being explicit about goals and targets is the only way to achieve this. If you genuinely consult - asking for suggestions, inviting people to participate in finding solutions -a great deal of resistance will melt away.

Focus on action. Draw the group's attention away from what others have done or are doing, towards what we will do in the future. You will have to be sensitive about this. Demonstrating that you understand people's grievances can be useful in winning them over to your own ideas; and in rooting out areas for improvement. However, there will come a point in a 'grouse session' when you should start asking, insistently but quietly: 'So what are we going to do?' In this way, you will divert attention from damaging 'storytelling' and complaint towards commitment and agreement. By showing that something can be done, you can show people that they have power to change things.

Questions:

1.How important are meetings in life? 2.If a meeting is unsuccessful, what are the consequences? 3. Why do meetings fail? 4. Is it important to focus on solutions? 5. Who runs a meeting?


I. Complete the sentences; 1.Enjoyable meetings….

2.Making decisions…. 3. When you establish a plan… 4. People have to be sure…. 5. Poor chairing always…. II. Choose the correct form of the verbs: Conflict (to be) undoubtedly one of the most common sources of

anxiety in meetings. Many meetings (can) to collapse into argument, hostility and ritual recrimination almost as a matter of course. (not to regard) conflict as inevitable or desirable!. You (to be) powerless in the face of emotional hostility; but, in order( to handle) it well, you (need)( to distance) yourself from it.

III. Fill in the blanks with the correct words: If handled….meetings can….invaluable tools… getting….agreed or

discussed. Enjoyable meetings that….productive….help to get…job done are.... ideal that becomes possible….a little effort. An unsuccessful meeting….do more harm… one which never takes…… So, the success….judged….the actions that result from it. And this is linked… running the meeting as the responsibility…the whole group not only….chairman.

IV. True or false? In a meeting there is no need to clarify the purpose of the

meeting. We never have meetings only if they are not necessary. We should not invite people who need to give approval but have the required expertise or information, not the creativity or intelligence to help the group generate

ideas. They must not carry out decisions made or support your issue, otherwise you will be directly affected by the outcome. A background information to create an agenda will be sent later on and there is not necessary for the start time of the meeting and location neither the lists of participants expected to attend or list issues. The order in which they will be dealt with must wait until next day.

V. Make the logical and grammatically correct sentences from

the following words: an/in/to/give/to/agenda/create/order/time/start/the/of/meeting/the/loc

ation/and/participants/list/to/expected/attend/important/is/know/to/. VI Enlarge upon the following: 1.Meetings will not improve by magic. People must want change

and be willing to implement it. 2.Meetings are the very heart of management.” 3.Getting agreement is easy. Getting everyone to confirm afterwards

about what exactly was agreed is the hard part!” VII. Make a dialogue imagining a meeting. VIII. Write an agenda for a meeting. IX. Good and bad things in a meeting.

Tema V. Theme V.

THE COMPANY 1.obiectivele specifice ale temei (the main objectives) * înŃelegerea textului şi a situaŃiilor prezentate * crearea unor situaŃii- dialog cu exprimări căt mai corecte şi cursive * aprofundarea problemelor de lexic 2. competenŃe specifice dobăndite de student:(specific skills of the

student) * abilitate în comunicare folosind bagajul lingvistic de specialitate * fluenŃă în exprimare * cunoaşterea organizarii unei companii, a structurii de baza. 3.cuvinte cheie:((keywords): shareholder, to own, buyout, to

deliver, to run. 4. structura modulului de studiu:(the structure of the study)the

liability in companies, running the company, buying shares, 5.rezumat:(abstract) The companies is a special form of business. It is owned by the

shareholders but has a separate legal existence from the people who own it. The shareholders elect a board of directors to run the company on their behalf. If the company has 2- 50 shareholders it is a private one. The liability is limited to the money that the shareholders have used to buy shares. If the shares are traded on the stock exchange we have a public limited company. Members of the public can buy these shares by going through a stockbroker or bank. The company has to be viewed in future. The strategic challenge for professional firms is not to forecast the future, but to ensure that the firm is effective at adapting to already observable market changes. Most professional firms are resistant to change.

The Content A company is a very special form of business. It is owned by the

shareholders but has a separate legal existence from the people who own it. The shareholders elect a board of directors to run the company on their behalf. If the company has 2- 50 shareholders it is a private one. The liability is limited to the money that the shareholders have used to buy shares. If the shares are traded on the stock exchange we have a public limited company. Members of the public can buy these shares by going through a stockbroker or bank.

Large companies are being referred to as corporations. Corporate is used to describe things relating to a corporation or to corporations. Large companies operationg in many countries are multinationals. Big business can refer to large business organizations or to any business activity that makes a lot of money. Small companies are referred to as small businesses or small firms.

When a private company is bought by the state and brought into the public sector in a sell off, it is privatized. The first to be sold in a privatization programme are often the companies responsible for the public supply of electricity, water and gas: the utilities.

If a company A owns shares or equity in company B, then A holds a stake, holding or shareholding in B. If A owns less than half the shares in B, then it has a minority stake in B. If A owns more than half the shares in B, it has a majority stake or controlling stake in B. If you have shares in a company you are a shareholder.

A holding or holding company is the one that holds stakes in one or more subsidiaries. If it owns all the shares in a subsidiary, then the subsidiary is a wholly owned one. A holding company”s relationship to its subsidiaries is that of parent company and the subsidiaries” relationship to each other is that of sister companies. A holding and its subsidiaries form a group. A conglomerate is a group containing a lot of different companies in different businesses. Company A may be attempting to gain control of company B in a takeover bid, maybe by increasing its holding or stake in company B if it already owns shares in B. Company B makes or launches a bid against company A, the takeover target. If company B does not want to be taken ober, the bid is hostile. There are other ways of saying that one company is taking over another one and it means that the company is acquiring another or making an acquisition.

In a leveraged buyout or LBO, a company is acquired by a group of investors, often financed by heavy borrowing. The debt is then paid out of the target company”s operating revenues or by selling its assets. The borrowing involved inLBOs is often high risk debt called junk bonds. LBOs financed by junk were frequent in the 1980s and after an absence following the excesses of that period, they are now coming up again.

Two or more companies may decide to work together by setting up a joint venture or alliance in which each holds a stake. When two companies combine voluntarily, they merge in a merger.

A company has two ways of delivering value to clients: either the clients obtain just the accumulated wisdom and talents of the specific professionals who are servicing their work, or the clients can get this, “plus” all the relevant accumulated wisdom, experience, tools, methodologies of the rest of the firm. What does it mean for a company to have value above and beyond the talents of individual professionals? What can a firm do that will help a professional to be more successful than he or she would be at a halfway decent competitor? Maybe:

- provide professionals with the benefit of shared skills and experiences within the practice group.

- facilitate access to the skills of others in different disciplines. - establish procedures to produce well trained junior professionals. - achieve a high level of cross selling and access to clients of other

professionals. - provide superior support staff and systems. - instill a system of supportive challenging, coaching to bring out the

best in each professional. - create an emotionally supportive friendly environment. - provide for diversification of personal risk. - establish a powerful brand name that makes marketing easier. Interesting but more and more in our concern the firm, the company

has to be viewed in future. The strategic challenge for professional firms is not to forecast the future, but to ensure that the firm is effective at adapting to already observable market changes. Most professional firms are resistant to change.

Old ways of doing business suffer from inertia and few firms are either willing or able to implement significant changes in the way they manage their affairs. Major trends are being identified and big schemes are announced as responding to them. But a professional firm is not completely at the mercy of unknowable fates. You can make things happen if you want

to. Why plan in an unpredictable world? Because you can make sure that the way you run your affairs makes you more adaptable and adaptive.

Through a combination of planning and reexamination of current management practices, firms can become better at listening to the environment and picking up its change signals early. They can also become better at ensuring that they have numerous experiments going on to test new ideas and approaches. Firms should be testing what the market will and will not respond to.They must avoid complacency, be adaptive by constantly asking:” is there a better way to do what we do?”

Firms are very good at figuring out what they want their people to do differently. They are not so good at figuring out management systems to get them to do it. So, planning means managing in new and different ways. Many companies miss a central truth: if you haven’t changed your measures and rewards, you haven’t changed your strategy.

A firm has to be better than the competition in the following ways: - Aggressive listening to the market.- good tactics: focus groups,

feedback survey, client panels, formal market research.. - Using market intelligence: each practice is actively gathering

market intelligence and is devising new things to do for clients. - Raising the level of innovation- the management’s job is to

stimulate experiments and encourage innovation. - Sharing new knowledge- firms must become good at sharing

the results of their experiments. - Pressure for personal growth through professional performance

counseling and practice leadership. - Management behaviour- management must be perceived as

leaders of a changed effort; stimulating new ideas, willingness to provide seed capital for those who wish to try new things.

- Measuring success not only by the volume of work performance but by the type of work it brings in.


Adriana Vintean, Practical English for Business, Psihomedia Publishing House Sibiu, Adriana Vintean, Communication Skills in Business English, Psihomedia Publishing House Sibiu, English Collection,



Questions:

1. What do shareholders do? 2. If the company has 2-50 shareholders how is it called? 3. How can you buy shares? 4. What do two companies combine voluntarily into? 5. Do big businesses refer to large business organizations?

Exercices and Tests:

I. Complete the sentences: 1. The liability is limited…. 2. Big business….. 3. A holding company…. 4. There are many ways….. 5. The debt is paid….. II. Choose the correct form of the verb:

Large companies (to be reffered) to as corporations. Corporate(must)

(to describe) things relating to a corporation or to corporations. Large companies operationg in many countries (to be) multinationals. Big business (can) (refer) to large business organizations or to any business activity that (make) a lot of money. Small companies (to be) (refer) to as small businesses or small firms.

III. Fill in the blanks with the correct words:

A holding or ..... company is .... one that holds stakes ... one or more

subsidiaries. If it .... all the .... in ... subsidiary, then .... subsidiary is a wholly owned one. A holding company’s relationship to its subsidiaries... that.... parent company and the subsidiaries” relationship... each other is..... of sister companies. ...... holding and.... subsidiaries form.. group. ... conglomerate is... group containing... lot of different companies in different businesses

IV. True or false? A company has several ways of take value to clients: the clients can

bring just the accumulated wisdom and talents of the specific professionals who are servicing their work, or the clients can get this, “plus” all the irrelevant accumulated wisdom, experience, tools, methodologies of the rest of the firm. What does it mean for a company to have value beyond the talents of individual professionals? What can a firm do that will help a professional to be more successful than he or she would be at a halfway decent competitor? Maybe: provide non professionals with the benefit of shared skills and experiences within the practice group.

V. . Make the logical and grammatically correct sentences from

the following words: strategic/the/ for/challenge/ professional/to/ firms/ is/ but to/not/

forecast the future/, ensure/ at/that/changes/ the firm/ is /market/effective/ adapting/ to /already/ observable.

VI. Enlarge upon the following: 1.Succesful companies make their best moves by brilliant and

complex strategic planning. 2. Visionary companies are great places to work 3.The firm of the future is very close to us! VII. Company structure. VIII. Imagine a visionary company. IX. Draw up a strategic plan.

Tema VI. ThemeVI.

LEADERSHIP 1.obiectivele specifice ale temei (the main objectives) * înŃelegerea textului şi a situaŃiilor prezentate * crearea unor situaŃii- dialog cu exprimări căt mai corecte şi cursive * aprofundarea problemelor de lexic 2. competenŃe specifice dobăndite de student:(specific skills of the

student) * abilitate în comunicare folosind bagajul lingvistic de specialitate * fluenŃă în exprimare * cunoaşterea principiilor, a lucrului in echipa,a succesului, a

insuccesului. 3.cuvinte cheie:((keywords): challenge, team effort, success,

positive, performance 4. structura modulului de studiu:(the structure of the study) goal

action principles, strategic plans, ways of delivering value to clients, competition

5.rezumat:(abstract) Leadership is to be taken into account whenever we have in view

any business; and so, there are some steps to be followed: the agreement to success for every team member. Everyone wants to be successful as far as goals are clear and business processes are far from being clumsy. Everyone has positive and negative thoughts in their minds most of the time Successful business asks for good leadership and this is not some mystical act performed by the few and only able to be performed by them through some luck of upbringing or genetics that made them natural leaders. We can become better leaders than we are; to achieve this means that we need to do the right things at the right time more often than we usually do and we also need to examine ourselves. We also need to have a clear idea of what to do in order to gain the best possible result from others.

The Content Successful business asks for good leadership and this is not some

mystical act performed by the few and only able to be performed by them through some luck of upbringing or genetics that made them natural leaders. We can become better leaders than we are; to achieve this means that we need to do the right things at the right time more often than we usually do and we also need to examine ourselves. We also need to have a clear idea of what to do in order to gain the best possible result from others. The actions identified must be the appropriate actions in what is broadly called ”western society”(North America, U.K., Europe, Australia, New Zealand).

Leadership is to be taken into account whenever we have in view any business; and so, there are some steps to be followed: the agreement to success for every team member. Everyone wants to be successful as far as goals are clear and business processes are far from being clumsy. Everyone has positive and negative thoughts in their minds most of the time. We know how easy it is for the negative thoughts: the company is not good, the boss is bad…We represent the positive assertively in our mind- “work is rewarding”. But we select our thoughts and they influence us. If a person has negative thoughts about the job and the company, work performance is suffering. The negative impact can make the team output less than it should otherwise be. But we are responsible for our own thoughts, so what a manager can do is to point out the consequences. It is clear that when the team becomes focused, gets people organized, celebrates success, then bad attitudes disappear.

Defining success entails the idea of challenge which energizes people.

The team leaders and managers must live as exemplary models of how they expect others in their team to act. Each management team member is expected to be an “ inspiring player.” The team effort has to be understood properly. The team spirit must be a consequence of doing other things well. Coordinating the effort is to be achieved by the profit profile with each team member being accountable for some number on the profile and this will define success for a team. People have seen now the standards required. Identifying the behaviours of success has to be take into consideration. As the goals have been agreed, the steps to be followed are to make clear what actions were most likely to bring about the goals.

In the goal-action principle, the idea of action becomes clear now, we have those behaviours that will best fulfill the goal, derived from the goal and belonging to it. It is important to find the balance between two things in

conflict as a crucial act of insight and creativity for the manager and the team. If the issue is finding sales tactics, then the problem is one of creativity for the team to brainstorm possible tactics and then select one or several that best achieves the balance of the required result.

Provide monitoring and feedback on progress and performance. The main concern among the teams was to provide useful guidance on what should be changed to improve the results. Better reports were being sought, better information.

Celebrate success, large and small. Teams celebrate success as people have risen to the challenge. Team results were evident. The progressive build up of life satisfaction was something that occurred beneath the daily flux and it should increase each year. It was seen as related to goals and work had the potential to be a major component.

Teams will remain the core of the business. Before demanding better performance one have to be sure that this can be achieved. So, for every goal there are tasks that must be acted out if the goal is to be achieved. Everyone succeeds if the team succeeds. It is important to recognize individual performance, but from within the framework of the team.

A management team should be a team, not a collection of individuals with personal accountability. This means that every team member understands that they can win only if the team wins and the team wins by achieving the targeted operating profit. Within that, each person has his or her role and tasks within this role. If people can fully perform their own jobs and have the mental, emotional and physical energy to assist others, and if the others accept and appreciate the assistance, then those people should be encouraged and celebrated within the team.

A management team operates within the framework and policy prescribed by the strategic plan and is accountable for creating sales revenue and converting it into operating profit.

To develop a manager means to develop the person. That is, to improve business management or business leadership is not merely an act of adding some skills or some knowledge to the person; knowledge alone is not power; only if it is backed by the ability and willingness of how, the judgement of when to use that knowledge is power.

Intellectual honesty is an important quality that must be taken into consideration. That means being truthful with yourself and not only. We have wishes and dreams, sensitivities about ourselves; so often we do not want to think poorly of ourselves; it is easier and more comfortable to find reasons beyond us for the unfortunate things that happen or for results that should have been . Such emotional forces can and do push us to think in

certain ways. Then, intellectual honesty comes to help us: a process of conceiving the factors accurately as a scientist might, without the comfort of the excuses. It allows us to avoid giving up too early and this is one of the hallmarks of all champions.

There are some situations we meet within a company: There are all kinds of reasons for wanting to be your own boss. Some people like the idea of there being no one in authority over them, telling them what to do, saying their work is not up to standard, turning down their ideas, or insisting on methods that seem pointless. Others are attracted by the thought of deciding their own hours, or days, of work.

Running your own business gives you the status of being self-employed, perhaps also of being a company director. There is the general feeling of independence, and that your income - and perhaps even your way of life - is in your own hands. Some are attracted to the idea of starting a small enterprise and making it grow, much as a gardener tends his plot and makes a number of plants come to maturity, each in turn creating further growth.

If you are your own boss, say some people, work is so much more pleasant. You can get someone else to do the less interesting jobs and you are not bogged down in annoying details. Work becomes easier, too, because you can get someone else to do the more difficult tasks.

Many others want to set up a little business of their own to occupy their spare time, and as a pleasant way of earning extra money from work they like doing.

These are just a few of the reasons commonly given. Some have good sense behind them; others are based on completely false ideas. Most contain some element of truth which gets magnified out of all proportion, and seized upon without it being borne in mind that there are other points to consider as well.

As with so much else in life, running an enterprise of your own entails disadvantages as well as advantages. It is surprising how rarely people stop to consider in real detail just what the drawbacks are, yet this is an essential first step for anyone thinking about whether it is even practicable for him to be his own boss.

An important reason why there is such glamour about being in charge of your own business is that when you are working for someone else, many of the petty irritations of life, as well as the chore of often having to get down to work that you do not feel like doing at that particular time, become associated with being an employee. There is a feeling that, if only

you were your own boss, life would immediately become infinitely pleasurable and free from irksome detail.

This is almost entirely misleading. Many of the little annoyances probably have nothing to do with being an employee: being interrupted when you have at last immersed yourself in some disagreeable task, missing the bus when you are in a hurry, feeling tired or in other ways not really up to working hard at the moment, and so on.

These occur just as much when you are your own master. In fact, they tend to happen much more often, while at the same time, their effects can be far more upsetting.

There are very real drawbacks to running your own business, though for the right kind of person, immeasurable benefits also.

A company has two ways of delivering value to clients: either the clients obtain just the accumulated wisdom and talents of the specific professionals who are servicing their work, or the clients can get this, “plus” all the relevant accumulated wisdom, experience, tools, methodologies of the rest of the firm. What does it mean for a company to have value above and beyond the talents of individual professionals? What can a firm do that will help a professional to be more successful than he or she would be at a halfway decent competitor? Maybe:

- provide professionals with the benefit of shared skills and experiences within the practice group.

- facilitate access to the skills of others in different disciplines. - establish procedures to produce well trained junior professionals. - achieve a high level of cross selling and access to clients of other

professionals. - provide superior support staff and systems. - instill a system of supportive challenging, coaching to bring out the

best in each professional. - create an emotionally supportive friendly environment. - provide for diversification of personal risk. - establish a powerful brand name that makes marketing easier. Interesting but more and more in our concern the firm, the company

has to be viewed in future. The strategic challenge for professional firms is not to forecast the future, but to ensure that the firm is effective at adapting to already observable market changes. Most professional firms are resistant to change.

Old ways of doing business suffer from inertia and few firms are either willing or able to implement significant changes in the way they manage their affairs. Major trends are being identified and big schemes are

announced as responding to them. But a professional firm is not completely at the mercy of unknowable fates. You can make things happen if you want to. Why plan in an unpredictable world? Because you can make sure that the way you run your affairs makes you more adaptable and adaptive.

Through a combination of planning and reexamination of current management practices, firms can become better at listening to the environment and picking up its change signals early. They can also become better at ensuring that they have numerous experiments going on to test new ideas and approaches. Firms should be testing what the market will and will not respond to.

They must avoid complacency, be adaptive by constantly asking:” is there a better way to do what we do?”

Firms are very good at figuring out what they want their people to do differently. They are not so good at figuring out management systems to get them to do it. So, planning means managing in new and different ways. Many companies miss a central truth: if you haven’t changed your measures and rewards, you haven’t changed your strategy.

A firm has to be better than the competition in the following ways: - Aggressive listening to the market.- good tactics: focus groups,

feedback survey, client panels, formal market research.. - Using market intelligence: each practice is actively gathering

market intelligence and is devising new things to do for clients. - Raising the level of innovation- the management’s job is to

stimulate experiments and encourage innovation. - Sharing new knowledge- firms must become good at sharing

the results of their experiments. - Pressure for personal growth through professional performance

counseling and practice leadership. - Management behaviour- management must be perceived as

leaders of a changed effort; stimulating new ideas, willingness to provide seed capital for those who wish to try new things.

