首页
登录
职称英语
I have come here to meet Hiroshi Mikitani, 47-year-old leader of a pack of r
I have come here to meet Hiroshi Mikitani, 47-year-old leader of a pack of r
游客
2024-10-16
36
管理
问题
I have come here to meet Hiroshi Mikitani, 47-year-old leader of a pack of rebel entrepreneurs that has shaken up business practices in Japan. Confident, internationally minded, brash,even flash, they have founded enterprises and wielded business techniques—the hostile takeover, merit-based pay, cut-throat competition and unapologetic self-promotion—that are alien to Japan’s postwar corporation-as-family culture.
Many in Japan find this group distasteful, even un-Japanese. Others regard them as role models for a new Japan. Some, like Takafumi Horie, a dishevelled internet entrepreneur whose briefly dazzling career ended behind bars in 2007 when he was sentenced for securities fraud, have fallen by the wayside. But Mikitani, who in 1997 founded Rakuten, Japan’s largest online retailer, has flourished. He owns nearly half the company, a sort of Japanese Amazon and eBay rolled into one, valued at $14bn. According to Forbes’ latest rich-list, Mikitani is Japan’s fourth-wealthiest person, with a net worth of $6.5bn.
Mikitani arrives. He speaks in English, a language he insists his Japanese employees use as part of what he calls, rather disturbingly, the "Englishisation of Rakuten". It is a policy some in Japan applaud and others condemn as an idiotic charade.
Mikitani tells me about his move, in the mid-1990s, from banking to internet start-up. He had been one of 120 people—117 of them men—recruited to the fast-track team of the Industrial Bank of Japan, then the creme de la creme of Japanese finance. The bank had sent him to study at Harvard Business School, where he encountered brash new American ideas. "I didn’t even know the word ’entrepreneurship’," he says, sounding it out phonetically the way Japanese do when discussing an alien concept. "The first time I heard it I thought: what is this ’entrepreneurship’?"
Though he began to think of striking out on his own, he felt a strong obligation to the bank that had sponsored his Harvard studies and the place where he had met his wife. The final nudge came in January 1995 with the Kobe earthquake. After helping as a volunteer, he was resolved: "I realised anything could happen. Nothing is eternal," he says. He decided to take the plunge—or, in his rather quaint phrase, to "jump off the bridge".
The model is not to link customers to a single big store like Amazon but rather to provide what Mikitani calls individual "shopping experiences". That creates the same sense of connection as "buying fish from your neighbourhood fish shop," he says.
Mikitani says his push at Rakuten has broader ramifications for the country. "Japan is so pleasant. There’s no crime. The food is great. Everything is getting so cheap. You don’t need to learn another language," he says, spreading his arms in metaphorical acknowledgement of the comfortable lifestyle the Japanese have created. "My point is: this is very pleasant long-term decline," he draws out the last word to emphasise the point.
"A language will open your eyes to the ’global’, and you will break free from this conventional wisdom of a pure Japan. English is a tool to globalise you, to make you change."
"We need to be more fluid. Keeping extremely expensive older people when there are lots of very competent, capable young people, this as a system is wrong." He drains his coffee.
He’s not pessimistic, he assures me. With better English, more flexible labour laws, relaxed immigration policies and more investment in science, Japan can bounce back. "We need to fix just a couple of simple things and we’ll have a bright future."
From NPR, June 15,2012 [br] What is his company’s unique policy that has drawn much attention in Japan?
选项
A、equal treatment for everyone
B、Englishisation
C、employee stock ownership
D、corporate social responsibility
答案
B
解析
本题为细节题。第三段中简述了他要求公司员工尽可能地使用英语,达到“英语最大化”。因此,正确答案为B。
转载请注明原文地址:https://tihaiku.com/zcyy/3803946.html
相关试题推荐
Iraqipoliticalleadersarebargainingtoreachanagreementon______.[br][o
IhavecomeheretomeetHiroshiMikitani,47-year-oldleaderofapackofr
IhavecomeheretomeetHiroshiMikitani,47-year-oldleaderofapackofr
IhavecomeheretomeetHiroshiMikitani,47-year-oldleaderofapackofr
NoneofthePartyagreestheidea______isofferedbythewiseleader.A、whichB
TheCrusadingCampusLeader:RuthSimmonsTherewasatimew
TheCrusadingCampusLeader:RuthSimmonsTherewasatimew
TheCrusadingCampusLeader:RuthSimmonsTherewasatimew
WhohasvisitedSudanlastweek?[originaltext]SudaneseoppositionleaderS
Oftencalledtheintellectualleaderoftheanimal-rightsmovement,Regan"
随机试题
DiscussionoftheassimilationofPuertoRicansintheUnitedStateshasfocused
Anyonebreakingtheruleswillbeaskedtoleave___________.A、atthespotB、ont
脚手架料由于用量大,周转搭设,拆除频繁,流动面宽,一般不设专业租赁站,实行总公司
在现金流量表的补充资料中,将净利润调节为经营活动产生的现金流量时,下列各调整项目
下列关于中国古代修筑长城的评价,不正确的是()A.修筑长城耗费了大量的人力物
某初产妇,28岁。产前检查情况正常。现孕39周,因突然阴道流水而就诊。考虑胎膜早
黄芪桂枝五物汤所治血痹证的病机是A.血虚受寒,寒客肝脉 B.表虚受风,邪客血脉
企业在估算初始现金流量和终结现金流量时,均要考虑()。A.折旧 B.付现成
L印刷企业是重点防火单位,工程占地面积23000m2,员工1200人,设有安全
尿激酶、链激酶A.脑保护剂 B.抗凝治疗 C.溶栓治疗 D.血液稀释疗法
最新回复
(
0
)