首页
登录
职称英语
When Stephane Richard appeared recently in Paris, a celebrity and news magazi
When Stephane Richard appeared recently in Paris, a celebrity and news magazi
游客
2023-12-12
8
管理
问题
When Stephane Richard appeared recently in Paris, a celebrity and news magazine, lightly tanned in an open-necked shirt and leaning jauntily against the corporate logo of his new firm, France Telecom, he raised eyebrows in the buttoned-down world of French telecoms. Mr. Richard did not attend the elite engineering school which produces almost all of France’s senior telecoms executives, including his predecessor at France Telecom, Didier Lombard, and the boss of Vivendi, a rival. Instead, he is a political operator who has made a fortune in property. He is a friend of Nicolas Sarkozy, France’s president, and worked until recently as chief of staff to the finance minister. He became boss of France Telecom with the immediate task of responding to a wave of suicides among employees which had prompted a political outcry.
Since 2008, over 30 France Telecom employees have killed themselves, some explicitly blaming the company. Even though the firm’s suicide rate is in line with the national average, France Telecom says that it was partly to blame. Because of the group’s former status as part of government, 66, 000 or 65% of its employees are classed as civil servants, with guaranteed tenure. Unable to fire them, France Telecom instead subjected them to a system called "Time to Move", in which they were obliged to change offices and jobs abruptly every few years.
"The former management needed to change the nature of peoples’ jobs due to technological change and increased competition, " says Mr. Richard, "but the company underestimated the consequences." For the first time in 15 years, he has promised, France Telecom will expand its workforce. Job and office moves will become voluntary, and up to 30% of the variable pay of the firm’s top 1, 100 managers will be tied to their "social" performance. Other measures include making France Telecom’s numerous offices more pleasant:the company will renovate 800 of its buildings and create 270 new "conviviality spaces" for employees.
Mr. Richard, a former board member, joined the firm in 2009 as heir apparent to Mr. Lombard, with the blessing of the government, which still holds a 27% stake. He was not due to take over until next year, but the handover was accelerated in the midst of the crisis. In an unusual outburst last week, Louis-Pierre Wenes.the group’s former deputy chief executive, who resigned under pressure last year, told a British website that "external stakeholders" in France Telecom had taken advantage of the suicides to advance their agenda. Mr. Lombard was not close to the current administration, whereas Mr. Richard is.
Minority shareholders are now waiting to hear in detail what Mr. Richard plans for the business beyond improving morale. He is a talented communicator, but some foreign investors grumble that despite having been at the firm for over six months, he tends to turn to other executives when asked for precise details on France Telecom’s financial performance. But Mr. Richard clearly has lots of business nous. The grandson of a shepherd, he made his fortune from a leveraged buy-out of a property developer, Nexi-ty.in 2000-01. He is likely to push France Telecom into behaving like a private firm, and further away from its past as a public monopoly.
"Stephane Richard is far more attuned to the market than Didier Lombard, " says Xavier Niel, founder of Iliad, a young telecoms firm which has upended the French broadband market. "Under his management France Telecom will become a more dangerous competitor for us. " Already, while at the finance ministry, Mr. Richard demonstrated a strong belief in the beneficial effects of competition by helping Iliad obtain a mobile licence in the face of fierce resistance from the incumbents and their political allies. [br] The word "nous" in Paragraph 5 probably means
选项
A、innovations.
B、practices.
C、intelligence.
D、experience.
答案
C
解析
语义题。nous出现在第五段第三句。前一句提到“some foreign investors grumble that…”,可见有人对Richard的管理表示不满。由But可以看出“Mr.Richard clearly has lots of business nous”应该是对Richard的肯定。倒数第二句是对该句的例证,指出“2000年1月,这个牧羊人的孙子用杠杆收购的方法得到了一家房地产开发公司,由此起家”。由此可见,这里business nous是指“有商业头脑”,故[C]为答案。
转载请注明原文地址:https://tihaiku.com/zcyy/3267508.html
相关试题推荐
AccordingtoRichard,whatwastheconceptofhealthbeforethe1940s?[br][or
AccordingtoRichard,whatwastheconceptofhealthbeforethe1940s?[br][or
AccordingtoRichard,whatwastheconceptofhealthbeforethe1940s?[br][or
AccordingtoRichard,whatwastheconceptofhealthbeforethe1940s?[original
RecentlymostoftheimmigrationtotheUnitedStateshasbeenfrom______.A、Asia
RichardNixonresignedin1974becauseof______.A、theGreatDepressionB、theBla
"ManifestDestiny"firstappearedinanarticlewrittenbyaDemocraticpolitici
HostilitytoGypsieshasexistedalmostfromthetimetheyfirstappearedin
HostilitytoGypsieshasexistedalmostfromthetimetheyfirstappearedin
InthesemantictrianglebyOgdenandRichards,theSYMBOLorFORMreferstoA、th
随机试题
[originaltext]OneJapanesewomanhasprovedthatagereallyisjustanumber
A.适用于任何静电场 B.只适用于真空中的静电场 C.只适用于具有球对称性、
一批游客中每人都去了两个景点中至少一个。只去了A的游客和没去A的游客数量相当,且
已知某理想气体的体积为V,压强为p,温度为T,k为玻耳兹曼常量,为摩尔气体常量,
①引发剧烈的山崩地裂,引发大面积地震和惊天海啸,从而带来遍地浩劫②引起像温泉及间
2008年4月12日,中国人民银行颁布了(),并于4月15日正式施行。A:《银行
某女,28岁,咳痰一周,症见痰多色白,胸闷胁痛,证属痰浊阻肺、肝郁气滞,治当
绝热结构设计时,对于埋地敷设的保温管道,其结构组成中应增设()。A.防潮层
5岁儿童,低热干咳1周,加重3天,呈刺激性于咳,夜眠不安。查体:体温38℃,双肺
矿山企业为改善矿井安全生产条件,制定了安全生产费用提取和使用管理制度。根据《安全
最新回复
(
0
)