- Measuring success not only by the volume of work performance but by the type of work it brings in.

Additional Bibliography: Adriana Vintean, Practical English for Business, Psihomedia




Questions: 1.Why should the goals be very clear in a business? 2. How can you become good in everything you do? 3. When is leadership to be taken into account? 4. How can you get rid of negative thoughts? 5.Who are the team leaders?

Exercices and Tests:

I. Complete the sentences: 1. A leader will be very careful with…. 2. The responsibility of the team…. 3. The teams…. 4. It is clear that… 5. The negative impact………. II. Choose the correct form of the verb: You (can) (to make) things (to happen) if you (to want) to. Why (to

plan) in an unpredictable world? Because you (can) (make) sure that the way you (to run) your affairs (to make) you more adaptable and adaptive.

Through a combination of planning and reexamination of current management practices, firms (can) (to become) better at listening to the environment and picking up its change signals early.

III. Fill in the blanks with the correct words:

Leadership is…. taken…. account whenever we have in… any

business; and so, there… some steps to be followed: the agreement to success… every team member. Everyone wants… successful as far …goals are clear and business processes are…. from being clumsy. Everyone has….and negative thoughts in their minds most… the time. We know how easy it is… the negative thoughts: the company is not good, the boss… bad. We represent the positive assertively in…mind- “work is rewarding”. But we select… thoughts and they influence… . If a person has….. thoughts about the job and the company, work performance….. suffering.

IV. True or false? We can never become better leaders than we are; maybe in

future! To achieve this means that we need to do the wrong things at the right time more often than we usually do and we also need to examine the others. We also need to have strict and clear ideas of what to do in order to gain the best possible result from others. The actions identified must be the appropriate actions in what is broadly called ”eastern society”(North America, U.K., Europe, Australia, New Zealand).

Leadership is to be taken into account whenever we have in view any situation and we want to tackle things accordingly.

V. Make the logical and grammatically correct sentences from the following words:

disappear/success/then/attitudes/bad/is/it/that/clear/when/team//the/g

ets/becomes/focused/people/organized/celebrates/. VI. Enlarge upon the following: 1.Teams will remain the core of the business. 2.A management team should be a team, not a collection of

individuals with personal accountability. 3. To develop as a manager means to develop as a person.

VII. Describe a company and its management system

VIII. Outline the qualities of the charismatic leader.

IX. Write a dialogue on celebrating success.

Tema VII. ThemeVII

MARKETIN and MERCHANDISING 1. obiectivele specifice ale temei: (the main objectives) * înŃelegerea textului şi a situaŃiilor prezentate * crearea unor situaŃii- dialog cu exprimări căt mai corecte şi cursive * aprofundarea problemelor de lexic 2. competenŃe specifice dobăndite de student:( specific skills of the

student) * abilitate în comunicare folosind bagajul lingvistic de specialitate * fluenŃă în exprimare * cunoaşterea proceselor de marketing în economia de piaŃă 3.cuvinte cheie(key words): economy, product, process,

customer,consumer, price. 4. structura modulului de studiu(the structure of the study): roles of

marketing, components and elements, the consumer buying process. 5. rezumat(abstract): Marketing is a process whose principal function is to promote and

facilitate exchange. It is through marketing that individuals and groups obtain what they need and want by exchanging products and services with other parties. Such a process can occur only when there are at least two parties, each of whom has something to offe.Within the broad scope of marketing, merchandising is concerned more specifically with promoting the sale of goods and services to consumers (i.e., retailing) and hence is more characteristic of free-market economies. The marketing process includes designing and implementing various tactics, commonly referred to as the "marketing mix," or the "4 Ps": product, price, place (or distribution), and promotion.

The Content

More and more we speak about a process whose principal

function is to promote and facilitate exchange. Through marketing, individuals and groups obtain what they need and want by exchanging products and services with other parties. Such a process can occur only when there are at least two parties, each of whom has something to offer. In addition, exchange cannot occur unless the parties are able to communicate about and to deliver what they offer. Marketing is not a coercive process: all parties must be free to accept or reject what others are offering. So defined, marketing is distinguished from other modes of obtaining desired goods, such as through self-production, begging, theft, or force. Marketing is not confined to any particular type of economy, because goods must be exchanged and therefore marketed in all economies and societies except perhaps in the most primitive. Furthermore, marketing is not a function that is limited to profit-oriented business; even such institutions as hospitals, schools, and museums engage in some forms of marketing. Within the broad scope of marketing, merchandising is concerned more specifically with promoting the sale of goods and services to consumers (i.e., retailing) and hence is more characteristic of free-market economies.Based on these criteria, marketing can take a variety of forms: it can be a set of functions, a department within an organization, a managerial process, a managerial philosophy, and a social process.

As marketing developed, it took a variety of forms. It was noted above that marketing can be viewed as a set of functions in the sense that certain activities are traditionally associated with the exchange process. A common but incorrect view is that selling and advertising are the only marketing activities. Yet, in addition to promotion, marketing includes a much broader set of functions, including product development, packaging, pricing, distribution, and customer service. Many organizations and businesses assign responsibility for these marketing functions to a specific group of individuals within the organization. In this respect, marketing is a unique and separate entity. Those who make up the marketing department may include brand and product managers, marketing researchers, sales representatives, advertising and promotion managers, pricing specialists, and customer service personnel.

As a managerial process, marketing is the way in which an organization determines its best opportunities in the marketplace, given its objectives and resources. The marketing process is divided into a strategic

and a tactical phase. The strategic phase has three components--segmentation, targeting, and positioning (STP). The organization must distinguish among different groups of customers in the market (segmentation), choose which group(s) it can serve effectively (targeting), and communicate the central benefit it offers to that group (positioning). The marketing process includes designing and implementing various tactics, commonly referred to as the "marketing mix," or the "4 Ps": product, price, place (or distribution), and promotion. The marketing mix is followed by evaluating, controlling, and revising the marketing process to achieve the organization's objectives .The managerial philosophy of marketing puts central emphasis on customer satisfaction as the means for gaining and keeping loyal customers. Marketers urge their organizations to carefully and continually gauge target customers' expectations and to consistently meet or exceed these expectations. In order to accomplish this, everyone in all areas of the organization must focus on understanding and serving customers; it will not succeed if all marketing occurs only in the marketing department. Marketing, consequently, is far too important to be done solely by the marketing department. Marketers also want their organizations to move from practicing transaction-oriented marketing, which focuses on individual exchanges, to relationship-driven marketing, which emphasizes serving the customer over the long term. Simply getting new customers and losing old ones will not help the organization achieve its objectives. Finally, marketing is a social process that occurs in all economies, regardless of their political structure and orientation. It is the process by which a society organizes and distributes its resources to meet the material needs of its citizens. However, marketing activity is more pronounced under conditions of goods surpluses than goods shortages. When goods are in short supply, consumers are usually so desirous of goods that the exchange process does not require significant promotion or facilitation. In contrast, when there are more goods and services than consumers need or want, companies must work harder to convince customers to exchange with them.

The marketing process consists of four elements: strategic marketing analysis, marketing-mix planning, marketing implementation, and marketing control.

The elements that play a role in the marketing process can be divided into three groups: customers, distributors, and facilitators. In addition to interacting with one another, these groups must interact within a business environment that is affected by a variety of forces, including governmental, economic, and social influences.

In order to understand target customers, certain questions must be answered: Who constitutes the market segment? What do they buy and why? And how, when, and where do they buy? Knowing who constitutes the market segment is not simply a matter of knowing who uses a product. Often, individuals other than the user may participate in or influence a purchasing decision. Several individuals may play various roles in the decision-making process. For instance, in the decision to purchase an automobile for a small family business, the son may be the initiator, the daughter may be an influencer, the wife may be the decider, the purchasing manager may be the buyer, and the husband may be the user. In other words, the son may read in a magazine that businesses can save money and decrease tax liability by owning or leasing company transportation. He may therefore initiate the product search process by raising this issue at a weekly business meeting. However, the son may not be the best-qualified to gather and process information about automobiles, because the daughter worked for several years in the auto industry before joining the family business. Although the daughter's expertise and research efforts may influence the process, she may not be the key decision maker. The mother, by virtue of her position in the business and in the family, may make the final decision about which car to purchase. However, the family uncle may have good negotiation skills, and he may be the purchasing agent. Thus, he will go to different car dealerships in order to buy the chosen car at the best possible price. Finally, despite the involvement of all these individuals in the purchase process, none of them may actually drive the car. It may be purchased so that the father may use it for his frequent sales calls. In other instances, an individual may handle more than one of these purchasing functions and may even be responsible for all of them. The key is that a marketer must recognize that different people have different influences on the purchase decision, and these factors must be taken into account in crafting a marketing strategy.

In addition to knowing to whom the marketing efforts are targeted, it is important to know which products target customers tend to purchase and why they do so. Customers do not purchase "things" as much as they purchase services or benefits to satisfy needs. For instance, a conventional oven allows users to cook and heat food. Microwave oven manufacturers recognized that this need could be fulfilled--and done so more quickly--with a technology other than conventional heating. By focusing on needs rather than on products, these companies were able to gain a significant share in the food cooking and heating market. Knowledge of when, where, and how purchases are made is also useful. A furniture store whose target customers

tend to make major purchases in the spring may send its mailings at the beginning of this season. A food vendor may set up a stand near the door of a busy office complex so that employees must pass the stand on their way to lunch. And a jeweler who knows that customers prefer to pay with credit cards may ensure that all major credit cards are accepted at the store. In other cases, marketers who understand specifics about buying habits and preferences also may try to alter them. Thus, a remotely situated wholesale store may use deeply discounted prices to lure customers away from the more conveniently located shopping malls.

Customers can be divided into two categories: consumer customers, who purchase goods and services for use by themselves and by those with whom they live; and business customers, who purchase goods and services for use by the organization for which they work. Although there are a number of similarities between the purchasing approaches of each type of customer, there are important differences as well.

The purchase process is initiated when a consumer becomes aware of a need. This awareness may come from an internal source such as hunger or an external source such as marketing communications. Awareness of such a need motivates the consumer to search for information about options with which to fulfill the need. This information can come from personal sources, commercial sources, public or government sources, or the consumer's own experience. Once alternatives have been identified through these sources, consumers evaluate the options, paying particular attention to those attributes the consumer considers most important. Evaluation culminates with a purchase decision, but the buying process does not end here. In fact, marketers point out that a purchase represents the beginning, not the end, of a consumer's relationship with a company. After a purchase has been made, a satisfied consumer is more likely to purchase another company product and to say positive things about the company or its product to other potential purchasers. The opposite is true for dissatisfied consumers. Because of this fact, many companies continue to communicate with their customers after a purchase in an effort to influence post-purchase satisfaction and behaviour.

For example, a plumber may be motivated to consider buying a new set of tools because his old set of tools is getting rusty. To gather information about what kind of new tool set to buy, this plumber may examine the tools of a colleague who just bought a new set, read advertisements in plumbing trade magazines, and visit different stores to examine the sets available. The plumber then processes all the information collected, focusing perhaps on durability as one of the most important attributes. In making a particular purchase, the plumber initiates a

relationship with a particular tool company. This company may try to enhance post-purchase loyalty and satisfaction by sending the plumber promotions about new tools.

Business customers, also known as industrial customers, purchase products or services to use in the production of other products. Such industries include agriculture, manufacturing, construction, transportation, and communication, among others. They differ from consumer markets in several respects. Because the customers are organizations, the market tends to have fewer and larger buyers than consumer markets. This often results in closer buyer-seller relationships, because those who operate in a market must depend more significantly on one another for supply and revenue. Business customers also are more concentrated; for instance, in the United States more than half of the country's business buyers are concentrated in only seven states. Demand for business goods is derived demand, which means it is driven by a demand for consumer goods. Therefore, demand for business goods is more volatile, because variations in consumer demand can have a significant impact on business-goods demand. Business markets are also distinctive in that buyers are professional purchasers who are highly skilled in negotiating contracts and maximizing efficiency. In addition, several individuals within the business usually have direct or indirect influence on the purchasing process.

Although business customers are affected by the same cultural, social, personal, and psychological factors that influence consumer customers, the business arena imposes other factors that can be even more influential. First, there is the economic environment, which is characterized by such factors as primary demand, economic forecast, political and regulatory developments, and the type of competition in the market. In a highly competitive market such as airline travel, firms may be concerned about price and therefore make purchases with a focus on saving money. In markets where there is more differentiation among competitors--e.g., in the hotel industry--many firms may make purchases with a focus on quality rather than on price.

Second, there are organizational factors, which include the objectives, policies, procedures, structures, and systems that characterize any particular company. Some companies are structured in such a way that purchases must pass through a complex system of checks and balances, while other companies allow purchasing managers to make more individual decisions. Interpersonal factors are more salient among business customers, because the participants in the buying process--perhaps representing several departments within a company--often have different interests, authority, and

persuasiveness. Furthermore, the factors that affect an individual in the business buying process are related to the participant's role in the organization. These factors include job position, risk attitudes, and income.

The business buying process mirrors the consumer buying process, with a few notable exceptions. Business buying is not generally need-driven and is instead problem-driven. A business buying process is usually initiated when someone in the company sees a problem that needs to be solved or recognizes a way in which the company can increase profitability or efficiency. The ensuing process follows the same pattern as that of consumers, including information search, evaluation of alternatives, purchase decision, and post-purchase evaluation. However, in part because business purchase decisions require accountability and are often closely analyzed according to cost and efficiency, the process is more systematic than consumer buying and often involves significant documentation. Typically, a purchasing agent for a business buyer will generate documentation regarding product specifications, preferred supplier lists, requests for bids from suppliers, and performance reviews.

Additional Bibliography :


Adriana Sofletea, Marketing and Merchandising,Colectia engleza,Editura Alma Mater Sibiu.

unde se vor consulta urmatoarele capitole:The Evolving Discipline of Marketing ,Roles of Marketing ,the Marketing Process ,Strategic Marketing Analysis ,Marketing-mix Planning ,Marketing Control, the Marketing Actors ,Wholesalers, Retailers,Marketing Facilitators ,Marketing in Different Sectors ,Economic and Social Aspects of Marketing

Questions:

1. How can you define marketing and merchandising? What are they

being concerned with? 2. Define the importance of the four four elements: strategic

marketing analysis, marketing-mix planning, marketing implementation, and marketing control

3. As a managerial process, marketing is the way in which an organization determines its best opportunities in the marketplace, given its objectives and resources. What do you think about this?

4. What is the meaning of the elements that play a role in the marketing process, namely the customers, distributors, and facilitators?

5. In order to understand target customers, certain questions must be answered: Who constitutes the market segment? What do they buy and why? And how, when, and where do they buy? What happens with them?

Exercices/ Tests 1. Complete with the right words: Yet, in addition........., marketing includes a much broader set of

functions, including ...........development, packaging, pricing, distribution, and customer service. Many organizations and businesses ............responsibility for these marketing functions to a specific group of individuals ..........the organization. In this respect, marketing is a unique and separate entity. Those who make up the marketing department may include .........and product managers, marketing............, sales representatives, advertising and promotion managers, ............specialists, and customer service personnel. The elements that play a role in the marketing process can be divided into three groups: customers, ...............and facilitators. In addition to interacting with one another, these groups must interact within a ..........................environment that is affected by a variety of forces, including governmental, economic, and social influences

2 Make the logical and grammatically correct sentences from the following words:

a / when/ a/business / or/ can/buying/is/ process/ usually/in/the/ initiated / someone/ company /a/sees/ problem/way/ that/ needs/efficiency/ to be solved/or /recognizes/ in which/ the company /increase /profitability.

3. Find out the mistakes In fact, marketers point out that a purchase represent the end, not the

beginning, of a consumer's relationship with a company. After a sell has been made, a satisfied consumer is more likely to purchase another company product and to say interesting things about the company or its product to other potential purchasers. The opposite is not true for dissatisfied consumers. Because of this fact, many companies do not communicate with their customers after a purchase in an effort to influence post-purchase satisfaction and behaviour.

Tema VIII.Theme VIII.

TOURISM – The World’s Biggest Industry 1.obiectivele specifice ale temei:(the main objectives of the theme) * înŃelegerea textului şi a situaŃiilor prezentate * crearea unor situaŃii- dialog cu exprimări căt mai corecte şi cursive * aprofundarea problemelor de lexic 2. competenŃe specifice dobăndite de student(the specific skills of

the student) * abilitate în comunicare folosind bagajul lingvistic de specialitate * fluenŃă în exprimare * cunoaşterea proceselor în economia de piaŃă 3.cuvinte cheie(key words): facilities, convenience, service, hotel,

accommodation, visitor. 4. structura modulului de studiu(the structure of the study): the hotel

as a market concept, facilities, impacts on tourists. 5.rezumat(abstract): Tourism now finds itself at a crossroads in its development. It is

heralded as ‘the world’s biggest industry’ by a number of global organisations including the World Travel and Tourism Council (WTTC) and the World Tourism Organisation (WTO. At a time of increasing concern for the environment and the retention of cultural identities, tourism is viewed by governments and consumers alike as a potentially destructive force, causing harmful environmental and socio-cultural impacts in destination areas and on host communities. Today, tourism is seen as a major contributor to global economic development, creating employment and generating wealth on a truly international scale. An increasing number of countries rely heavily on receipts from tourism for their economic and social well-being. Tourism is mostly viewed in the relationship with hotel industry. From the point of view of its users, a hotel is an institution of commercial hospitality, which offers its facilities and services for sale, individually or in various combinations, and this concept is made up of several elements.

The Content Against the background. of unparalleled growth in the latter half of

the twentieth century, tourism now finds itself at a crossroads in its development. On the one hand, it is heralded as ‘the world’s biggest industry’ by a number of global organisations including the World Travel and Tourism Council (WTTC) and the World Tourism Organisation (WTO), which highlights the fact that tourism overtook both crude petroleum and motor vehicles to become the world’s number one export earner in 1994. Its economic significance is also illustrated by the fact that tourism receipts were greater than the world’s exports of other selected product groups, including electronic equipment, clothing, textiles and raw materials.

In addition, receipts from international tourism have achieved growth rates in excess of exports of commercial services and merchandise exports during the period 1984 to 1994. For the period 1985 to 1995 the trend is similar, with the following average annual percentage growth rates:

• Tourism l2per cent

• Commercial services 12 per cent

• Merchandise exports 10 per cent WTO data also indicate rapid and sustained growth in international

tourist arrivals and receipts from tourism over the last 30 years. Today, tourism is seen as a major contributor to global economic development, creating employment and generating wealth on a truly international scale. An increasing number of countries rely heavily on receipts from tourism for their economic and social well-being.

In direct contrast to this very positive outlook for the industry, many national governments are reluctant to invest public funds in tourism development and promotion, with tourism spending often being cut when more pressing social and economic needs arise. The decisions, in 1997, by the governments of Canada, the United States of America and Belgium to transfer responsibility, for tourism to private sector enterprises or regional authorities serve to illustrate this point well. In Britain, the funding of the English Tourist Board has been cut drastically since the early 1990s, the decision of a government that considered the industry to he sufficiently mature and able to fund its own expansion with diminishing public financial support. At a time of increasing concern for the environment and the retention of cultural identities, tourism is also viewed by governments and consumers alike as a potentially destructive force, causing harmful environmental and socio-cultural impacts in destination areas and on host communities. Paradoxically, it is not difficult to argue that the withdrawal of

public funding and control from tourism development may well accelerate the industry’s harmful environmental and socio-cultural effects.

It is against this background of a complex and rapidly expanding industry seeking to maintain its credibility and promote its economic benefits, often in the face of declining governmental and host community support. Tourism is mostly viewed in the relationship with hotel industry. From the point of view of its users, a hotel is an institution of commercial hospitality, which offers its facilities and services for sale, individually or in various combinations, and this concept is made up of several elements.

Its location places the hotel geographically in or near a particular city, town or village; within a given area location denotes accessibility and the convenience this represents, attractiveness of surroundings and the appeal this represents, freedom from noise and other nuisances, or otherwise.

Its facilities which include bedrooms, restaurants, bars, function rooms, meeting rooms and recreation facilities such as tennis courts and swimming pools represent a repertoire of facilities for the use of its customers, and these may be differentiated in type, size, and in other ways.

The service comprises the availability and extent of particular hotel services provided through its facilities, the style and quality of all these in such terms as formality and informality, degree of personal attention, and speed and efficiency.

