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If sustainable competitive advantage depends on work force skills, American

游客2024-05-15  36
问题      If sustainable competitive advantage depends on work force skills, American firm shave a problem. Human-resource management is not traditionally seen as central to the competitive survival of the firm in the United States. Skill acquisition is considered an individual responsibility. Labor is simply another factor of production to be hired--rented at the lowest possible cost--must as one buys raw materials or equipment.
     The lack of importance attached to human-resource management can be seen in the corporate pecking order. In an American firm the chief financial officer is almost always second in command. The post of head of human-resource management is usually a specialized job, oil at the edge of the corporate hierarchy. The executive who holds it is never consulted on major strategic decisions and has no .chance to move up to Chief Executive Officer. By way of contrast, in Japan the head of human-resource management is central usually the second most important executive, after the CEO, in the firm’s hierarchy.
     While American firms often talk about the vast amounts spent on training their work force, in fact, they invest less in the skills of their employees than do either Japanese or German firms. The money they do invest is also more highly concentrated on professional and managerial employees. And the limited investments  that are made in training workers are also much more narrowly focused on the specific skills necessary to do the next job rather than on the basic background skills that make it possible to absorb new technologies.
     As a result, problems emerge when new breakthrough technologies arrive. If American workers, for example, take much longer to learn how to operate new flexible manufacturing stations than workers in Germany (as they do), the effective cost of those stations is lower in Germany than it is in the United States. More time is required before equipment is up and running at capacity, and the need for extensive retraining generates costs and creates bottlenecks that limit the speed with which new equipment can be employed. The result is a slower pace of technological change And in the end the skills of the bottom half of the population affect the wages of the top half. If the bottom half can’t effectively staff the processes that have to be operated, the management and professional jobs that go with these processes will disappear.  [br] Which of the following applies to the human-resource management of American companies?
选项 A、They hire people with the least possible money regardless of their skills.
B、They regard skill gaining as their employees’ own business.
C、They prefer to hire self-trained workers.
D、They only hire skilled workers because of keen employment competition.
答案 B
解析 细节题。由题干后半部分定位到首段第二句，可在接下来第三句“掌握劳动技能被认为是个人自己的责任”中得出本题答案。B与此句意思一致。A干扰性较强，前半句“以低工资雇佣工人”是正确的，但后半句“不考虑其他技能”与文章不符。
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