Its image may he defined as the way in which the hotel portrays itself to people and the way in which it is perceived as portraying itself by them. It is a byproduct of its location, facilities and service, but it is enhanced by such factors as its name, appearance; its associations by who stays there and who eats there; by what it says about itself and what other people say about it.

Its price expresses the value given by the hotel through its location, facilities, service and image, and the satisfaction derived by its users from these elements of the hotel concept. The individual elements assume greater or lesser importance for different people. One person may put location as paramount and be prepared to accept basic facilities and service for an overnight day, ignoring the image, as long as the price is within a limit, to which he is willing to go. Another may be more concerned with the image of the hotel, its facilities and service. However, all the five elements are related to each other, and in a situation of choice most hotel users tend either to accept or reject as a whole, that is the total concept.

There are varying degrees of adaptability and flexibility in the hotel concept, ranging from the complete fixity of its location to the relative

flexibility of price, with facilities, service and image lending themselves to some adaptation in particular circumstances with time

In the early days of innkeeping the traveller often had to bring his own food to places where he stayed the night-bed for the night was the only product offered But soon most establishments extended their hospitality to providing at least some food and refreshments. Today, many apartment hotels, and motels confine their facilities to sleeping accommodation, with little or no catering provision. But the typical hotel as we know it today, normally provides not only accommodation, but also food and drink, and sometimes other facilities and services, and makes them available not only to its residents but also to non-residents.

Although the range of hotel facilities and services may extend as far as to cater for all or most needs of their customers, however long their stay, and for a hotel to become a self-contained community with its own shops, entertainments and recreation facilities, it is helpful at this stage to describe the hotel concept in a simpler form, by including only the main customer needs typically met by most hotels.

The main customer demand in most hotels is for sleeping accommodation, food and drink, and for food and drink for organized groups. These four requirements then relate to accommodation, restaurants, bars and functions, as the principal hotel products.

Sleeping accommodation is provided for hotel residents alone. Restaurants and bars meet the requirements of hotel residents and non-residents alike, even though separate facilities may be sometimes provided for them. Functions are best seen as a separate hotel product bought by organized groups; these groups may be resident in the hotel as, for example, participants in a residential conference, or be non-residents, such as a local club or society, or the group may combine the two. The total hotel concept — of location, facilities, service, image and price - can he, therefore, sub-divided according to the needs of the customer and the particular facilities brought into play to meet them. The cluster of elements of the total hotel concept is then related to each particular hotel product. Each hotel product contains the elements of the location, facilities, services, image and price, to meet a particular customer need or set of needs. The first approach to the segmentation of the hotel market is, therefore, taken by dividing hotel users according to the products bought.

Corresponding to each hotel product there are the buyers of that product who constitute a market for it.

Hotel users who are buyers of overnight accommodation may be classified according to the main purpose of their visit to a particular location into three main categories as holiday, business and other users.

Holiday users include a variety of leisure travel as the main reason for their stay in hotels, ranging from short stays in a particular location on the way to somewhere else to weekend and longer stays when the location represents the end of a journey. Their demand for hotel accommodation tends to be resort oriented, seasonal and sensitive to price.

Business users are employees and others travelling in the course of their work, people visiting exhibitions, trade fairs, or coming together as members of professional and commercial organizations for meetings and conferences. Their demand for hotel accommodation tends to be town- and city-oriented, non-seasonal and less price-sensitive, except in the case of some event attractions such as conferences and exhibitions, which may he usefully regarded as a separate category.

Other hotel users comprise visitors to a particular location for a variety of reasons other than holiday or business, e.g. those attending such family occasions as weddings, parents visiting educational institutions, visitors to special events, and common interest groups meeting for other than business and vocational reasons, re-locating families and individuals seeking permanent accommodation in an area and staying temporarily in an hotel, people living in an hotel permanently. The characteristics of this type of demand are more varied than those of the first and second group, and it is, therefore, often desirable to sub-divide it further for practical purposes.

Within and between the three main groups, which comprise the total market for hotel accommodation, there are several distinctions important to individual hotels. We have noted already that some hotel users give rise to demand for transit and short—stay accommodation; others are terminal visitors with a longer average stay. Also, for example, much business demand is generated by a relatively small number of travellers who are frequent hotel users; most holiday and other demand comes from a very large number of people who use hotels only occasionally. Moreover, business users often book accommodation at short notice, whilst holiday and other users tend to do so longer in advance. And in all three groups some people are individual hotel users, and others stay in hotels in groups.

The rich variety of hotels can be seen from the many terms in use to denote particular types. Hotels are referred to as luxury, resort, commercial, residential, transit, and in many other ways. Each of these terms may give an indication of standard or location, or particular type of guest who makes up most of the market of a particular hotel, but it does not describe adequately

its main characteristics. These can be only seen when a combination of terms is applied to an hotel, each of which describes a particular hotel according to certain criteria. It is helpful to appreciate at this stage what the main types of hotels are, by adopting particular criteria for classifying them, without necessarily attaching precise meanings to them.

• Thus according to location hotels are in cities and in large and small towns, in inland, coastal and mountain resorts, and in the country.

• According to the actual position of the hotel in its location it may be in the city or town centre or in the suburbs, along the beach of a coastal resort, along the highway.

• By reference to its relationship with particular means of transport: there are motels and motor hotels, railway hotels, airport hotels (the terms also indicating location).

• According to the purpose of visit and the main reason for their guests’ stay, hotels may become known as business hotels, holiday hotels, convention hotels, tourist hotels.

• Where there is a pronounced tendency to a short or long duration of guests’ stay it may be an important hotel characteristic, so that the hotel becomes a transit or a residential hotel.

• According to the range of its facilities and services a hotel may be open to residents and non-residents, or it may restrict itself to providing overnight accommodation and at most offering breakfast to its guests, apartment hotel.

• Whether a hotel holds a licence for the sale of alcoholic liquor or not, is an important dimension in the range of available hotel services, and the distinction between licensed and unlicensed hotels is, therefore, of relevance in describing a hotel in most countries.

• There is no universal agreement on how hotels should he described according to size, but by reference to their room or bed capacities we normally apply the term small hotel to one with a small amount of sleeping accommodation, the term large hotel to one with several hundred beds or bedrooms, and the term medium size hotel to one somewhere between the two, according to the size structure of the hotel industry in a particular country.

• Whatever the criteria used in hotel guides and in classification and grading systems in existence in many countries, normally at least four or five classes or grades have been found necessary to distinguish adequately in the standards of hotels and these have found some currency among hotel users. The extremes of luxury and basic standards, sometimes denoted by five stars and one star respectively are not difficult concepts; the mid point on any

such scale denotes the average without any particular claims to merit. The intervening points are then standards above average but falling short of luxury (quality hotels) and standards above basic (economy).

Last but not least comes the ownership and management. Individually owned independent hotels, which may he managed by the proprietor or by a salaried manager, have to be distinguished from chain or group hotels, invariably owned by a company. Independent hotels may belong to a hotel consortium or cooperative. A company may operate its hotels under direct management or under a franchise agreement.

The above distinctions then enable us to describe a particular hotel in broad terms, concisely, comprehensively and meaningfully, e.g.:

• Terminus Hotel is a medium-sized economy town centre unlicensed hotel, owned and managed by a small company, catering mainly for tourists visiting the historic town and the surrounding countryside.

• Hotel Excelsior is a large independent luxury hotel on the main promenade of the coastal resort, with holiday visitors as its main market.

• The Crossroads Hotel is a small licensed quality transit motor hotel, operated as a franchise, on the outskirts of the city, which serves mainly traveling.

Additional Bibliography: Adriana Vintean, English Course for Tourism, with the

following chapters: The Business of Hotels, Hotel Products and Markets, Hotel Organization, Hotel Services, Touristic Attractions.


Questions:

1. Why is tourism considered to be the world’s biggest industry? 2. Is there any classification for hotels? 3. The rich variety of hotels can be seen from the many terms in

use to denote particular types. In what respect? 4. A hotel is an institution of commercial hospitality, which offers its

facilities and services for sale, individually or in various combinations, and this concept is made up of several elements. Name some of them.

5. What do hotel users include?

Exercices and tests

1. Complete with the right words: Holiday users include a variety of ……….travel as the main reason

for their stay in hotels, ranging …..short stays in a particular location on the way to ……else to weekend and longer stays when the location represents the end of a ……Their demand for hotel ………tends to be resort oriented, seasonal and sensitive to …….

Business …are employees and others traveling in the course of their……, people visiting exhibitions, trade fairs, or coming together as members of professional and ……….organizations for meetings and conferences. Their …..for hotel accommodation tends to be town- and city-oriented, non-seasonal and less price-sensitive, except in the case of some event attractions such as conferences and exhibitions, which may he usefully regarded as a separate category.

2. Make the logical and grammatically correct sentences from the following words:

of/acording/ for/to/ the/ purpose/ reason/ visit /and/ the/ main / their/ guests’ stay/,as/ hotels/known/ may/ become/ business hotels/, holiday hotels/, convention hotels,/ tourist hotels.

3. Find out the mistakes The rich variety of hotels can seen from the many in use to denote

particular types. Hotels are refer to as luxury, resort, commercial, residential,

transit, and in many other way. Each of the terms may give an indication standard or location, or particular type guest who make up most of the market of a particular hotel, but it do not describe adequately its main characteristics.

Tema IX. Theme IX.

ECONOMIC THEORY 1.obiectivele specifice ale temei: (the main objectives) * înŃelegerea textului şi a situaŃiilor prezentate * crearea unor situaŃii- dialog cu exprimări căt mai corecte şi cursive * aprofundarea problemelor de lexic 2. competenŃe specifice dobăndite de student:(specific skills of the

student) * abilitate în comunicare folosind bagajul lingvistic de specialitate * fluenŃă în exprimare * cunoaşterea proceselor de teorie economică în economia de piaŃă 3.cuvinte cheie(key words): supply, demand, competition, value,

distribution, 4. structura modulului de studiu: (the structure of the study) Market

competition, market performance, monopoly, oligopoly, rivalry among sellers.

5.rezumat(abstract): This branch of the study bears somewhat the same relation to

economic politics that pure physics bears to the engineering sciences. Hence the problems of value and distribution have continued to hold their place among the central concerns of economists

Economic theory is the name commonly given to the more general and abstract parts of economics, the principles.The older classical economists centered their attention on the long-run relations between value and costs and were generally content to dispose of short-run variations of price by merely invoking the formula of supply and demand. the role of demand. Enlarged theories of production, distribution, consumption, business fluctuations, and other economic elements have been introduced and continually reconsidered from a variety of viewpoint.

The Content Economic theory is the name commonly given to the more general

and abstract parts of economics, the principles. These parts are no less practical than concrete-descriptive or applied economics but are less directly related to immediate problems. The mechanics of price relations or of markets afford a general explanation of the organization of production and distribution insofar as this is actually worked out and controlled through competitive buying and selling--which would largely be true even in a planned or socialistic economy that stopped short of complete military regimentation. This branch of the study bears somewhat the same relation to economic politics that pure physics bears to the engineering sciences. Hence the problems of value and distribution have continued to hold their place among the central concerns of economists. However, there has been a notable--one might say a revolutionary--change in the general character of the analysis. The older classical economists centered their attention on the long-run relations between value and costs and were generally content to dispose of short-run variations of price by merely invoking the formula of supply and demand. This was used without careful analysis of the short-run situation, particularly of the role of demand. Work directed toward filling in this gap had important effects in changing the whole conceptual picture. Enlarged theories of production, distribution, consumption, business fluctuations, and other economic elements have been introduced and continually reconsidered from a variety of viewpoints.

Pure competition. Market conduct and performance in atomistic industries provide

good standards against which to measure behaviour in other types of industry. The atomistic category includes both pure competition and monopolistic competition. In pure competition, a large number of small sellers supply a homogeneous product to a common buying market. In this situation no individual seller can perceptibly influence the market price at which he sells but must accept a market price that is impersonally determined by the total supply of the product offered by all sellers and the total demand for the product of all buyers. The large number of sellers precludes the possibility of a common agreement among them, and each must therefore act independently. At any going market price, each seller tends to adjust his output to that quantity that will yield him the largest aggregate profit, assuming that the market price will not change as a result.

But the collective effect of such adjustments by all sellers will cause the total supply in the market to change significantly so that the market price falls or rises. Theoretically, the process will go on until a market price is reached at which the total output that sellers wish to produce is equal to the total output that all buyers wish to purchase. This way of reaching a provisional equilibrium price is what Adam Smith was referring to when he wrote of prices being determined by "the invisible hand" of the market

If the provisional equilibrium price is high enough to allow the established sellers profits in excess of a normal interest return on investment, then added sellers will be drawn to enter the industry, and supply will increase until a final equilibrium price is reached that is equal to the minimal average cost of production (including an interest return) of all sellers. Conversely, if the provisional equilibrium price is so low that established sellers incur losses, some will tend to withdraw from the industry, and supply will decline until the same sort of long-run equilibrium price is reached.

The long-run performance of a purely competitive industry therefore embodies these features: (1) industry output is at a feasible maximum and industry selling price at a feasible minimum; (2) all production is undertaken at minimum attainable average costs, since competition forces them down; and (3) income distribution is not influenced by the receipt of any excess profits by sellers.

This performance has often been applauded as ideal from the standpoint of general economic welfare. But the applause, for several reasons, should not be unqualified. Pure competition is truly ideal only if all or most industries in the economy are purely competitive and if in addition there is free and easy mobility of productive factors among industries. Otherwise, the relative outputs of different industries will not be such as to maximize consumer satisfaction. There is also some question whether producers in purely competitive industries will generally earn enough to plow back some of their earnings into improved equipment and thus maintain a satisfactory rate of technological progress. Finally, some purely competitive industries have been afflicted with "destructive competition"--the coal industry and the basic agricultural industries, for example. For some historical reason such an industry accumulates excess capacity to the point where sellers suffer chronic losses, and the situation is not corrected by the exit of people and resources from the industry. The invisible hand of the market works too slowly for society to accept. In some cases, notably in agriculture, government has intervened to restrict supply or raise prices. Leaving these qualifications aside, however, the market performance of pure

competition furnishes some sort of a standard to which the performance of industries of different structure may be compared.

Monopolistic competition. In the more complex situation of monopolistic competition

(atomistic structure with product differentiation) market conduct and performance may be said to follow roughly the tendencies attributed to pure competition. The principal differences are the following. First, individual sellers, because of the differentiation of their products, are able to raise or lower their individual selling prices slightly; they cannot do so by very much, however, because they remain strongly subject to the impersonal forces of the market operating through the general level of prices. Second, rivalry among sellers is likely to involve sales promotion costs as well as the expense of altering products to appeal to buyers. This is a competitive game that all will play but that nobody, on the average, will win, and the long-run equilibrium price will reflect the added costs involved. In return, however, buyers will get more variety. Third, since not every seller is likely to be equally successful in his sales-promotion and product policies, some will receive profits in excess of a basic interest return on their investment; such profits will come from their success in winning buyers. Monopolistic competition may, like pure competition, include industries that are afflicted with what has been called above destructive competition. This may result not only from a failure to get rid of excess capacity but also from the entry of too many new firms despite the danger of losses.

Monopoly. While single-firm monopolies are rare, except for those subject to

public regulation, it is useful to examine the monopolist's market conduct and performance to establish a standard at the other pole from pure competition. As the sole supplier of a distinctive product, the monopolist can set any selling price provided he accepts the sales that correspond to that price. Since the market demand will generally be less the higher the price he sets, the monopolist presumably will set that price that produces the greatest profits, given the relationship of production costs to output. By restricting output he can raise his selling price significantly--an option not opens to sellers in atomistic industries.

The monopolist will generally charge prices well in excess of production costs and reap profits well above a normal interest return on investment. His output will be substantially smaller, and his price higher,

than if he had to meet established market prices as in pure competition. The monopolist may or may not produce at minimal average cost, depending on his cost-output relationship; if he does not, there are no market pressures to force him to do so.

If the monopolist is subject to no threat of entry by a competitor, he will presumably set a selling price that maximizes profits for the industry he monopolizes. If he faces only impeded entry, he may elect to charge a price sufficiently low to discourage entry but above a competitive price--if this will maximize his long-run profits.

Oligopoly. Market conduct and performance in oligopolistic industries

generally combine monopolistic and competitive tendencies, with the relative strength of the two tendencies depending roughly on the detailed market structure of the oligopoly.

Rivalry among sellers. In the simplest form of oligopolistic industry, sellers are few and

every seller supplies a sufficiently large share of the market so that any feasible and modest change in his policies will appreciably affect the market shares of all his rival sellers and induce them to react or respond. For example, if seller A reduces his selling price below the general level of prices being charged by all sellers sufficiently to permit him to capture significant numbers of customers from his rivals if they hold their selling prices unchanged, they may react by reducing their prices by a similar amount, so that none gains at the expense of others and the group has probably reduced its combined profits. Or seller A's rivals may retaliate by reducing their selling prices more than he did, thus forcing a further reaction from him. Conversely, if seller A increases his selling price above the general level being charged by all sellers (thus tending to lose at least some of his customers to his rivals), they may react by holding their prices unchanged, in which event seller A will probably retract his increase and bring his price back to the previous level. But his rivals may also react by raising their prices as much as seller A raised his, in which case the general level of prices in the industry rises and the combined profits of all sellers are probably increased.

Any seller A in an oligopoly will therefore determine whether or not to alter his price or other market policy in the light of his conjectures about

the reactions of his rivals. Correspondingly, his rivals will determine their reactions in the light of their conjectures about what seller A will do in response. The process is not likely to bring the industry price level down to minimal average cost (as in atomistic competition). Many different "equilibrium" levels between the competitive and monopolistic limits are possible, depending on further circumstances.

Thus in an oligopoly viable collusive agreements among rival sellers are quite possible. They may be express agreements established by contract or tacit understandings that develop as a pattern of reactions among sellers to changes in each others' prices or market policies becomes customary. In the United States, express collusive agreements are forbidden by law, but tacit agreements or "gentlemen's understandings" are common in oligopolies. In numerous other Western countries, formal collusive agreements (often called cartels if comprehensive in scope) are legal. Whether tacit or explicit, legal or illegal, one may say that oligopolistic prices tend to be "administered" by sellers, in the senses mentioned above, as distinct from being determined by impersonal market forces.

Sellers' dual aims.

The varying market performance of oligopolies results from the fact that individual sellers intrinsically have two conflicting aims. One common desire is to establish among themselves a monopolistic level of price (and of selling costs, etc.), which will maximize their combined profits, giving them the largest "profit pie" to divide. But each seller also has a fundamental antagonism toward rival sellers and wants to maximize his own profits even at the expense of theirs. The relative strengths of these conflicting aims--the maximizing of combined profits and the maximizing of individual profits--will likely depend on how concentrated the oligopoly is, because when sellers are fewer and their individual market shares larger, their rivals' reactions are stronger deterrents to independent actions.

This is why various sorts of market performance are to be expected in oligopolistic industries. When the entry of other sellers is blockaded, collusive or interdependent behaviour may lead to a full monopoly price. If entry is only impeded, the resulting price may be far enough below the full monopoly level to discourage further entry. But prices are not always what they seem. An announced price that is well above cost may be undercut by clandestine price reductions to individual buyers, bringing the average of actual selling prices down somewhat.

If an oligopolistic industry is made up of a "core" of a few large interdependent sellers plus a "competitive fringe" of several or numerous quite small sellers, the competition of the small sellers may induce the large ones to limit the extent to which they raise their prices.

Price behaviour approaching full monopoly pricing seems to be found mainly in oligopolies having very high seller concentration and blockaded entry. Where these characteristics are less pronounced, prices and profits tend to be lower, though they are likely to be somewhat above the competitive level. A few economists maintain that oligopolistic prices in general do not significantly differ from atomistically competitive prices, but the bulk of statistical evidence does not support them.

In oligopolies in which product differentiation is important, sales-promotion costs and the costs of product improvement or development will display roughly the same variety of tendencies found in pricing. Where there are a few large interdependent sellers, these costs may be restricted to about the same level as those of a single-firm monopolist; on the other hand, rivalry in sales promotion and product development may be sufficient to raise them higher. Oligopolists may also arrive collusively at relatively high uniform selling prices but simultaneously engage in independent nonprice competition (perhaps more so where seller concentration is lower).

Additional Bibliography: Adriana Sofletea, English Course for Economics,with the

Chapters: Utility and Value, Theories of Utility,Theories of Value, Prices and Incomes,Price,the Basic Functions of Economic Systems, Market Structure: Competition, Oligopoly, Monopoly,Production: the Output of the Factors of Production,Distribution: the Shares of the Factors of Production,Consumption,Economic Fluctuations: stability and instability.


Questions:

1. What happens in a pure competition? And in a monopolistic

one? 2. The monopolist will generally charge prices well in excess of

production costs and reap profits well above a normal interest return on investment. How will his output be?

3. What is to be taken into account in the simplest form of oligopolistic industry concerning the sellers?

4. Where does the varying market performance of oligopolies result from ?

5. Price behaviour approaching full monopoly pricing seems to be found mainly in oligopolies having very high seller concentration and blockaded entry. What happens when these characteristics are less pronounced?


1.Complete with the right words: In the more ……….situation of monopolistic competition

(atomistic structure with product differentiation) market ……and performance may be said to follow roughly the tendencies attributed to pure…….. The principal differences are the following. First, ………sellers, because of the differentiation of their products, are able to raise or lower their individual selling prices slightly; they cannot do so by very much, however, because they remain strongly ……….the impersonal forces of the market operating through the general level of prices. Second, rivalry among …….is likely to involve sales promotion costs as well as the expense of altering products to appeal to buyers. This is a competitive game that all …….but that nobody, on the average, ……., and the long-run equilibrium price will reflect the added costs involved. In return, however, buyers will get more variety

2. Make the logical and grammatically correct sentences from

the following words: Ideal/ pure/ is/competition/ truly/ if/ only/ or/ all/ most/ in/

industries/ the/ economy /are/if/and/ purely /free/competitive/ in/ addition/ and/there/ of/ is / easy/ mobility productive/ factors/ among /industries.

3. Find out the mistakes: The varying market performance oligopolies result from the

fact that individual seller intrinsic have conflicting aims. One common desire is establish among them monopolistic level price (and of selling costs, etc.), which will maximize the combined profits, giving the larg "profit pie" to divide. But each seller also has fundamental antagonism toward rival seller and want maximize his own profit even at the expense of their. The relative strength of the conflicting aim--the maximizing combined profit and the maximizing of individual profit--will likely depend how concentrat the oligopoly is, because when seller are few and the individual market share large their rival reactions are stronger to independent actions

TemaX. Theme X.

INTERNATIONAL TRADE

1.obiectivele specifice ale temei: (the main objectives) * înŃelegerea textului şi a situaŃiilor prezentate * crearea unor situaŃii- dialog cu exprimări căt mai corecte şi cursive * aprofundarea problemelor de lexic 2. competenŃe specifice dobăndite de student: (specific skills of the

student) * abilitate în comunicare folosind bagajul lingvistic de specialitate * fluenŃă în exprimare * cunoaşterea proceselor legate de comerŃul internaŃional în

economia de piaŃă 3.cuvinte cheie: (key words)transaction, commodity, goods,

services, policy. 4. structura modulului de studiu: (the structure of the study)

modern trade policies, the operation of futures markets, hedging, terms of trade.

5.rezumat: (abstract) International trade includes all economic transactions that are made

between countries. Among the items commonly traded are consumer goods, such as television sets and clothing; capital goods, such as machinery; and raw materials and food. Other transactions involve services, such as travel services and payments for foreign patents. International trade transactions are facilitated by international financial payments, in which the private banking system and the central banks of the trading nations play important roles.

The Content

International trade includes all economic transactions that are made

between countries. Among the items commonly traded are consumer goods, such as television sets and clothing; capital goods, such as machinery; and raw materials and food. Other transactions involve services, such as travel services and payments for foreign patents. International trade transactions are facilitated by international financial payments, in which the private banking system and the central banks of the trading nations play important roles.

International trade and the accompanying financial transactions are conducted generally toward the purpose of providing a nation with commodities it lacks in exchange for those that it produces in abundance; such transactions, functioning with other economic policies, generally improve the standard of living of a nation. We have a historical and contemporary overview of the structure of international trade, of the classic controversy over free versus controlled trade, and of the problems that arise in transactions between nations.

Accounts of barter of goods or of services among different peoples can be traced back almost as far as the record of human history. International trade, however, is specifically an exchange between members of different nations, and accounts and explanations of such trade begin (despite fragmentary earlier discussion) only with the rise of the modern nation-state at the close of the European Middle Ages. As political thinkers and philosophers began to examine the nature and function of the nation, trade with other nations became a particular topic of their inquiry. It is, accordingly, no surprise to find one of the earliest attempts to describe the function of international trade within that highly nationalistic body of thought now known as "mercantilism." Mercantilist analysis, which reached the peak of its influence upon European thought in the 16th and 17th centuries, focused directly upon the welfare of the nation. It insisted that the acquisition of wealth, particularly wealth in the form of gold, was of paramount importance for national policy. Mercantilists took the virtues of gold almost as an article of faith; consequently, they never undertook to explain adequately why the pursuit of gold deserved such a high priority in their economic plans.

The trade policy dictated by mercantilist philosophy was accordingly simple: encourage exports, discourage imports, and take the proceeds of the resulting export surplus in gold. Because of their nationalistic bent, mercantilist theorists either brushed aside or else did not realize that, from an

international viewpoint, this policy would necessarily prove self-defeating. The nation that successfully gains an export surplus must ordinarily do so at the expense of one or more other nations that record a matching import surplus. Mercantilists' ideas often were intellectually shallow, and indeed their trade policy may have been little more than a rationalization of the interests of a rising merchant class that wanted wider markets--hence the emphasis on expanding exports--coupled with protection against competition in the form of imported goods. Yet mercantilist policies, as will be noted later, are by no means completely dead today.

History of modern trade policies

Mercantilism.

Much of the modern history of international relations concerns efforts to promote freer trade among nations. The 17th century saw the growth of restrictive policies that later came to be known as mercantilism. The mercantilists held that economic policy should be nationalistic and aim to secure the wealth and power of the state. The concept was based on the conviction that national interests are inevitably in conflict--that one nation can increase its trade only at the expense of other nations. Thus, governments were led to impose price and wage controls, foster national industries, promote exports of finished goods and imports of raw materials, and prohibit the exports of raw materials and the import of finished goods. The state endeavoured to provide its citizens with a monopoly of the resources and trade outlets of its colonies. A typical illustration of the mercantilist spirit is the famous English Navigation Act of 1651, which reserved for the home country the right to trade with the colonies and prohibited the import of goods of non-European origin unless transported in ships flying the English flag. This law lingered on until 1849. A similar policy was followed in France.

Liberalism.

A strong reaction against mercantilist attitudes began to take shape toward the middle of the 18th century. In France, the economists known as Physiocrats demanded liberty of production and trade. In England, as discussed above, Adam Smith demonstrated in his The Wealth of Nations (1776) the advantages of removing trade restrictions. Economists and businessmen voiced their opposition to excessively high and often prohibitive customs duties and urged the negotiation of trade agreements

with foreign powers. This change in attitudes led to the signing of a number of agreements embodying the new liberal ideas, among them the Anglo-French Treaty of 1786, which ended what had been an economic war between the two countries. After Adam Smith, the basic tenets of mercantilism were no longer considered defensible. This did not, however, mean that nations abandoned all mercantilist policies. Restrictive economic policies were now justified by the claim that, up to a certain point, the government should keep foreign merchandise off the domestic market in order to shelter national production from outside competition. To this end, customs levies were introduced in increasing number, replacing outright bans on imports, which became less and less frequent. In the middle of the 19th century, customs walls effectively sheltered many national economies from outside competition. The French tariff of 1860, for example, charged extremely high rates on British products: 60 percent on pig iron; 40 to 50 percent on machinery; and 600 to 800 percent on woolen blankets. Transport costs between the two countries provided further protection. A triumph for liberal ideas was the Anglo-French trade agreement of 1860, which provided that French protective duties were to be reduced to a maximum of 25 percent within five years, with free entry of all French products except wines into Britain. This agreement was followed by other European trade pacts.

Resurgence of protectionism.

A reaction in favour of protection spread throughout the Western world in the latter part of the 19th century. Germany adopted a systematically protectionist policy and was soon followed by most other nations. Shortly after 1860, during the Civil War, the United States raised its duties sharply; the McKinley Tariff Act of 1890 was ultraprotectionist. England was the only country to remain faithful to the principles of free trade. But the protectionism of the last quarter of the 19th century was mild by comparison with the mercantilist policies that had been common in the 17th century and were to be revived between the two world wars. Extensive economic liberty prevailed by 1913. Quantitative restrictions were unheard of, and customs duties were low and stable. Currencies were freely convertible into gold, which in effect was a common international money. Balance-of-payments problems were few. People who wished to settle and work in a country could go where they wished with few restrictions; they could open businesses, enter trade, or export capital freely. Equal opportunity to compete was the general rule, the sole exception being the existence of limited customs preferences between certain countries, most

usually between a home country and its colonies. Trade was freer throughout the Western world in 1913 than it was in Europe in 1970.

The "new" mercantilism.

World War I wrought havoc with these orderly trading conditions. By the end of hostilities, world trade was in a straitjacket that made recovery very difficult. The first five years of the postwar period were marked by the dismantling of wartime controls proper. The 1920 crisis and the commercial advantages accruing to countries whose currencies had depreciated, as had Germany's, rapidly led to fresh measures in restraint of trade. The protectionist tide engulfed the world economy, not because policymakers consciously adhered to any specific theory but because of nationalist ideologies and the pressure of economic conditions. In an attempt to end the continual raising of customs barriers, the League of Nations organized the first World Economic Conference in May 1927. Twenty-nine states, including the main industrial countries, subscribed to an international convention that was the most minutely detailed and balanced multilateral trade agreement ever approved until that time. It was a precursor of the arrangements made under the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade of 1947. The 1927 agreement remained practically without effect. During the Great Depression of the 1930s, unemployment in major countries reached unprecedented levels and engendered an epidemic of protectionist measures. Countries attempted to shore up their balance of payments by raising their customs duties and introducing a range of import quotas or even import prohibitions, accompanied by exchange controls. From 1933 onward, the recommendations of all the postwar economic conferences based on the fundamental postulates of economic liberalism were ignored. The planning of foreign trade came to be considered a normal function of the state. Mercantilist policies dominated the world scene until after World War II.

Trade in primary goods may take the form of a normal exchange of goods for money as in any everyday transaction (referred to technically as trade in "actuals"), or it may be conducted by means of futures contracts. A futures contract is an agreement to deliver or receive a certain quantity of a commodity at an agreed price at some stated time in the future. Trade in actuals has declined considerably and in many cases (such as the Liverpool markets in cotton and grain) has even come to a halt.

Operation of the market.

The great bulk of commodity trading is in contracts for future delivery. The purpose of trading in futures is either to insure against the risk

of price changes (hedging) or to make a profit by speculating on the price trend. If a speculator believes that prices will rise, he buys a futures contract and sells it when he wishes (e.g., at a more distant delivery date). The speculator either gains (if prices have risen) or loses (if they have fallen), the difference being due to the change in price. "Hedging" means the offsetting of commitments in the market in actuals by futures contracts. A producer who buys a commodity at spot (current) prices but does not normally resell until three months later can insure himself against a decline in prices by selling futures: if prices fall he loses on his inventories but can purchase at a lower price; if prices rise he gains on his inventories but loses on his futures sales. Since price movements in the actuals market and the futures market are closely related, the loss (or gain) in actual transactions will normally be offset by a comparable gain (or loss) in the futures market.

The operation of futures markets requires commodities of uniform quality grades in order that transactions may take place without the buyer having to inspect the commodities themselves. This explains why there is no futures market, for example, in tobacco, which varies too much in quality. A steady, unfluctuating supply also is needed; this is referred to technically as "low elasticity of supply," meaning that the amount of a commodity that producers supply to the market is not much affected by the price at which they are able to sell the commodity. If supply could be adjusted relatively quickly to changes in demand, speculation would become too difficult and risky because exceptionally high or low prices, from which speculators are able to profit, are eliminated as soon as supply is adjusted. Monopolistic control of demand and supply is also unfavourable to the operation of a futures market because price is subject to a large extent to the control of the monopolist and is thus unlikely to fluctuate sufficiently to provide the speculator with an opportunity for making profits. There is, for example, no market in diamonds, because there is only one marketing cooperative. In 1966 the London market in shellac ceased to function after the Indian government applied control of exporters' prices at the source. Before World War II London was the centre of international trade in primary goods, but New York City has become at least as important. It is in these two cities that the international prices of many primary products are determined. Although New York often has the bigger market, many producers prefer the London market because of the large fluctuations in local demand in the United States that influence New York market prices. In some cases international commodity agreements have reduced the significance of certain commodity markets.

There are markets in both New York and London for numerous primary goods, including cotton, copper, cocoa, sugar, rubber, coffee, wool and wooltops, tin, silver, and wheat. Tea, wool, and furs are auctioned in London, but in the case of many other commodities, auctions have been superseded by private sales. In London the metal market is much more a "spot" or delivery market than other futures markets. Many countries have their own markets: Australia for wool, Sri Lanka and India for tea, and Malaysia for rubber and tin.

The terms of trade.

The relation between the price of primary goods and that of manufactures has long intrigued economists. The relationship is known as the "terms of trade" and may be defined as the ratio of the average price of a country's or a group of countries' exports to the average price of its imports. The long-range trend of the terms of trade between primary products and manufactures has been the subject of diametrically opposed conclusions: some theorists hold that the trend is favourable to the less-developed countries, others that it is unfavourable. Faulty statistical material and methods in various countries are responsible for this lack of agreement. Anycomparison of the terms of trade over a long period of time is very difficult and may be misleading because the structure of trade changes, as does the quality of the groups of goods studied. Many economists believe that the terms of trade were adverse for less-developed countries from 1870 to 1938. They point to the fact that as developed countries become more technologically advanced there is a tendency for them to require relatively less in the way of primary products. A downward influence is thus exercised on primary product prices. Another factor is that in the industrial countries the benefits of progress find expression not in lower prices but in higher wages. This, together with inflationary pressures, means that prices of manufactured goods produced by the developed countries tend to rise steadily. There is thus a tendency, it is argued, for the less-developed countries to receive relatively less for what they have to sell and to have to pay more for what they need to buy. But the statistical problems posed by any attempt to verify this hypothesis are considerable. The countries selected, the relative weight assigned to the various goods, changes in transport costs, and the fact that the quality of manufactured goods has improved much more than that of primary goods make the statistics unreliable. There is also the problem that the terms of trade between primary commodities and manufactures do not necessarily coincide with the terms of trade between less-developed and industrial areas. Even if it were

established that the terms of trade have moved against the less-developed, largely primary-producing countries, this would not necessarily mean that their balance-of-payments situation has been adversely affected. A decline in the terms of trade may in fact improve a country's balance-of-payments, because, although the prices of that country's exports have fallen, it may, as a consequence of this fall in price, be able to sell a far larger quantity. Total revenue from exports may thus increase. Similarly, although imports may become more expensive, the result may be that the country's demand for imports drops very steeply, so that less is spent on them than when they were cheaper.These problems make it extremely difficult to generalize about the effects of commodity price changes on the economic situation of one or a group of countries.


Adriana Sofletea, International Trade Alma Mater Publishing House, English Collection Sibiu, with chapters: Comparative-Advantage Analysis ,State Interference in International Trade, History of Modern trade Policies ,Trade Agreements ,Economic Integration ,Patterns of Trade ,International Commodity Trade Primary Commodity Markets, Price Movements Foreign Exchange Markets,the Gold Standard,the International Monetary Fund, the imf System of Parity (pegged) Exchange Rates,Floating Exchange Rates, the International Debt Crisis


Questions:

1. What does mercantilist analysis focus on? 2. Define hedging. 3. The purpose of trading in futures is either to insure against the

risk of price changes (hedging) or to make a profit by speculating on the price trend. What hapens if a speculator believes that prices will rise?

4. The relation between the price of primary goods and that of

manufactures has long intrigued economists. The relationship is known as the "terms of trade". Enlarge upon this.

5. What are international trade transactions facilitated by?

Exercices/Tests

1.Complete with the right words: Because of their ............bent, mercantilist theorists either brushed

.......or else did not realize that, from an international viewpoint, this policy would necessarily prove self-defeating. The nation that successfully ........an export surplus must ordinarily do so at the ..........of one or more other nations that record a matching import surplus. Mercantilists' ideas often were ............shallow, and indeed their....... policy may have been little more than a rationalization of the interests of a rising ..........class that wanted wider markets--hence .............on expanding exports--coupled with protection against competition in the form of imported goods. Yet ............policies, as will be noted later, are by no means completely dead today.

2.Make the logical and grammatically correct sentences from the following words:

are/international/ and/ trade/ the/ of/ accompanying/ the/ financial/

transactions/ conducted/ generally/ toward/ that/ purpose/ in / providing/ it /a /nation/ with/ it/ for commodities/ lacks/ in/ exchange / those/ produces/ abundance

3. Find out the mistakes: "Hedging" mean the offset of commitment in the market in by

future . A producer who buy commodity (current) prices but does not normally resell until three months later can insure himself against decline in price by futures: if prices fall he lose on his inventories but can purchase at a low price; if prices rise he gain on his inventories but lose on his sales. Since price movements in the market and the futures market are closely related, the gain in actual transaction will normally be offset by comparable gain (or loss) in the futures market.

Tema XI. Theme XI.THE BANKING SYSTEM 1.obiectivele specifice ale temei:(the main objectives) * înŃelegerea textului şi a situaŃiilor prezentate * crearea unor situaŃii- dialog cu exprimări căt mai corecte şi cursive * aprofundarea problemelor de lexic 2. competenŃe specifice dobăndite de student:( specific skills of the

student) * abilitate în comunicare folosind bagajul lingvistic de specialitate * fluenŃă în exprimare * cunoaşterea structurii sistemului bancar, principiile, structura,

responsabilităŃiile. 3.cuvinte cheie: (key words) assets, liabilities, deposits,investment,

credit, statement of account 4. structura modulului de studiu: (the structure of the study)

company financial statements, purposes of the accounting system, development of the banking system, structure of modern banking system

5.rezumat: (abstract) The business of banking consists of borrowing and lending. As

in other businesses, operations must be based on capital, but banks employ comparatively little of their own capital in relation to the total volume of their transactions. The purpose of capital and reserve accounts is primarily to provide an ultimate cover against losses on loans and investments. The basis of the banking business is borrowing from individuals, firms, and occasionally governments--i.e., receiving "deposits" from them. With these resources and also with the bank's own capital, the banker makes loans or extends credit and also invests in securities. The banker makes profit by borrowing at one rate of interest and lending at a higher rate and by charging commissions for services. Accounting provides information for all these purposes through the maintenance of files of data, analysis and interpretation of these data, and the preparation of various kinds of reports.

The Content

The purpose of accounting is to provide information about the

economic affairs of an organization. This information may be used in a number of ways: by the organization's managers to help them plan and control the organization's operations; by owners and legislative or regulatory bodies to help them appraise the organization's performance and make decisions as to its future; by owners, lenders, suppliers, employees, and others to help them decide how much time or money to devote to the organization; by governmental bodies to determine how much tax the organization must pay; and occasionally by customers to determine the price to be paid when contracts call for cost-based payments. Accounting provides information for all these purposes through the maintenance of files of data, analysis and interpretation of these data, and the preparation of various kinds of reports. Most accounting information is historical--that is, the accountant observes the things that the organization does, records their effects, and prepares reports summarizing what has been recorded; the rest consists of forecasts and plans for current and future periods. Accounting information can be developed for any kind of organization, not just for privately owned, profit-seeking businesses. One branch of accounting deals with the economic operations of entire nations. Among the most common accounting reports are those sent to investors and others outside the management group. The reports most likely to go to investors are called, and their preparation is the province of the branch of accounting known as financial statements

financial accounting. Three financial statements will be discussed: the balance sheet, the income statement, and the statement of cash flows.

The balance sheet.

A balance sheet describes the resources that are under a company's

control on a specified date and indicates where these resources have come from. It consists of three major sections: (1) the assets: valuable rights owned by the company; (2) the liabilities: the funds that have been provided by outside lenders and other creditors in exchange for the company's promise to make payments or to provide services in the future; and (3) the owners' equity: the funds that have been provided by the company's owners or on their behalf. The list of assets shows the forms in which the company's resources are lodged; the lists of liabilities and the owners' equity

indicate where these same resources have come from. The balance sheet, in other words, shows the company's resources from two points of view, and the following relationship must always exist: total assets equals total liabilities plus total owners' equity. This same identity is also expressed in another way: total assets minus total liabilities equals total owners' equity. In this form, the equation emphasizes that the owners' equity in the company is always equal to the net assets (assets minus liabilities). Any increase in one will inevitably be accompanied by an increase in the other, and the only way to increase the owners' equity is to increase the net assets. Assets are ordinarily subdivided into current assets and noncurrent assets. The former include cash, amounts receivable from customers, inventories, and other assets that are expected to be consumed or can be readily converted into cash during the next operating cycle (production, sale, and collection). Noncurrent assets may include noncurrent receivables, fixed assets (such as land and buildings), and long-term investments. The liabilities are similarly divided into current liabilities and noncurrent liabilities. Most amounts payable to the company's suppliers (accounts payable), to employees (wages payable), or to governments (taxes payable) are included among the current liabilities. Noncurrent liabilities consist mainly of amounts payable to holders of the company's long-term bonds and such items as obligations to employees under company pension plans. The difference between total current assets and total current liabilities is known as net current assets, or working capital. The owners' equity of an American company is divided between paid-in capital and retained earnings. Paid-in capital represents the amounts paid to the corporation in exchange for shares of the company's preferred and common stock. The major part of this, the capital paid in by the common shareholders, is usually divided into two parts, one representing the par value, or stated value, of the shares, the other representing the excess over this amount. The amount of retained earnings is the difference between the amounts earned by the company in the past and the dividends that have been distributed to the owners. A slightly different breakdown of the owners' equity is used in most of continental Europe and in other parts of the world. The classification distinguishes between those amounts that cannot be distributed except as part of a formal liquidation of all or part of the company (capital and legal reserves) and those amounts that are not restricted in this way (free reserves and undistributed profits). The income statement is usually accompanied by a statement that shows how the company's retained earnings has changed during the year. Net income increases retained earnings; net operating loss or the distribution of cash dividends reduces it.

Banks and Banking The principal types of banking in the modern industrial world are

commercial banking and central banking. A commercial banker is a dealer in money and in substitutes for money, such as checks or bills of exchange. The banker also provides a variety of financial services. The basis of the banking business is borrowing from individuals, firms, and occasionally governments--i.e., receiving "deposits" from them. With these resources and also with the bank's own capital, the banker makes loans or extends credit and also invests in securities. The banker makes profit by borrowing at one rate of interest and lending at a higher rate and by charging commissions for services rendered. A bank must always have cash balances on hand in order to pay its depositors upon demand or when the amounts credited to them become due. It must also keep a proportion of its assets in forms that can readily be converted into cash. Only in this way can confidence in the banking system be maintained. Provided it honours its promises (e.g., to provide cash in exchange for deposit balances), a bank can create credit for use by its customers by issuing additional notes or by making new loans, which in their turn become new deposits. The amount of credit it extends may considerably exceed the sums available to it in cash. But a bank is able to do this only as long as the public believes the bank can and will honour its obligations, which are then accepted at face value and circulate as money. So long as they remain outstanding, these promises or obligations constitute claims against that bank and can be transferred by means of checks or other negotiable instruments from one party to another. These are the essentials of deposit banking as practiced throughout the world today, with the partial exception of socialist-type institutions. Another type of banking is carried on by central banks, bankers to governments and "lenders of last resort" to commercial banks and other financial institutions. They are often responsible for formulating and implementing monetary and credit policies, usually in cooperation with the government. In some cases--e.g., the U.S. Federal Reserve System--they have been established specifically to lead or regulate the banking system; in other cases--e.g., the Bank of England--they have come to perform these functions through a process of evolution. Some institutions often called banks, such as finance companies, savings banks, investment banks, trust companies, and home-loan banks, do not perform the banking functions described above and are best classified as financial intermediaries. Their economic function is that of channelling

savings from private individuals into the hands of those who will use them, in the form of loans for building purposes or for the purchase of capital assets. These financial intermediaries cannot, however, create money (i.e., credit) as the commercial banks do; they can lend no more than savers place with them.

The development of banking systems

Banking is of ancient origin, though little is known about it prior to

the 13th century. Many of the early "banks" dealt primarily in coin and bullion, much of their business being money changing and the supplying of foreign and domestic coin of the correct weight and fineness. Another important early group of banking institutions was the merchant bankers, who dealt both in goods and in bills of exchange, providing for the remittance of money and payment of accounts at a distance but without shipping actual coin. Their business arose from the fact that many of these merchants traded internationally and held assets at different points along trade routes. For a certain consideration, a merchant stood prepared to accept instructions to pay money to a named party through one of his agents elsewhere; the amount of the bill of exchange would be debited by his agent to the account of the merchant banker, who would also hope to make an additional profit from exchanging one currency against another. Because there was a possibility of loss, any profit or gain was not subject to the medieval ban on usury. There were, moreover, techniques for concealing a loan by making foreign exchange available at a distance but deferring payment for it so that the interest charge could be camouflaged as a fluctuation in the exchange rate. Another form of early banking activity was the acceptance of deposits. These might derive from the deposit of money or valuables for safekeeping or for purposes of transfer to another party; or, more straightforwardly, they might represent the deposit of money in a current account. A balance in a current account could also represent the proceeds of a loan that had been granted by the banker, perhaps based on an oral agreement between the parties (recorded in the banker's journal) whereby the customer would be allowed to overdraw his account. English bankers in particular had by the 17th century begun to develop a deposit banking business, and the techniques they evolved were to prove influential elsewhere. The London goldsmiths kept money and valuables in safe custody for their customers. In addition, they dealt in bullion and foreign exchange, acquiring and sorting coin for profit. As a means of attracting coin for sorting, they were prepared

to pay a rate of interest, and it was largely in this way that they began to supplant as deposit bankers their great rivals, the "money scriveners." The latter were notaries who had come to specialize in bringing together borrowers and lenders; they also accepted deposits. It was found that when money was deposited by a number of people with a goldsmith or a scrivener a fund of deposits came to be maintained at a fairly steady level; over a period of time, deposits and withdrawals tended to balance. In any event, customers preferred to leave their surplus money with the goldsmith, keeping only enough for their everyday needs. The result was a fund of idle cash that could be lent out at interest to other parties.

About the same time, a practice grew up whereby a customer could arrange for the transfer of part of his credit balance to another party by addressing an order to the banker. This was the origin of the modern check. It was only a short step from making a loan in specie or coin to allowing customers to borrow by check: the amount borrowed would be debited to a loan account and credited to a current account against which checks could be drawn; or the customer would be allowed to overdraw his account up to a specified limit. In the first case, interest was charged on the full amount of the debit, and in the second the customer paid interest only on the amount actually borrowed. A check was a claim against the bank, which had a corresponding claim against its customer. Another way in which a bank could create claims against itself was by issuing bank notes. The amount actually issued depended on the banker's judgment of the possible demand for specie, and this depended in large part on public confidence in the bank itself. In London, goldsmith bankers were probably developing the use of the bank note about the same time as that of the check. (The first bank notes issued in Europe were by the Bank of Stockholm in 1661.) Some commercial banks are still permitted to issue their own notes, but in most countries this has become a prerogative of the central bank. In Britain the check soon proved to be such a convenient means of payment that the public began to use checks for the larger part of their monetary transactions, reserving coin (and, later, notes) for small payments. As a result, banks began to grant their borrowers the right to draw checks much in excess of the amounts of cash actually held, in this way "creating money"--i.e., claims that were generally accepted as means of payment. Such money came to be known as "bank money" or "credit." Excluding bank notes, this money consisted of no more than figures in bank ledgers; it was acceptable because of the public's confidence in the ability of the bank to honour its liabilities when called upon to do so. When a check is drawn and passes into the hands of another party in payment for goods or services, it is usually paid into

another bank account. Assuming that the overdraft technique is employed, if the check has been drawn by a borrower, the mere act of drawing and passing the check will create a loan as soon as the check is paid by the borrower's banker. Since every loan so made tends to return to the banking system as a deposit, deposits will tend to increase for the system as a whole to about the same extent as loans. On the other hand, if the money lent has been debited to a loan account and the amount of the loan has been credited to the customer's current account, a deposit will have been created immediately. One of the most important factors in the development of banking in England was the early legal recognition of the negotiability of credit instruments or bills of exchange. The check was expressly defined as a bill of exchange. In continental Europe, on the other hand, limitations on the negotiability of an order of payment prevented the extension of deposit banking based on the check. Continental countries developed their own system, known as giro payments, whereby transfers were effected on the basis of written instructions to debit the account of the payer and to credit that of the payee.

The business of banking

The business of banking consists of borrowing and lending. As

in other businesses, operations must be based on capital, but banks employ comparatively little of their own capital in relation to the total volume of their transactions. The purpose of capital and reserve accounts is primarily to provide an ultimate cover against losses on loans and investments. In the United States capital accounts also have a legal significance, since the laws limit the proportion of its capital a bank may lend to a single borrower. Similar arrangements exist elsewhere.

Functions of commercial banks

The essential characteristics of the banking business may be described within the framework of a simplified balance sheet. A bank's main liabilities are its capital (including reserves and, often, subordinated debt) and deposits. The latter may be from domestic or foreign sources (corporations and firms, private individuals, other banks, and even governments). They may be repayable on demand (sight deposits or current accounts) or repayable only after the lapse of a period of time (time, term, or

fixed deposits and, occasionally, savings deposits). A bank's assets include cash (which may be held in the form of credit balances with other banks, usually with a central bank but also, in varying degrees, with correspondent banks); liquid assets (money at call and short notice, day-to-day money, short-term government paper such as treasury bills and notes, and commercial bills of exchange, all of which can be converted readily into cash without risk of substantial loss); investments or securities (substantially medium-term and longer term government securities--sometimes including those of local authorities such as states, provinces, or municipalities--and, in certain countries, participations and shares in industrial concerns); loans and advances made to customers of all kinds, though primarily to trade and industry (in an increasing number of countries, these include term loans and also mortgage loans); and, finally, the bank's premises, furniture, and fittings (written down, as a rule, to quite nominal figures). All bank balance sheets must include an item that relates to contingent liabilities (e.g., bills of exchange "accepted" or endorsed by the bank), exactly balanced by an item on the other side of the balance sheet representing the customer's obligation to indemnify the bank (which may also be supported by a form of security taken by the bank over its customer's assets). Most banks of any size stand prepared to provide acceptance credits (also called bankers' acceptances); when a bank accepts a bill, it lends its name and reputation to the transaction in question and, in this way, ensures that the paper will be more readily discounted.


Adriana Sofletea, English Course for Finance Alma Mater Publishing House Sibiu, English Collection with the Chapters: Company Financial Statements, Measurement Principles,Managerial Accounting,Other Purposes of Accounting Systems,The Development of Banking Systems, the Business of Banking ,Functions of Commercial banks, The Principles of Central Banking, Responsibilities of Central Banks,The Structure of Modern Banking Systems,


Questions:

1.Among the most common accounting reports are those sent to

investors and others outside the management group. How are the reports most likely to go to investors called? 2.The balance sheet, in other words, shows the company's resources from two points of view. What relationships must there always exist?

3. Which are the principles of the central banks? 4. What does the business of banking consist of? 5. A bank's main liabilities are its capital (including reserves and,

often, subordinated debt) and deposits. What does the latter come from ?

Exercices and tests: 1. Complete with the right words: A bank must always have .......balances on hand in order to pay its

depositors upon demand or when the........credited to them become due. It must also keep a proportion of its ........ in forms that can readily be converted into cash. Only in this way can confidence in the banking system be maintained. Provided it honours its promises (e.g., to provide cash in .........for deposit balances), a bank can create .......for use by its customers by issuing additional notes or by making new ......., which in their turn become new deposits. The amount of credit it extends may considerably exceed the sums ............to it in cash. But a bank is able to do this only as long as the public believes the bank can and will honour its ............which are then accepted at face value and circulate as money. So long as they remain outstanding, these promises or obligations constitute ........against that bank and can be transferred by means of checks or other negotiable instruments from one party to another

2.Make the logical and grammatically correct sentences from

the following words: Their/of/being/ much/many/the/ of /the/ early/and/ the/ "banks"/

dealt/in/ primarily/coin/ and /bullion,/and/business / money /changing/ supplying of /foreign /and /domestic /coin/ of / correct /weight /fineness.

3. Find out the mistakes The essential characteristics the banking business be described with

the framework a simplified balance sheet. A bank main liabilities are it’s capital (including reserves and, often, subordinated debt) and deposits. The latter be from domestic or foreign sources (corporations and firms, private individuals, others banks, and even governments). They may repayable on demand (sight deposits or current accounts) or reepayable only after the lapse of period of time (time, term, or fixed deposits and, occasional, saving deposits).

TemaXII.Theme XII. INSURANCE

1.obiectivele specifice ale temei: (the main objectives) * înŃelegerea textului şi a situaŃiilor prezentate * crearea unor situaŃii- dialog cu exprimări căt mai corecte şi cursive * aprofundarea problemelor de lexic 2. competenŃe specifice dobăndite de student: (specific skills of the

student) * abilitate în comunicare folosind bagajul lingvistic de specialitate * fluenŃă în exprimare * cunoaşterea tipurilor de contracte de asigurări, a avantajelor au a

pericolelor, a riscurilor. 3.cuvinte cheie: (key words) risk, liability,property,compensation,cost,insovency. 4. structura modulului de studiu: (the structure of the study) kinds of

insurance, insurance practices, benefits b and risks. 5.rezumat: (abstract) Insurance may be defined more formally as a system under which

the insurer, for a consideration usually agreed upon in advance, promises to reimburse the insured or to render services to the insured in the event that certain accidental occurrences result in losses during a given period.Insurance relies heavily on the "law of large numbers." Two main types of contracts--homeowner's and commercial--have been developed to insure against loss from accidental destruction of property. These contracts (or forms) typically are divided into three or four parts: insuring agreements, identification of covered property, conditions and stipulations, and exclusions.

The Content Insurance is a method of coping with risk. Its primary function is to

substitute certainty for uncertainty as regards the economic cost of loss-producing events. Insurance may be defined more formally as a system under which the insurer, for a consideration usually agreed upon in advance, promises to reimburse the insured or to render services to the insured in the event that certain accidental occurrences result in losses during a given period.Insurance relies heavily on the "law of large numbers." In large homogeneous populations it is possible to estimate the normal frequency of common events such as deaths and accidents. Losses can be predicted with reasonable accuracy, and this accuracy increases as the size of the group expands. From a theoretical standpoint, it is possible to eliminate all pure risk if an infinitely large group is selected.

From the standpoint of the insurer, an insurable risk must meet the following requirements:

1. The objects to be insured must be numerous enough and homogeneous enough to allow a reasonably close calculation of the probable frequency and severity of losses.

2. The insured objects must not be subject to simultaneous destruction. For example, if all the buildings insured by one insurer are in an area subject to flood, and a flood occurs, the loss to the insurance underwriter may be catastrophic.

3. The possible loss must be accidental in nature, and beyond the control of the insured. If the insured could cause the loss, the element of randomness and predictability would be destroyed.

4. There must be some way to determine whether a loss has occurred and how great that loss is. This is why insurance contracts specify very definitely what events must take place, what constitutes loss, and how it is to be measured. From the viewpoint of the insured person, an insurable risk is one for which the probability of loss is not so high as to require excessive premiums. What is "excessive" depends on individual circumstances, including the insured's attitude toward risk. At the same time, the potential loss must be severe enough to cause financial hardship if it is not insured against. Insurable risks include losses to property resulting from fire, explosion, windstorm, etc.; losses of life or health; and the legal liability arising out of use of automobiles, occupancy of buildings, employment, or manufacture. Uninsurable risks include losses resulting from price changes and competitive conditions in the market. Political risks such as war or

currency debasement are usually not insurable by private parties but may be insurable by governmental institutions. Very often contracts can be drawn in such a way that an "uninsurable risk" can be turned into an "insurable" one through restrictions on losses, redefinitions of perils, or other methods.

Two main types of contracts--homeowner's and commercial--have been developed to insure against loss from accidental destruction of property. These contracts (or forms) typically are divided into three or four parts: insuring agreements, identification of covered property, conditions and stipulations, and exclusions.

Homeowner's insurance.

Homeowner's insurance covers individual, or nonbusiness, property.

Introduced in 1958, it gradually replaced the older method of insuring individual property under the "standard fire policy."

Perils insured.

In homeowner's policies, of which there are several types, coverage can be "all risk" or "named peril." All-risk policies offer insurance on any peril except those later excluded in the policy. The advantage of these contracts is that if property is destroyed by a peril not specifically excluded the insurance is good. In named-peril policies, no coverage is provided unless the property is damaged by a peril specifically listed in the contract. In addition to protection against the loss from destruction of an owner's property by perils such as fire, lightning, theft, explosion, and windstorm, homeowner's policies typically insure against other types of risks faced by a homeowner such as legal liability to others for injuries, medical payments to others, and additional expenses incurred when the insured owner is required to vacate the premises after an insured peril occurs. Thus the homeowner's policy is multi-peril in nature, covering a wide variety of risks formerly written under separate contracts.

Property covered. Homeowner's forms are written to cover damage to or loss of not

only an owner's dwelling but also structures (such as garages and fences), trees and shrubs, personal property (excluding certain listed items), property away from the premises (such as boats), money and securities (subject to dollar limits), and losses due to forgery. They also cover removal of debris following a loss, expenditures to protect property from further loss, and loss

of property removed from the premises for safety once an insured peril has occurred.

Limitations on amount recoverable.

Recovery under homeowner's forms is limited to loss due directly to the occurrence of an insured peril. Losses caused by some intervening source not insured by the policy are not covered. For example, if a flood or a landslide, which usually are excluded perils, severely damages a house that subsequently is destroyed by fire, the homeowner's recovery from the fire is limited to the value of the house already damaged by the flood or landslide. Recovery under homeowner's forms may be on the basis of either full replacement cost or actual cash value (ACV). Under the former, the owner suffers no reduction in loss recovery due to depreciation of the property from its original value. This basis applies if the owner took out coverage that is at least equal to a named percentage--for example, 80 percent--of the replacement value of the property. If the insurance amount is less than 80 percent, a coinsurance clause is triggered, the operation of which reduces the recovery amount to the value of the loss times the ratio of the amount of insurance actually carried to the amount equal to 80 percent of the value of the property. However, the reduced recovery will not be less than the "actual cash value" of the property, defined as the full replacement cost minus an allowance for depreciation, up to the amount of the policy. For example, assume that a property is valued at $100,000 new, has depreciated 20 percent in value, insurance of $60,000 is taken, and a $10,000 loss occurs. The actual cash value of the loss is $8,000 ($10,000 minus 20 percent depreciation). The operation of the coinsurance clause would limit recovery to 6/8 of the loss, or $7,500. However, since the actual cash value of the loss is $8,000, this is the amount of the recovery. Recovery under homeowner's forms is also limited if more than one policy applies to the loss. For example, if two policies with equal limits are taken out, each contributes one-half of any insured loss. Loss payments also are limited to the amount of an insured person's insurable interest. Thus, if a homeowner has only a one-half interest in a building, the recovery is limited to one-half of the insured loss. The co-owners would need to have arranged insurance for their interest.

Life and health insurance

Life insurance.

Life insurance may be defined as a plan under which large groups of individuals can equalize the burden of loss from death by distributing funds

to the beneficiaries of those who die. From the individual standpoint life insurance is a means by which an estate may be created immediately for one's heirs and dependents. It has achieved its greatest acceptance in Canada, the United States, Belgium, South Korea, Australia, Ireland, New Zealand, The Netherlands, and Japan, countries in which the face value of life insurance policies in force generally exceeds the national income. In the United States in 1990 nearly $9.4 trillion of life insurance was in force. The assets of the more than 2,200 U.S. life insurance companies totaled nearly $1.4 trillion, making life insurance one of the largest savings institutions in the United States. Much the same is true of other wealthy countries, in which life insurance has become a major channel of saving and investment, with important consequences for the national economy. Life insurance is relatively little used in poor countries, although its acceptance has been increasing.

Types of contracts. The major types of life insurance contracts are term, whole life, and

universal life, but innumerable combinations of these basic types are sold. Term insurance contracts, issued for specified periods of years, are the simplest. Protection under these contracts expires at the end of the stated period, with no cash value remaining. Whole life contracts, on the other hand, run for the whole of the insured's life and gradually accumulate a cash value. The cash value, which is less than the face value of the policy, is paid to the policyholder when the contract matures or is surrendered. Universal life contracts, a relatively new form of coverage introduced in the United States in 1979, have become a major class of life insurance. They allow the owner to decide the timing and size of the premium and amount of death benefits of the policy. In this contract, the insurer makes a charge each month for general expenses and mortality costs and credits the amount of interest earned to the policyholder. There are two general types of universal life contracts, type A and type B. In type-A policies the death benefit is a set amount, while in type-B policies the death benefit is a set amount plus whatever cash value has been built up in the policy. Life insurance may also be classified, according to type of customer, as ordinary, group, industrial, and credit. The ordinary insurance market includes customers of whole life, term, and universal life contracts and is made up primarily of individual purchasers of annual-premium insurance. The group insurance market consists mainly of employers who arrange group contracts to cover their employees. The industrial insurance market consists of individual contracts sold in small amounts with premiums collected weekly or monthly at the

policyholder's home. Credit life insurance is sold to individuals, usually as part of an installment purchase contract; under these contracts, if the insured dies before the installment payments are completed, the seller is protected for the balance of the unpaid debt.

Insurance may be issued with a premium that remains the same throughout the premium-paying period, or it may be issued with a premium that increases periodically according to the age of the insured. Practically all ordinary life insurance policies are issued on a level-premium basis, which makes it necessary to charge more than the true cost of the insurance in the earlier years of the contract in order to make up for much higher costs in the later years; the so-called overcharges in the earlier years are not really overcharges but are a necessary part of the total insurance plan, reflecting the fact that mortality rates increase with age. The insured is not overpaying for protection, because of the claim on the cash values that accumulate in the early years; the policyholder may borrow on this value or may recapture it completely by lapsing the policy. The insured does not, however, have a claim on all the earnings that accrue to the insurance company from investing the funds of its policyholders.

By combining term and whole life insurance, an insurer can provide many different kinds of policies. Two examples of such "package" contracts are the family income policy and the mortgage protection policy. In each of these, a base policy, usually whole life insurance, is combined with term insurance calculated so that the amount of protection declines as the policy runs its course. In the case of the mortgage protection contract, for example, the amount of the decreasing term insurance is designed roughly to approximate the amount of the mortgage on a property. As the mortgage is paid off, the amount of insurance declines correspondingly. At the end of the mortgage period the decreasing term insurance expires, leaving the base policy still in force. Similarly, in a family income policy, the decreasing term insurance is arranged to provide a given income to the beneficiary over a period of years roughly corresponding to the period during which the children are young and dependent. Some whole life policies permit the insured to limit the period during which premiums are to be paid. Common examples of these are 20-year life, 30-year life, and life paid up at age 65. On these contracts, the insured pays a higher premium to compensate for the limited premium-paying period. At the end of the stated period, the policy is said to be "paid up," but it remains effective until death or surrender. Term insurance is most appropriate when the need for protection runs

for only a limited period; whole life insurance is most appropriate when the protection need is permanent. The universal life plan, which earns interest at a rate roughly equal to that earned by the insurer (approximately the rate available in long-term bonds and mortgages), may be used as a convenient vehicle by which to save money. The owner can vary the amount of death protection as the need for it changes in the course of life. The policy offers flexibility and saves the owner commission expense by eliminating the need for dropping one policy and taking out another as protection requirements change.


Adriana Sofletea, English course for Finance Alma Mater Publishing House, Sibiu, English Collection with the chapters: Kinds of Insurance ,Property Insurance ,Marine Insurance, Liability Insurance, Suretyship, Life and Health Insurance, Insurance Practice ,Legal Aspects of Insurance ,Historical Development of Insurance

Questions:

1. Which are the requirements of an insurable risk and what do they include?

2. Types of contracts. 3. From the individual standpoint life insurance is a means by

which an estate may be created immediately for one's heirs and dependents. What about poor counties?

4. In the case of the mortgage protection contract, the amount of the decreasing term insurance is designed roughly to approximate the amount of the mortgage on a property. What is your opinion?

5. When is the term insurance most appropiate?

Exercices/ Tests:

1.Complete with the right words:

From the viewpoint of the insured person, an ........ risk is one for which the probability of loss is not so high as to require excessive premiums. What is "excessive" depends on individual circumstances, including the ........attitude toward risk. At the same time, the potential loss must be severe enough to cause financial ......... if it is not insured against. Insurable risks include losses to .........resulting from fire, explosion, windstorm, etc.; losses of life or health; and the legal liability arising out of use of automobiles, occupancy of........ employment, or manufacture. Uninsurable risks include losses resulting from price changes and competitive conditions in the ........Political risks such as war or ......... debasement are usually not insurable by private parties but may be insurable by governmental institutions.

2. Make the logical and grammatically correct sentences from

the following words:

/for/is/one/of/from/to/as/not/is/ so/the/ viewpoint/ the/ insured/of/ person,/ an/ insurable risk/ which/ the/ probability/ loss/ high/ require/ excessive/ premiums.

3.Find out the mistakes

The major type life insurance contract are term, whole life, and universal life, but numerable combination of basic types are sold. Term insurance contract, issue specified periods year are the simple. Protection under the contract expire at end of the state period, cash value remaining. Whole life contract, on the other hand, run for whole the insured's life and gradually accumulate cash value. The cash value, which is less the face value the policy, is paid to the policyholder contract matures or is surrendered.Universal life contracts, relative new form coverage introduce in United States in 1979, have become major class life insurance. They allow owner decide the timing and size the premium and amount death benefits the policy. In the contract, insurer make a charge each month general expenses and mortality costs and credits the amount of interest earned the policyholder. There are two general type of universal life

Tema XIII. Theme XIII. MICROECONOMICS AND

MACROECONOMICS

1.obiectivele specifice ale temei:((the main objectives) * înŃelegerea textului şi a situaŃiilor prezentate * crearea unor situaŃii- dialog cu exprimări căt mai corecte şi cursive * aprofundarea problemelor de lexic 2. competenŃe specifice dobăndite de student:(( specific skills of the

student) * abilitate în comunicare folosind bagajul lingvistic de specialitate * fluenŃă în exprimare * cunoaşterea proceselor în micro şi macroeconomie, în economia de

piaŃă 3.cuvinte cheie: (key words)economy, product, process,

customer,consumer. 4. structura modulului de studiu: (the structure of the study) roles of

microeconomics, macroeconomics, the main issues, economic growth, G.D.P, G.N.P

5.rezumat: (abstract)

Microeconomic analysis offers a detailed treatment of individual decisions about particular commodities. Microeconomists tend to offer a detailed treatment of one aspect of economic behaviour but ignore interactions with the rest of the economy in order to preserve the simplicity of the analysis. Macroeconomics emphasizes the interactions in the economy as a whole. It deliberately simplifies the individual building blocks of the analysis in order to retain a manageable analysis of the complete interaction of the economy.

The Content

Many economists specialize in a particular branch of the subject. For example, there are labour economists, energy economists, monetary economists, and international economists. What distinguishes these economists is the segment of economic life in which they are interested. Labour economics deals with problems of the labour market as viewed by firms, workers, and society as a whole. Urban economics deals with city problems: land use, transport, congestion, and housing. However, we need not classify branches of economics according to the area of economic life in which we ask the standard questions what, how, and for whom. We can also classify branches of economics according to the approach or methodology that is used. The very broad division of approaches into microeconomic and macroeconomic cuts across the large number of subject groupings cited above.

Microeconomic analysis offers a detailed treatment of individual decisions about particular commodities.

For example, we might study why individual households prefer cars to bicycles and how producers decide whether to produce cars or bicycles. We can then aggregate the behavior of all households and all firms to discuss total car purchases and total car production. Within a market economy we can discuss the market for cars. Comparing this with the market for bicycles, we may be able to explain the relative price of cars and bicycles and the relative output of these two goods. The sophisticated branch of microeconomics known as general equilibrium theory extends this approach to its logical conclusion. It studies simultaneously every market for every commodity. From this it is hoped that we can understand the complete pattern of consumption, production, and exchange in the whole economy at a point in time.

If you think this sounds very complicated you are correct. It is. For many purposes, the analysis becomes so complicated that we tend to lose track of the phenomena in which we were interested. The interesting task for economics, a task that retains an element of art in economic science, is to devise judicious simplifications which keep the analysis manageable without distorting reality too much. It is here that microeconomists and macroeconomists proceed down different avenues. Microeconomists tend to offer a detailed treatment of one aspect of economic behaviour but ignore

interactions with the rest of the economy in order to preserve the simplicity of the analysis. A microeconomic analysis of miners’ wages would emphasize the characteristics of miners and the ability of mine owners to pay. It would largely neglect the chain of indirect effects to which a rise in miners’ wages might give rise. For example, car workers might use the precedent of the miners’ pay increase to secure higher wages in the car industry, thus being able to afford larger houses which burned more coal in heating systems. When microeconomic analysis ignores such indirectly induced effects it is said to be partial analysis.

In some instances, indirect effects may not be too important and it will make sense for economists to devote their effort to very detailed analyses of particular industries or activities. In other circumstances, the indirect effects are too important‘ to be swept under the carpet and an alternative simplification must be found. Macroeconomics emphasizes the interactions in the economy as a whole. It deliberately simplifies the individual building blocks of the analysis in order to retain a manageable analysis of the complete interaction of the economy. For example, macroeconomists typically do not worry about the breakdown of consumer goods into cars, bicycles, televisions, and calculators. They prefer to treat them all as a single bundle called ‘consumer goods’ because they are more interested in studying the interaction between households’ purchases of consumer goods and firms’ decisions about purchases of machinery and buildings.

Macroeconomics is the study of the economy as a whole. Macroeconomics is concerned not with the details — the price of

cigarettes relative to the price of bread, or the output of cars relative to the output of steel — but with the overall picture.

The distinction between microeconomics and macroeconomics is more than the difference between economics in the small and economics in the large, which the Greek prefixes micro and macro suggest. The purpose of the analysis is also different.

A model is a deliberate simplification to enable us to pick out the key elements of a problem and think about them clearly. Although we could study the whole economy by piecing together our microeconomic analysis of each and every market, the resulting model would be so cumbersome that it would be hard to keep track of all the economic forces at work. Microeconomics and macroeconomics take different approaches to keep the analysis manageable. Microeconomics places the emphasis on a detailed understanding of particular markets. To achieve this amount of detail or

magnification many of the interactions with other markets are suppressed. In saying that a tax on cars reduces the equilibrium quantity of cars we ignore the question of what the government does with the revenue. If government has to borrow less money it is possible that interest rates and the exchange rate will fall and that improved international competitiveness of U.K car producers will increase the equilibrium output of cars in the U.K. Microeconomics is a bit like looking at a horse through a pair of binoculars. It is great for details but sometimes we get a clearer picture of the whole race by using the naked eye. Because macroeconomics is concerned primarily with the interaction of different parts of the economy, it relies on a different simplification to keep the analysis manageable. Macroeconomics simplifies the building blocks in order to focus on how they fit together and influence one another.

The main issues in macroeconomics:

1.Inflation –the annual inflation rate is the percentage increase per annum in the average price of goods and services.

What causes inflation? The money supply? Trade unions?

Why do people mind so much about inflation? Does it cause unemployment?

2.Unemployment. It is a measure of the number of people registered as looking for work but without a job. The unemployment rate is the percentage of the labour force that is unemployed. The labour force is the number of people working or looking for work. It excludes all those –from rich landowners to heroin addicts- who are neither working nor looking for work.

.Why has it increased so much?Are workers pricing themselves out of jobs by greedy wage claims? Is high unemployment necessary to keep inflation under control, or could the government create more jobs?

3.Output and Growth .Real gross national product measures the total income of the economy. It tells us the quantity of goods and services the economy as a whole can afford to purchase. Increases in real gross national product are called economic growth.

-What determines the level of real GNP? Why do some countries grow faster than others?

4. Macroeconomic policy. Almost every day the newspapers and television refer to the problems of inflation, unemployment, and slow

growth. These issues are widely discussed; they help determine the outcome of elections, and make some people interested in learning more about macroeconomics. The government has a variety of policy measures through which it can try to affect the performance of the economy as a whole. It levies taxes, commissions spending, influences the money supply, interest rates, and the exchange rate, and it sets targets for the output and prices of nationalized industries.

What the government can and should do is the subject of lively debate both within the field of economics and in the country at large. As usual, it is important to distinguish between positive issues relating to how the economy works and normative issues relating to priorities or value judgements.

Economic Growth

There is general agreement amongst economists concerned with the problems of less developed countries (LDCs) that a distinction should be made between economic growth and economic development.

Economic growth is defined as an increase in the productive capacity of an economy over time, giving rise to an increase in real National Income (NI). If the rate of growth of income is greater than the rate of growth of population, income per capita will also rise.

Economists distinguish between the Gross Domestic Product (GDP) and the Gross National Product (GNP) of an economy. GDP is the total final output of goods and services produced within an economy for any given year, by both residents and non-residents. GNP is equal to GDP plus net factor (or property) incomes from abroad (that is, the difference between returns to the inhabitants of the country from property located overseas minus the returns accruing to foreigners from their property located within the reporting country). For most LDCs, net property income from abroad is likely to be negative and thus GDP will be greater than GNP.

Both domestic product and national product can be expressed in net terms (that is, after allowing for capital depreciation) and either at market prices or factor costs (that is, including and excluding respectively, indirect taxes net of subsidies). Net National Product (NNP) at factor cost is identical to National Income.

For many LDCs, economic growth has been rapid and sustained for much of the post-Second World War period. World Bank projections for the 1980s predicted that higher rates of economic growth would be difficult to

reach and sustain and that there would occur a widening in both the relative and absolute gaps between the richest and the poorest countries, including the gap between the middle- and low-income LDCs.

In the early years of the evolution of development economics as a distinct area of study, economic growth and economic development were generally seen as being synonymous. The deficiencies of using GNP per capita as an indicator of economic welfare (and by implication, the level of economic development) were recognised by economists, however, and over time it became increasingly evident that economic growth on its own, although undoubtedly a necessary condition, was certainly not a sufficient condition to ensure increases in economic, let alone social, welfare.Within the concept of economic development was some notion of progress. Economic development meant growth plus structutal and institutional change which involved the move towards certain normative goals or objectives.Growth without development was a possibility if increases in per capita incomes were not accompanied either by structural changes or by the diffusion of the gains in real income among all sectors of the population.

Additional Bibliography: Adriana Sofletea ,Written English for Economics Alma Mater

Publishing House, Sibiu, English Collection,with all vocabulary,texts and exercises.


Questions: 1.What does microeconomic analysis offer? What is

macroeconomics concerned with? 2. Which are the main issues in macroeconomics? 3.Define GDP and GNP. 4. Both domestic product and national product can be expressed in

net terms. In what respect .

5. The deficiencies of using GNP per capita as an indicator of economic welfare (and by implication, the level of economic development) were recognised by economists. What happened?

Exercices and tests

1. Complete with the right words

Microeconomics and macroeconomics take ....... approaches to keep the analysis manageable. Microeconomics places the emphasis on a........understanding of particular markets. To achieve this amount of .....or magnification many of the interactions with other ........are suppressed. In saying that a....... on cars reduces the equilibrium quantity of cars we ignore the question of what the government does with the revenue. If government has to ........less money it is possible that interest ......and the exchange rate will fall and that improved international competitiveness of U.K car producers will increase the equilibrium output of cars in the U.K. .

2. Make the logical and grammatically correct sentences from the following words:

a/microeconomic/at/ is/ a/ bit/of/ like/ looking/ horse/ through/ a/ pair/ binoculars/. It/a/ /great/ but/for/ details/ sometimes/a/get/ we/ clearer /picture /by/of/ the/ whole/ race/the using/naked /eye.

3.Find out the mistakes: Economists distinguish between Gross Domestic Product (GDP) and

the National Product (GNP) of economy. GDP is the total fin put of good

and service produced within a economy for any year, by both residents and non-residents. GNP is equal to GDP net factor (or property) income from abroad (that is, the difference between returns to the inhabitants of the country from property locate overseas minus the return accrue to foreigner from the property located with the reporting country). For most LDCs, net property income from abroad is likely to negative and thus GDP will great than GNP. Both domestic product and national product be expressed in net terms (that is, after allowing for capital depreciation) and either at market price or factor cost (that is, including and excluding respectively, indirect taxe net of subsidie). Net National Product (NNP) at factor cost is identic to National Income.

SUPPLEMENTARY READING I. Business English We are living in an increasingly interconnected economic

landscape. More than ever, our colleagues and customers might be half a world away. Here are some opinions to some questions:

1.What is driving the need for improved business English

communication in global companies? Global companies are going through transition as globalization

and global integration have taken hold. Because capital and labor are being moved across borders, companies are organizing and operating differently. In the past, companies used to organize more on a regional basis. Now they are truly global. And as companies have gone global, so have the projects and teams. Global communication is necessary at all levels in the organization, not just at the executive level.

Layered on top of that is the availability of technologies that enable and encourage instant communication. Email, virtual meetings, conference calls, instant messaging – all of these technologies are connecting people like never before. And English is the common denominator, the language that allows people to use these technologies to communicate and collaborate effectively.

As local companies go global, they face the same challenges. In the past, it was sufficient for employees and teams to operate in their local languages. But now, to grow and succeed in the global marketplace, everyone needs to be able to work efficiently in English.

2.Do you see that as something that’s going to continue? As

places like China and Middle Eastern countries become more and more

economically active in the world, do you think that English is going to continue to be the dominant business language?

We think it will. In the Middle East, there is no doubt that English is the language of business. Without English skills it is very difficult to do business across the region and the world. The growth of the GlobalEnglish Corporate Learning Service in the Middle East, particularly in the UAE and Saudi Arabia, has been largely driven by ‘Emiratisation’ and ‘Saudiisation’. Clients like Emirates NBD in Dubai have told us that GlobalEnglish is making a direct contribution to their Emiratisation objectives by enabling

them to improve business English communication skills throughout the organization, which allows them to hire and promote more UAE Nationals.

Also, if you look at ministries of education worldwide, you see that many countries – like Chile, Korea or even Poland and Czechoslovakia – are adopting English at lower and lower grades in schools, thus further validating that English will continue to have significant importance for many years to come.

3. How does English as a common language help global teams

reach common business goals? English is an enabler. It is what allows employees anywhere in

the world to work together to accomplish their goals. I’ll give you an example. Let’s say a pharmaceutical company is doing research and development, and they’ve just introduced or are about to introduce a new drug. It’s likely that the research team is global, with members from several different countries all having to work together. The language they’re using to communicate is English. And then, when the drug is ready to be released, the global sales teams need to be educated on how the drug works, its side effects, and other key information. All of this communication is happening in a very rapid manner and in English. So global teams have to be prepared. We don’t expect that global employees will be proficient to the level of reading Shakespeare. But they do need to be able to communicate effectively in relevant business contexts so they can accomplish the organization’s goals.

4. What about remote online solutions like the GlobalEnglish service? What are the keys to engaging users and keeping them

motivated? Throughout history, people have learned in classrooms from

teachers. This has been an accepted and comfortable way to learn. But today, in global business, this approach to accomplish their goals. I’ll give you an example. Let’s say a pharmaceutical company is doing research and development, and they’ve just introduced or are about to introduce a new drug. It’s likely that the research team is global, with members from several different countries all having to work together. The language they’re using to communicate is English. And then, when the drug is ready to be released, the global sales teams need to be educated on how the drug works, its side effects, and other key information. All of this communication is happening in a very rapid manner and in English. So global teams have to be prepared. We don’t expect that global employees will be proficient to the level of reading Shakespeare. But they do need to be able to communicate effectively

in relevant business contexts so they can accomplish the organization’s goals.

5. What about remote online solutions like the GlobalEnglish service? What are the keys to engaging users and keeping them

motivated? Throughout history, people have learned in classrooms from

teachers. This has been an accepted and comfortable way to learn. But today, in global business, this approach is no longer practical. So, in the development of the GlobalEnglish service and through our implementation approach, we address user engagement and ongoing motivation in some key ways.

First, allowing users to personalize their learning experience by creating a personal learning plan helps to engage them at the outset. They are able to identify the learning that is most relevant to them based on their specific needs and goals. Participants receive information about their ongoing progress through reports and emails, which keep them focused on their strengths and opportunities for improvement. We also send emails on a regular basis that are specifically designed to keep people engaged. These are just a few examples of how we address motivation through the online service.

Equally important is the implementation process that supports the deployment of the technology. We encourage our clients to secure strong senior sponsorship for their program and to build the improvement of English communication skills into their performance management/development planning process. This further engages the users and their managers, and then managers are prepared to provide ongoing recognition and reinforcement for participants.

6. How does the GlobalEnglish Corporate Learning Service compare to classroom-based training?

In today’s increasingly globalized world, the Internet is bringing the world closer together, and traditional face-to-face methods are simply incapable of providing the consistent, measurable and scalable benefits that GlobalEnglish provides. As opposed to classroom, online is extremely consistent. People see the same interface, no matter where they are. The instruction is uniform and not predicated on how good a teacher is. It’s also very scalable so you can deploy it all over the world, even in towns where there are no teachers. English language teachers are not as common in smaller places. So this is accessible to many more people. It’s also extremely measurable and we do a lot of assessments on its effectiveness.

Also, online learning with GlobalEnglish is highly personalized. You are able to make your own plan so you can focus on the objectives and skills that are most important and relevant to you. With classroom instruction the teacher has to teach to the common needs of all learners. But with online learning, users can have a much more efficient experience. Online learning also offers the added benefit of ongoing reinforcement and just-in-time support. For example, the GlobalEnglish service offers a number of features – like text-to-speech, writing templates, and translation tools – that provide users support when and where they need to use English on the job.

7. How do you see the e-learning market developing over the

next few years? Do you think it’s something that’s going to be increasingly in demand?

Absolutely. There are a billion people learning English today, and according to the British Council that number is going to go up to two billion in the next 10 years. We don’t expect the number of teachers to grow at that kind of rate. I think the need for English is spreading throughout companies to the point where it is no longer a requirement for only the upper levels. So if you want a scalable solution, it’s going have to be online. It’s highly cost-effective and you can teach more people for the same amount of money.

Also, as younger generations enter the workforce – individuals who have grown up using technology in all aspects of their lives – they will want and demand learning experiences that are engaging, dynamic, flexible, and technology-based.

We are excited about the opportunity that we have in front of us as companies are becoming more global. Globalization will continue, and we are helping organizations achieve their global growth goals as well as democratizing the learning of English.

II. Difficult People and Awkard Situations At work and in our leisure time we are often confronted by difficult

people and awkward situations and they seem to come at us from every angle. How can we cope? People do not change easily.

What is a difficult person? In general they are people who demonstrate bad behavior, who don’t care how their behavior affects others and who even use it to their advantage.

Being difficult is effective because it works but in the short term. Long term relationships need a greater complexity of behavior. Difficult people hope that due to their behavior we will either start to give priority to their wishes or that you will leave them alone.

Difficult people are not restricted to the workplace. Working relationships have few emotional ties and are more detached whereas within the home environment lurks a complex web of history and emotions.

When you deal with difficult people effective listening is very important; you must be able to tune in to what he/she is trying to tell you. A good listening means: to hear the message- genuinely listen to what is being said; to interpret the message- to take in all aspects of body language, tone of voice and interpret their significance; to evaluate the message; to respond to it.

It is not always the people that are difficult but sometimes it is the situation. Working relationships and environments bring together a whole host of situations for which you cannot always prepare. At some point in your career you will have to deal with difficult situations. They come up at the workplace. Difficult colleagues create added pressure.

Then, conflict can hardly be avoided. You also have to cope with difficult managers and with difficult staffs. We are all busy people. Regardless the type of work we do, more and more of the time people are feeling crowded by events. Making busy and hectic life manageable becomes a skill which anyone can benefit from.

What happens when we cannot be properly efficient with our time?

What happens when we are confronted with difficult people and situations?

How can we cope because people do not change very easily?

Well, behavior is difficult, understanding too, relationships and time management are sometimes hard to work out with.

We can choose whether or not to spend time with difficult people but unfortunately at work we do not have this luxury. Here, we may deal with difficult coleagues or a difficult manager or difficult customers... So, there are some tips to be taken into consideration:

• we have to „read” behind the behavior.

• differentiate between work and home environments.

• deal out real feelings.

• gain management support.

• understand efficiency and effectiveness

• find the barriers to time management

• realize mental barriers and understanding people barriers

• we have to „live” with difficult coleagues who barely fit into the team

• we have to understand the importance of anger and conflict management

At work, situations in themselves are difficult; because some people are not prepared and we can hardly face them. Structures are flatter and therefore there is more autonomy; decisions that would previously have been passed up the line of authority are now being taken by the workforce; the threat of redundancy looms heavily even over what were once „job for life” careers, making even the smallest decision critical. The speed at which these decisions have to be made is ever increasing as more people want instant results.

However difficult or awkward the person, we need to remember that we are aiming for a win-win situation. If we adopt a „I win, you lose” stance we will ensure that the other person loses face or is in danger of being humiliated. If we adopt the „I lose, you win” stance we will be allowing them to walk all over you. Then, to be in the „I lose, you lose” situation is of no benefit to either of us. Any kind of communication will be found difficult. Ensuring that a win-win is achieved takes great skill but also leaves both parties feeling confident and ready to take communication further.

Effective listening is important when we deal with difficult people. The person is trying to covey a message and we must be able to tune in to what he is trying to tell us. A good listening means:

- to hear the message - to interpret the message - to evaluate the message

- to respond to the message

Dealing with customers features in many people’s working lives and can be both rewarding and frustrating. We are all customers of one thing or another and therefore we can identify with the role of the customer in purchasing a product or service.

Customers are vital to business. Without them the business cannot survive and today business is much more”customer aware” and „customer focused”. There is much choice (for the customer) and competition(for the businesses) that they need to forge relationships with their customers and maintain customer loyalty to their clients.

When faced with a difficult customer we have to:

• try to ascertain his name early in the conversation and continue to use it throughout

• let him know your name and position

• maintain eye contact and use positive listening body language

• allow him to outline the problem in his own words while taking notes

• ensure a coleague is nearby in case of threatening

• do not be bullied into resolving the problem immediately if you are unsure; promise a speedy response and give a day/date for settlement

Difficult people are not restricted to the work place. The difference lies in the more complex relationships we have in our home and with our families and our attitude to them.

Working relationships have few emotional ties and are far more detached whereas within the home environment lurks a complex web of history and emotions.

It is likely that you are more vulnerable in your home as sensitivities are higher. The stakes are much higher in upsetting the status quo at home than at the work place.

But working relationships and environments bring together a whole host of situations for which you cannot always prepare.

All of us meet difficult situations at some point in our career because the workplace in itself is complex and because we as human beings have an inherent complexity.

So, we have to accept difficult people as they are to be found everywhere. At work they are fixed somehow in our life and we can hardly choose to walk away from them. Outside work they pervade our social and private life but we do not necessary live with such people. Each time we deal

with a difficult situation, life will become easier as it will no longer hold the same fears for you.

We will not fear the people and situations that haunt and hold back so many others and may even feel the need to surge ahead in our own career.

The business of the future needs people who can communicate effectively or carry out tasks and manage time effectively. It is in this way that you can become successful.

If looking around we can see that the people at the top are the people who can achieve results. More and more these results can be achieved through good people management.

People management is a great skill and dealing with difficult people is part of that skill. Then, we do have to work on our own methods and techniques, injected with our natural personality and watch it pay dividends in terms not only of our confidence but of our career.

Difficult people and awkward situations are everywhere; therefore, running away is not really an option unless you want to live a hermit for the remainder of your days. So, a far better strategy is to learn to deal with such situations; this does not mean being weak or let everyone take advantage of you; it means having some firm strategies for dealing with people and situations

III. The Secrets of Achieving More with Less Some things are likely to be considered more important than others.

You can achieve more with less effort, time and resources. We think that there is an inbuilt imbalance between causes and results, inputs and outputs, effort and rewards. But each individual can be more effective and happier, each profit seeking corporation can become very much more profitable, each non profit organization can also deliver more useful outputs, every government can ensure that its citizens benefit much more from its existence. For everyone and every institution it is possible to obtain much more that is of value and avoid what has negative value, with less input of effort, expense or investment. At the heart of this progress there is a process of substitution. Resources that have weak effects in any particular use are not being used sparingly. Those which have powerful effects are being used as much as possible. Every resource is ideally used where it has the greatest value. Wherever possible, weak resources are developed so that they can mimic the behaviour of the stronger resources. Business and markets have used this process for many years.

And so we call for a well known principle namely “the 80/20Principle” which tells us that a minority of causes, inputs, efforts lead to a majority of the results, outputs or rewards and that our daily lives can be improved by using this principle. A new way to use this principle is the 80/20 thinking, that is about any issue that is important to you and asks you to make a judgement on whether the principle is working. This is the daily life , non quantitative putting into practice of the principle. It is used to change behaviour and to focus on the most important 20 per cent. It works when it multiplies effectiveness. Action resulting should lead us to get much more from much less. When using this principle we do not assume that its results are good or bad or that the powerful forces we observe are necessarily good. We decide whether they are good and either determine to give the minority of powerful forces a further shove in the right direction or to work out how to frustrate their operation.

By putting it into practice, this principle implies that we should do the following:

- celebrate exceptional productivity, rather than raise average efforts.

- look for the short cut, rather than run the full course - exercise control over our lives with the least possible effort - be selective - strive for excellence in few things, rather than good

performance in many - delegate or outsource as much as possible in our daily lives and

be encouraged rather than penalized by tax systems to do this - choose our careers and employers with extraordinary care - only do the thing we are best at doing and enjoy most - look beneath the normal texture of life to uncover ironies and

oddities - in every important sphere work out where 20 per cent of effort

can lead to 80 per cent of returns - calm down, work less and target a limited number of very

valuable goals where the 80/20 principle will work for us, rather than pursuing every available opportunity

- make the most of those few ”lucky streaks” in our life where we are at our creative peak and the stars line up to guarantee success.

The 80/20 Principle applied to business has one key theme- to generate the most money with the least expenditure of assets and effort.

The classical economists of the XIXth and XXth century developed a theory of economic equilibrium and of the firm that has dominated thinking ever since. The theory states that under perfect competition firms do not make excess returns, and profitability is either zero or the normal cost of capital, the latter usually being defined by a modest interest charge. Then the theory of the firm goes like this: in any market, some suppliers will be better than others at satisfying customer needs. They will obtain the highest price achievements and the highest market shares.

More than this, the objective of 80/20 thinking is to generate action which will make sharp improvements in your life and that of the others. Thinking escapes from the linear logic trap by appealing to experience, introspection and imagination. If we are unhappy we do not worry about the proximate cause. We think about the times we have been happy, we do not look for causes of failure, we imagine and then create the circumstances that will make us both happy and productive. We must take into consideration that:

�� Our life can be affected by a few events and a few decisions. The decisions are often taken by default rather than conscious choice; we let life happen to us rather than shape it; we can improve it by admitting the

turning points and by making the decisions that will make us happy and productive.

�� There are always a few key inputs to what happens and they are often not the obvious ones; if the key causes can be identified and isolated we can very often exert more influence on them that we think possible.

�� Everyone can achieve something significant. The key is not the effort but to find the right thing to achieve. You are no doubt more productive at some things than at others but one have to dilute the effectiveness of this by doing too many others where our skill is nowhere near as great.

�� There are always winners and losers and always more of the latter. You can be a winner by choosing the right competition, the right team and the right methods to win.

�� Most of our failures are in races for which others enter us. Most of our success comes from races we ourselves want to enter. We fail to win most races because we enter too many of the wrong ones: their ones, not our ones.

�� Few people take objectives really seriously. They put average effort into too many things, rather than superior thought and effort into a few important things. People who achieve the most are selective as well as determined.

�� Most people spend most of their time on activities that are of low value to themselves and others. The 80/20 thinker escapes this trap and can achieve much more of the few higher value objectives without noticeable more effort.

�� An important decision is the choice of allies. Almost nothing can be achieved without allies; but most people do not choose them carefully. Some of us have too many and do not use them properly. 80/20 thinkers choose a few allies carefully and build the alliances carefully to achieve their specific objectives.

�� Money used rightly can be a source of opportunity to shift towards a better lifestyle.

�� Few people spend enough time and thought cultivating their own happiness. They seek indirect goals (money, promotion), that may be difficult to attain and will prove to be extremely inefficient sources of happiness. Happiness not spent today does not lead to happiness tomorrow. It will atrophy if not exercised. The 80/20 thinkers know what generates their happiness and pursue it consciously, cheerfully and intelligently, using happiness today to build and multiply happiness tomorrow.

�� The logic of professional success leads to ever greater professional demands. To succeed you must aim for the top. To get there, you must turn yourself into a business. To obtain maximum leverage, you must employ a large number of people. To maximize the value of your business, you must use other people’s money and exploit capital leverage- to become even larger and more profitable.

�� If you decide which shares to buy it is good to specialize in an area in which you consider yourself an expert. Possibilities are almost endless; you could specialize in shares of the industry in which you work or of your hobby, your local area or anything else you are interested in. if you like shopping you might decide to specialize in the shares of retailers. Then, if you notice a new chain springing up, where new store seem to be full of keen shoppers, you might want to invest in those shares.

�� The key to making a career out of an enthusiasm is knowledge. You must know more about an area than anybody else does; then work out a way to market it, to create a set of loyal customers. It is not enough to know a lot about a little. You have to know more than anybody else, at least about something. You should not stop improving your expertise until you are sure you know more, and are better in your niche than anybody else. Then, reinforce your lead by constant practice and do not expect to become a leader unless you really are more knowledgeable than anyone else.

Many years ago, Aristotle said that the goal of all human activity should be happiness. It seems that we haven’t listened too much to him. Perhaps he should have told us how to be happy. So, he could have started by analyzing the causes of happiness and unhappiness. Happiness is profoundly existential. Past happiness may be remembered or future happiness planned, but the pleasure it gives can only be experienced in the “now”. One of the 80/20 hypothesis would be that 80 per cent of happiness occurs in 20 per cent of our time. It is interesting that those who are happy with most of their lives are more likely to be happier overall; those whose happiness is concentrated in short bursts are likely to be less happy with life overall.

Are there some ways to be happier? �� Identify the times when you are happiest and expand them as

much as possible. �� Identify the times when you are at least happy and reduce them

as much as possible. Or : -spend more time on the type of activities that are very effective at

making you happy and less time on other activities.

- start by cutting off the spots of unhappiness, the things that tend to make you actively unhappy.

The best way to start being happier is to stop being unhappy. You have more control over this by avoiding situations where experience suggests you are likely to become unhappy.

- for such activities that are ineffective at making you happy it is good to think systematically of ways that you could enjoy more.

- by cultivating habits of optimism we can have a happier life as optimism is an ingredient for both success and happiness.

- we must sometimes change the way we think about events; we can train ourselves to break the self reinforcing pattern of depression by simple steps such as seeking out company, changing our physical setting or forcing ourselves to exercise.

- we can change the way we think about ourselves; we can make ourselves happy or unhappy by the way we decide to feel. We must make the choice that we want to be happy. We owe it to ourselves and to other people too. A positive self image is very important, a sense of self worth can and should be cultivated; you know that you can do it: give up guilt, forget about your weaknesses, focus and build on your strengths, remember all the good things you have done, all the small and big achievements.

- we tell ourselves stories about us. We have to do this and we will increase the sum of human happiness by starting with ourselves and radiating out to others.

- we can make ourselves happier by changing events we encounter and that make us depressed or miserable.

- we can become happier by changing the people we see most( the amount of time spend with them has to be changed.

IV.ADVERTISING

One of the most powerful tools in marketing is the prudent use of

words in advertising. Judiciously used words have the power to entice and hold the attention of potential customers. This leads to either immediate sale or sales in the future, but most importantly it can establish the all important relationship between customer and brand. On the flip side words can result in the loss of potential customers and create distaste towards your product.

Using the right words in the right place under the right circumstances is key to any advertising effort, but it is especially important when ads are purely based on terminology like in the case of text ads. Text ads are common in e-mails and on the web but many marketers are only beginning to realize it's potential. Statistics claim that text ads gain better results on search engine sites than on other websites, the explanation being that web users enter search engines looking for these ads while they fail to notice them in other websites because they simply aren't looking for it. Using the right words can make all the difference in attracting customers to your text ad and holding their attention long enough to make a sale.

Here are ten words that will help you hone your sales vocabulary and lead to productive advertising home business.

1. FREE- this is a timeless motivator. It may sound cliché but it still works and probably will continue to work for many years to come. Sub consciously human beings just can't seem to resist something that's free.

2. GUARANTEE- makes a customer feel secure. 3. SAVE- this suggests that you are offering the customer an

opportunity to save his money. Although in reality this may not be true, customers still react favorably to the "save whatever%" offer.

4. LIMITED- the word creates a sense of urgency that is appealing to many potential customers.

5. NEW- everyone wants to get in on what's new. This word arouses our curiosity and never fails to deliver resulting in the phenomenon that sales spike just after the launch of a new product.

6. EXCLUSIVE- most high end brands are built on this philosophy. 'Exclusive' arouses the attention seeking alter ego from within.

7. PROVEN- human beings are wired to fear the unknown. If a product is tried, tested and proven it will eliminate fear and smoothen the path towards closing sale.

8. RESULTS- customers want to know what they can expect from the purchases they make.

9. IMPROVE- evolving is basic human instinct therefore consumers always react favorably to products and services that they perceive to have improved.

10. IMMEDIATE- consumers expect everything on the web to be instant, so much so that if something is not immediate, it is unacceptable.

Businesses exist to sell products and services to the public for a profit. If the public does not know that your business exists, finding customers to make enough purchases for your business to survive will be a failure without some additional help. It is an important factor in business because it gets the word out about your company and establishes a presence and a brand about what you are offering.

One of the best ways to advertise is by word of mouth, also known as referral marketing or referral advertising. When other people hear good things about your business or they have a positive experience shopping with your business, they become walking billboards for your business without you having to spend additional money on ads to create it.

Advertising locally through newspapers and fliers as well as billboards can be an effective source of it when your business is up-and-coming, but expanding your advertising sources becomes important as you grow. You can extend your advertising approach out to television commercials as well as radio in order to reach wider audiences, but the revenue from your business should be able to pay for it costs for these methods to bring you the value you are looking for.

Creating an assortment of advertising and marketing techniques will help you to reach many different customer bases. Identifying a target market to advertise your business to is also very valuable, because a target market of customers will be more interested in your business than trying to appeal to masses of people with varying interests. Making sure that enough people know that you exist who are naturally interested in your product as a target is a great way to bring in customers and increase the profit of your business.

Creating an impulse in potential customers to purchase your product is very important when it comes to advertising. It can be easy to create it that puts your customer in a mindset not to purchase your product, either by unintentionally avoiding the sale of your product by focusing on information or topics that draw attention away from your product. Be sure to study the needs of your target market to get the best results.

There are many decisions to make in terms of media and advertising for the successful promotion of your business. Should you employ an

advertising agency? When is the right time to promote your business? What should you promote, how and to whom? What are the best ways of reaching the target audience? Effectively, this all comes down to one thing - how can you achieve best value for money in order to increase sales?

There are many ways in which advertising and promoting your business can be achieved, and with more opportunities and channels through which your message can be communicated, the choices and options available are wider than ever. This can make the challenge of deciding on the best route to follow for the promotion of a product or service much harder, but at the same time, very exciting.

One of the things to bear in mind is that the world we live in today is far more cynical and skeptical than it was only a couple of decades ago. We have all become familiar with the constant bombardment of messages, promotions, advertising and offers, that we have become adapted to this culture. Part of that adaptation involves being able to filter out those messages, forms of media and advertising which we do not find immediately relevant or of any importance to us personally.

This is perhaps the biggest challenge which any business faces when considering running an advertising campaign, or actively promoting goods or services. In a culture flooded with advertising, how is it possible to ensure that your messages get through?

The key to creating a successful form of advertising is to know five things:

A) What are you promoting? B) Why are you promoting it? C) To whom are you promoting it? D) How will you reach them? E) What are your criteria for success? These five questions are, if you like, the five rules to which you

must tie any advertising campaign, for without rock solid answers to each of these questions any promotional campaign is destined to, at best, fail entirely, and at worst, also cost you a fortune.

What are you Promoting? The first of these questions relates to considering specifically what it

is that you are going to promote. Certainly if your business has a very small number of products or services, this may involve promoting the business as a whole, but generally, people aren't interested in the business - it's the products and services which will be of more relevance. Remember, if the media and advertising do not strike people as being relevant, they'll be filtered out. Keep your promotion specific.

Why are you Promoting It? The second question might seem odd, but is often ignored. Once you

know what it is that you are promoting, understand clearly why you are promoting it. This could be to increase sales, or it could be to help you balance the business more in that direction, to counter a competitor's product, or to promote an entirely new product or service. Understanding why you are promoting it will help you to understand the how.

To Whom are you Promoting It? Now you know what you're promoting and how, you need to think

carefully whom it is that you need to reach. It is very rare, if indeed it ever happens, that your message is destined to be heard by everybody. There will always be a group that you need to reach more than any other. Perhaps this could be based on age, interests, needs, financial position, employment position, geographical location, educational level, health condition and so on. Try to be as specific as possible in determining your target audience.

How Will you Reach Them? Knowing to whom your promotion is targeted allows you to consider

the best way to reach them. If you're targeting the unemployed, then how will you reach that kind of person most effectively? If you're targeting children, then clearly offering free coffee mugs on the street corner is going to be as effective as trying to reach city executives by placing adverts on bingo websites.

With all forms of media available, from website advertisements to flyers, from glossy color adverts in magazines to television and radio advertisements, and from billboards to email marketing, there are a tremendous number of options from which to choose, and each will help you to reach a specific audience type.

What are your Criteria for Success? With all four of these questions clearly answered, you may well

think that you are on the way to a successful advertising campaign, but there is still one very important question that remains. How will you know if your media and advertising has been successful or not? Having performance criteria allows you to determine whether the tactics chosen have, in that particular combination, worked. If not, then perhaps you need to reconsider the answers to the first four questions. But no race was ever won that didn't have a finishing line, and no sea ever crossed with land on which to plant the flag of success.

All media and advertising has a goal, a means of attaining that goal a means of measuring how successfully it has been attained. If you are unsure to do all of that yourself, there are professionals available to help you. Many

of the most successful businesses contract out the more specialized aspects of what is not their core business: media and advertising.

There are many decisions to make in terms of media and advertising for the successful promotion of your business. Should you employ an advertising agency? When is the right time to promote your business? What should you promote, how and to whom? What are the best ways of reaching the target audience? Effectively, this all comes down to one thing - how can you achieve best value for money in order to increase sales?

There are many ways in which advertising and promoting your business can be achieved, and with more opportunities and channels through which your message can be communicated, the choices and options available are wider than ever. This can make the challenge of deciding on the best route to follow for the promotion of a product or service much harder, but at the same time, very exciting.

One of the things to bear in mind is that the world we live in today is far more cynical and skeptical than it was only a couple of decades ago. We have all become familiar with the constant bombardment of messages, promotions, advertising and offers, that we have become adapted to this culture. Part of that adaptation involves being able to filter out those messages, forms of media and advertising which we do not find immediately relevant or of any importance to us personally.

This is perhaps the biggest challenge which any business faces when considering running an advertising campaign, or actively promoting goods or services. In a culture flooded with advertising, how is it possible to ensure that your messages get through?

. The business vocabulary contains words for different areas: management, finance, banking, insurance, marketing, advertising, trade, tourism…

The most useful business English vocabulary includes the following words:

advertising - show your products to customers through radio, television or newspapers

"What is the best way for us to advertise our product?" afford - able to buy, have enough money to buy "Television is the best advertising, but the most expensive. Can we

afford it?" agenda - a detailed plan for a meeting. "The first item on our agenda is advertising." booming - business is growing very fast

"This year business is booming, so we can start thinking about increasing our investments."

borrow - getting money from someone else, or from a bank, which we must pay back later"We need to borrow $100,000 to expand our business."

brand - the name of a well-known product (McDonald's, Coca Cola, Volkswagen, etc.)

"We'll need to borrow money for advertising, then we'll build our brand awareness."

break even - when our spending equals the amount we receive from sales "The company didn't make money nor lose money during the last quarter. They just broke even."

bribe - secretly paying money to get special favors from a company or government official

"She was sent to prison for 30 years for trying to bribe a high official."

budget - a detailed plan for spending money "The second item on our agenda is the budget. We need to pay

special attention to advertising, marketing and building our sales staff. Oh, and we need to significantly increase our budget for English teachers!"

calculate - to count, add, subtract, multiply, divide numbers "It's not hard to calculate - if we keep spending more money than we

take in, we'll have to sell more!" cancel - to decide NOT to buy something that you had agreed to

before "Before they cancel the order, find out what the problem is and fix it!"

capital – money "If we had more capital to invest, we would build a new factory." charge for - ask money for payment "We never charge for repairs. Making sure our products work is

included in the purchase price." CEO - the top officer in a company, the chief executive officer "How can we find a good CEO who knows how to run a business in

today's business environment?" CFO - the top financial officer in a company "The CFO will be attending today's meeting to talk about

fundamental accounting principles." commission - a percentage of each sale that goes directly to the

salesperson

"Our salespeople get 10% for each item sold, but that increases as he or she sells more."

competition - other companies that make the same product as yours "We face tough competition, but our product has some important

advantages." consumption - the total amount of product bought in a market "Although prices have fallen, overall consumption is higher, so we

can still make money." credit - when you buy first, but pay later "You can buy this product on credit. The payment will be due in 90

days." currency - the money of one country "If you exchange currency in the airport, you'll pay a large

commission. Go to a bank instead." deadline - the time by which some project must be finished "We have to finish this by Friday. That's the final deadline." demand - the wish of customers to buy a product "Until demand increases, we won't sell many of our most expensive

products." discount - a lower price "If you buy more than 100 of these, we will give you a 10%

discount". distribution - getting the product to the final consumer, or customer "Our distribution system needs to be improved if we are to meet

increased demand." diversify - start many new businesses instead of doing just one "If we diversify, we can make more money, but sales of our main

product may go down." economics - the study of finance and money "If you want to succeed in business, you should study economics." employee - a worker "Employees today need to learn so much to be able to move up in

the company." employer - the person who finds and pays workers "My employer told me I have to work overtime or I'll lose my job!" estimate - a guess about how much something will cost "We estimate the new factory will cost less than 20 million euros." export - to send goods out of a country "As the local currency drops in value, our exports to that country

also drop."

extend - to give more, especially a loan of money "The bank said they cannot extend the deadline. We have to pay by

Friday or face the consequences." finance - the study of money and how to use money well "After you study finance, you will know how to increase profits and

limit losses." fund - to provide money in general. "The CFO said the company plans to fund 50% of the project. The

rest will come from the government." gross - amount of money received from sales "We took in more than $100 million in gross sales last year. import - to bring goods into a country "When our currency is strong, we can import more goods into our

own country." incentive - a special price to get customers to buy "By offering a 15% discount as an incentive, we'll attract many new

customers." income tax - money paid to the government, based on total money

received "I thought I made enough money last year, but after paying 25%

income tax, I didn't have enough to buy that new house." inflation - rising prices "Rising energy prices have caused many other prices to increase.

The rate of inflation has increased to 7%." install - to put in and prepare for use, as with a machine "If you buy now, we'll install this machine for free." interest - extra money needed to pay back borrowed money "When you pay back the 100,000 euros, you must also pay 10%

interest, so the total will be 110,000 euros." inventory - unsold items that you keep so that you can sell them in

the future "Our inventory is very low right now. We have to increase build up our inventory to meet demand in the coming year.

invest - spending money so that we can make more in the future "If we invest so much money in a new factory, we won't have any money in our budget for new advertising."

invoice - a paper which explains what was sold and at what prices "Look at the invoice. You charged us for repairs that you said were

free!" leadership - the skill of managing people

"He has natural leadership skills, so he will surely be successful." lend - giving money to someone else, which they will pay back to us

later "When did you lend him the money? I lent it to him two months

ago." loss - when we spend more money than we receive from selling our

product "We took a loss last year, but this year we are spending less and selling more."

lucrative - the possibility of making a great amount of money "This could be a very lucrative contract! Well make money for each

sale as well as for each installation!" maintain - keep a machine in good condition "If you maintain this product, it will last for years." management - the study of how to run a business and lead people "I plan to study management before I open my own business." memo - a paper with a message, sent to other people in the same

company "The CFO read the CEO's memo at the meeting, to remind the

employees of the company's strategic goals." monopoly - when only one company controls a whole market "With this new product, we can break our competitor's monopoly." negotiate - try to get a better price or make a better arrangement "We negotiated for hours before they finally gave us a 20%

discount." net - the amount of money received from sales, after expenses are

subtracted "Our gross sales were very good, but we need to cut expenses to add

to our net sales." principal - the main part of a loan, before interest is added "We can pay back the principal in 10 years, then we will only have

to repay the interest." process (verb) - get something ready. "Please process his employment application, then send him to the

accounting office." profit - the money left over after all expenses are paid "Our profits are lower this year, but at least we're not losing money!" quarter - three months of the year, the usual time for planning and

reporting financial reports

"Last quarter was our best ever, and I am confident next quarter will be even better."

recruit - search for and choose workers "We'll need to recruit new employees before the factory starts

operation." refund - giving money back to the customer if there is a problem

with the item you sell "We cannot give you a refund after 90 days. Sorry!" resign - quit a job suddenly "Nobody knows why the CFO quit, but some people say he didn't

get along with the CEO." retail - selling to the final customer "The retail price is 150 euros, but you can buy it for less if you

bargain." retire - finish work after a long career (at age 65 in the U.S., 60 in

Japan, 55 in China...) "I've saved enough money for my retirement, but if I want to retire

to Hawaii, I have to save even more!" sales tax - money paid to the government, based on sales made "In most states in the U.S., sales tax is added on after the sale. It

varies from state to state." salary - a monthly or yearly pay to managers of important workers "We will have a salary increase of 7% this year, just enough to keep

up with inflation." saturated - too many companies producing the same product "The market for product A is already saturated. We need to diversify

if we wish to increase our profits." sluggish - when business is slow (opposite of "booming") "In this sluggish economy, the best we can hope for is to break

even." supply - the total amount of a product available in a market "The supply of computer parts is too high, so the price is falling

fast." target - the amount that you plan to sell in a month (also "quota") "The salesman reached his target by the 24th. He'll get a larger

commission on any sales after that." tariff - a tax on imports from another country "If the government puts a tariff on electronic products, sales will

fall." terms - the details of an agreement or contract

"The terms of this contract are quite good. I think we have a deal!" trend - movement in one direction, especially about product

becoming more and more popular "The trend towards more colorful fashion is getting stronger. We

need to develop new products." unit cost - the average amount needed to produce a product "If we can produce more of these, our unit price will fall, and we'll

be able to make a better profit." warranty - a promise that the things you sell will be of good quality "This product has a one-year warranty, but if you pay a small fee, we

can extend it to five years." wholesale - selling to a salesman who will then sell to the final

customer "The wholesale price is generally 50% of the retail price." Some words might be considered dangerous in business English

such as: Just

This is used to make a huge request or error seem trivial as in: “Could you just do this (500 page) document by Monday?”, a request best made late on a Friday afternoon.

But “That was a great presentation, but…”, or “I would like to help, but…”

From Much loved by advertisers, as in “Fly to Rome from £10″ excluding £100 of taxes and other “optional” extras for a flight leaving at 4am, going to an airport about 100kn away from Rome and the ticket has to be booked one year in advance.

Might (and any other conditional verb) Might is used to achieve two things: first it sets up a negotiating

position as in, “I might be able to do that if…” Second, it lays the ground work for excusing failure later on: “I would have done it, if only….”

Only Closely related to “Just”, it is an attempt to make a big request or problem seem small. “It was only a small error….we only dropped one nuclear bomb over London…”

Important (and urgent) Used to puff up any presentation: “This important new

product/initiative…”. Important to who? And why? Maybe it is important to the speaker, but why is it to me?

Thank you

Normally “Thank you” is good, except when used by automated voices at call centres saying, “Thank you for calling, we value your call…(and we have so much contempt for our customers that we can not be bothered to answer your call promptly, so we will put you on hold until you give up and try to use our impenetrable and useless online help instead).”

Interesting Fear this word. When your lawyer uses it, you are doomed. When your doctor uses it, check your will is up to date. The recession is certainly interesting. A slightly less interesting time would be preferable.

Opportunity Because the word “problem” has been banned in business speak, all problems have become opportunities. This means many opportunities are problems. There is a limit to how many opportunities I can solve. Interesting and strategic opportunities really scare me.

Additional Vocabulary

To set up in a business- a se lansa în afaceri Bid- ofertă Bidder- licitant Bond- obligaŃiune Business forecast- prognoză economică Business data processing- informatică de gestiune Business assets- active comerciale Business environment- mediu de afaceri Business expenditure- cheltuieli de reprezentare Business outlook- prespective economice Business manager- director comercial Corporation earnings- veniturile societăŃilor pe acŃiuni Corporation income tax- impozit asupra veniturilor corporaŃiilor Corporation sole- corporaŃie individuală Corporate acquisition- achiziŃie de firmă Corporate banking- servicii bancare pentru firme Corporate body- persoană juridică Corporate bond- obligaŃiune emisă de o societate Corporate equity- capital social/ fonduri proprii Corporate securities- titluri de societate Corporate venturing- furnizare de capital de investiŃie de către o

companie altei companii Equity- capital al acŃionarilor într-o companie Equity shares- capital investit în acŃiuni cu drepturi asupra profitului To hold- a cuprinde,a reŃine,a Ńine sub control,a organiza, a menŃine,

a se aplica. Holder- deŃinător, purtător, proprietar, concesionar Junk bonds- obligaŃiuni riscante Joint venture- societate mixtă Interest- dobândă Leverage-putere, influenŃă, randament,raport dintre creanŃe şi

capital, indice de îndatorare, mijloc de majorare a profitului. Leveraged buyout- preluare asistată, pe credit. Leveraged management buyout- cumpărare de câtre salariaŃi Liability- responsabilitate, răspundere Security- titlu de valoare Security market- bursă de valori Sole trader- comerciant pe cont propriu

Take over- preluare To merge- a fuziona Trader- speculator la bursa de valori, comerciant Merchandise- marfă Merchant- comerciant Willingness- bunăvoinŃă Willing- dispus, binevoitor chartered company- companie înfiinŃată pe baza unei Carte Regale joint stock c.- societate pe acŃiuni unlimited c.- societate cu răspundere nelimitată limited c.- societate cu răspundere limitată parent c.- societate mamă wholly owned c.- societate în propietate integrală unincorporated c.- societate neînregistrată winding up of a c.- încetarea activităŃii unei societăŃi greenfield c.- societate la început de drum bogus company- societate fictică close c.- societate închisă dormant c.- societate inactivă company funds – capital al firmei company identity- imagine de marcă to stay afloat- a se menŃine pe linia de plutire shareholder-acŃionar shares- acŃiuni, titluri de valoare preference shares- acŃiuni privişegiate deferred shares- acŃiuni cu plata dividendului după satisfacerea

celorlalte outstanding shares- acŃiuni în circuşaŃie share capital- capital social, în acŃiuni share market- bursă de acŃiuni share prices- curs share index- indice share split- divizare a acŃiunilor to share the profit- a împărŃi profitul to share one’s views- a împărtăşi părerile cuiva to share one’s experience- a împărtăşi experienŃă to assess-a evalua assessment- evaluare assessed- evaluat turnover- cifra de afaceri

loss-pierdere, deficit to run at a loss- a lucra în pierdere loss ratio- rata pierderilor relocation- mutare core business- activitate de bază break up- lichidare liable- responsabil de to grant- a acorda storage- depozitare subsidized price- preŃ subvenŃionat brand name- marcă de fabrică to book an order- a înregistra o comandă sale- vânzare sale by sample- vânzare cu mostră sale for future delivery- v. la termen sale on hire purchase- v. cu plata în rate sales outlet-punct de desfacere sales quota- cota de vănzări sales records- evidenŃa vânzărilor sales department- serviciul commercial overstock- depăşire a stocului price advance- majorare price alignment- aliniere price collapse- cădere price cut- reducere price gap- decalaj price maintenance- menŃinere price shading- reducere mică price freeze- îngheŃare price ceiling- plafon de preŃuri blanket price- preŃ global bid price- preŃ oferit bottom price- preŃul cel mai scăzut ceiling price- preŃul maxim flat price- preŃ unic floor price- preŃ minimal peg price- stabilizare purchase price- preŃ de cumpărare sell price- preŃ de vânzare invoice- factura

delivery- livrare middleman- intermediary convenience stores- magazine locale out of stock- lipseşte din stoc sole selling rights- drepturi de vânzare exclusivistă world market price- preŃ de pe piaŃa mondială store layout- configuraŃia magazinului to negotiate a loan- a negocia un împrumut ongoing negotiations- tratative în desfăşurare negotiations in progress- tratative în desfăşurare joint- comun joint bargaining- negocieri commune joint owner- copropietar joint management- conducere colectivă outcome- rezultat, consecinŃă to settle- a stabili, a soluŃiona, a reglementa to claim- a pretinde, a cere, a revendica to score- a înregistra, a nota, a marca, a obŃine, a realiza scheme- plan, aranjament, combinaŃie damage- daună, prejudiciu to adjourn- a amâna, a suspenda adjournment- amânare, suspendare, întrerupere to adjust- a adapta, a ajusta, a corecta, a aranja, a pune în ordine, a

aplana adjustment- ajustare, potrivire, corectare, adaptare, aplanare,

acoperire. to involve- a implica, a antrena involvement- implicare,participare to enforce- a aplica, a pune în vigoare enforceable- aplicabil enforceability- aplicabilitate enforcement- aplicare a unei legi to bind- a lega, a încheia, a impune, a oblige, a se lega, a se oblige binding- legătură concession- concesie, recunoaştere to incur- a contracta, a asuma, a suporta, a suferi to induce- a convinge, a determina la, a impinge la, a hotărî la guaranteed- garantat guarantee- garanŃie, siguranŃă to chair- a prezida

chairman- preşedinte to decree- a decide, a emite un decret meeting- întrunire, şedinŃă to call a meeting- a convoca o şedinŃă notice of meeting- notificare a aunării generale to brief- a rezuma, a instrui briefing- instruire, informare briefing conference- conferinŃă de îndrumare to exchange- a face schimb to establish- a stabili,a institui, a întemeia, a instala establishment- instituŃie oficială, stabiliment,organizaŃie publică sau

privată, fondare timing- sincronizare outright- deschis, cistit, total outright loan to a project- împrumut direct pentru proiect outright grants for research- alocaŃii integrale pentru cercetare bias- eroare sistematică, distorsiune disability- neputinŃă, incapacitate disabled- incapabil de to trigger- a declanşa, a porni, a lansa liable- răspunzător, supus commitment- angajament to reinforce- a consolida,a întări reinforcement- consolidare to share- a împărŃi to share in- a lua parte la to share out- a repartiza, a distribui guidelines- directive deputy manager- director adjunct sales manager- director commercial acting manager- director interimar layout of a meeting- amplasare to take charge- a-şi asuma responsabilitatea turnover-cifra de afaceri merger- fuziune outright loan- împrumut direct outlet- piaŃă de desfacere slump- criză funding- finanŃare boom- avânt

long term- pe termen lung medium term- pe termen mediu short term- pe termen scurt restrictive practices- practice anticoncurenŃiale leveraged- îndatorat divestitures- sciziune to bail out- a salva golden parachutes- compensaŃii financiare garantate lay offs, redundancies- concedieri, disponibilizări joint ventures- societăŃi mixte ailing- în dificultate to spin off assets- a distribui activele tender offer- ofertă publică de cumpărare junk bond- obligaŃiune speculativă corporate governance- conducerea înterprinderii leveraged buyouts- preluarea controlului prin împrumut, cumpărarea

de către salariaŃi. to bid- a face o ofertă financiară buyout- cumpărarea unei firme în totalitate Boundless- nemărginit Bottom line- de bază To dispatch-a trimite, a rezolva rapid, promt Cash flow- flux monetary To draft- a redacta, a întocmi To exchange- a face schimb Web browser- program software pentru navigare pe internet Joint venture- societate mixtă To display- a expune, a afişa Impending- imminent Expenditure- cheltuială Allowance- reducere Scalability- capacitate de a grada To hook- a prinde, a agăŃa Hook up- program comun, înlănŃuire To knuckle down- a se apuca de Tip- informaŃie Secure- în siguranŃă, care nu prezintă risc, garantat To secure- a proteja, a asigura To store- a stoca, a memora Ongoing- neîntrerupt

Backer- susŃinător,girant To back- a sprijini, a susŃine, a gira,a da îndărăt To back down- a o lăsa mai moale, a bate în retragere To err- a greşi, a face o eroare To bud- a începe To litter- a murdări Fickle- nestatornic, capricios To highlight- a evidenŃia Claims- cereri, revendicări To comply with- a se conforma Encasement- încasare, plată în numerar Rental- valoare locativă Obsolete- demodat, învechit Would be customers- clienŃi potenŃiali In sequence- în succesiune, unul după altul Venture capital- capital de risc Venture- speculaŃie, risc,acŃiune comercială Watertight- ireproşabil, impecabil, clar To default- a fi în restanŃă, în întârziere cu plata Diligence- osteneală Due- cele cuvenite To slant- a denature,a prezenta tendenŃios Slant- punct de vedere, opinie, înclinaŃie, tendinŃă Onerous- apăsător,împovătător

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