[同主题写作] 0610G同主题写作第十三期——Issue152 [复制链接]

Issue152"The only responsibility of corporate executives, provided they stay within the law, is to make as much money as possible for their companies."

公司的经营者们唯一的责任就是在法律规定范围之内为他们的公司赚尽可能多的钱。

05年3月-06年8月5日共出现78次 06年8月1-5日出现4次

修锐分类中的统一与分歧

拿到题目先剔除附加的东西，抽出精髓，其实题目就是这样一个结构：… is…, provided….说到底就是一句用is陈述的”事实”。一句话下来，没有比较，没有因果，就一句话。思考的关键就集中在自己认为这个is是对还是错。题目里并没有什么难理解或者容易引起歧义的关键词，那么我们就来关注一个小词“only”。”only”是个绝对词汇，表示唯一。我们常说说话留有余地，一般出现诸如此类绝对词汇的题目多半持否定态度比较容易下笔。在这里，破题的关键也在于这个绝对词汇上面。

其次，注意这样一个大前提provided they stay within the law，题目的陈述是基于这样一个前提的，provided=if=on condition that。既然给出provided之个词，就已经限定在法律允许的范围内探讨，因此我认为即使行文中不提跟law有关的东东也是可以的。但是，为了论述的完整性和严密性，我个人倾向于在文章的开始或者结尾肯定一下题目中的大前提，即无论是否公司经营者的责任是尽可能的为公司盈利，它的一切职责都应该在法律允许的范围内。这样就可以抛开法律的问题，来单纯的谈公司经营者的责任到底是什么。为什么要在法律允许的范围内？这个问题就好回答多了，参考法律的题目不难说出一大堆，什么规范经营秩序啦，保证公平竞争啦，保护消费者和员工权益啦…blabla…这些提也可以，不要作为重点，不提也罢。

另外，怎样来看待“the responsibility of corporate executives”和“the responsibility of corporate”？我认为是一致的。根据M-W，executives是公司的管理者和经营者，应该是这样一个管理团体，说成是CEO也不为过。公司作为一个实体本身需要承担的责任要通过corporate executive的责任来体现，当然executive自己还需要对公司股东负责等等。不过负责也是通过making money来实现，因此我们还是可以将executive的责任归等同结为一个公司应该承担的责任。

M-W Main Entry: 2executive
Function: noun
1 : the executive branch of a government;  also   : the person or persons who constitute the executive magistracy of a state
2 : a directing or controlling office of an organization
3 : one that exercises administrative or managerial control


那么好，统一了这两点我们就来看看公司的职责到底是什么？这个就容易多了吧。
首先是赢利——make money，公司不同于非营利组织，money绝对不能少，这也是保证公司正常运营和存活的必要。
其他方面的责任，分开面对的群体，很容易想到：
对社会——社会形象，榜样作用；慈善捐赠等等
对国家——税收
对顾客——使用/食用的安全
对员工——公司的氛围，福利
…
欢迎大家补充！

因为题目中only一词的作用，观点可以鲜明地分为两派：
1、同意——公司经营者的唯一职责就是挣钱。不过同意的提纲实在少见。
2、不同意，否定only，也就是说挣钱只是职责之一，还有其他职责。
当然，从逻辑上来讲不同意的观点还可能有一种，就是不否定only，而否定make money，也就是说同意公司经营者是有唯一职责的，但这个唯一职责不是挣钱！不过相信没有人会这么写。

agree
观点：同意CEO的唯一责任就是为公司多盈利
1企业营利不仅有利于自身，更有利于社会
a企业是社会经济的单元，它的繁荣是社会经济繁荣的基础
b企业多盈利就有能力多纳税，从而促进社会公共事业的发展
c企业多盈利就可能增收员工，从而减轻社会就业压力
2我们需要通过法律来规范企业的行为，使其不致危害社会
a保障企业员工的利益
b保障广大顾客的利益
c保障整个社会的利益
3至于各种福利事业、慈善捐助、教育资助等等，企业能够去做当然很好，但这些本身并不是企业的责任，而是政府和其他机构的责任(照应only)

disagree
观点：赚钱只是公司经营者的职责之一，还有其他的职责
1make money的确是公司经营者的首要或者重要职责
2但是公司经营者还担负着其他的职责，譬如对社会的职责，对国家的职责和对员工的职责
3、当然所有的职责必须要在法律允许的范围内实现

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What do CEOs do? A CEO Job Description.
Part 1: Responsibility, duty, and all that...

This essay is written using “she” to refer to CEOs. There is no deep agenda hiding here. I’m in the business of helping people think outside the box, and gender is an obvious place to start.

Admit it. We all feel a touch of awe when someone has it: the CEO title. The power, the salary, and the chance to Be The Boss. It's worthy of awe!

Too bad so few CEOs are good at what they do. In fact, only 1 in 20 are in the top 5%[1]. Many don’t know what their job should be, and few of those can pull it off well. The job is simple—very simple. But it’s not easy at all.

More than with any other job, the responsibilities of a CEO diverge from the duties and the measurement.

A CEO’s responsibilities: everything, especially in a startup. The CEO is responsible for the success or failure of the company. Operations, marketing, strategy, financing, creation of company culture, human resources, hiring, firing, compliance with safety regulations, sales, PR, etc.—it all falls on the CEO’s shoulders..

The CEO’s duties are what she actually does, the responsibilies she doesn’t delegate. Some things can’t be delegated. Creating culture, building the senior management team, financing road shows, and, indeed, the delegation itself can be done only by the CEO.

Many start-up CEOs think fund-raising is their most important duty. I disagree. Fund-raising is necessary, but the CEOs contribution is in building a superb business with the money raised.

What is the CEO's main duty? Setting strategy and vision. The senior management team can help develop strategy. Investors can approve a business plan. But the CEO ultimately sets the direction. Which markets will the company enter? Against which competitors? With what product lines? How will the company differentiate itself? The CEO decides, sets budgets, forms partnerships, and hires a team to steer the company accordingly.

The CEO’s second duty is building culture. Work gets done through people, and people are profoundly affected by culture. A lousy place to work can drive away high performers. After all, they have their pick of places to work. And a great place to work can attract and retain the very best.

Culture is built in dozens of ways, and the CEO sets the tone. Her every action—or inaction—sends cultural messages (see “Life Under a Magnifying Glass”). Clothes send signals about how formal the workplace is. Who she talks to signals who is and isn’t important. How she treats mistakes (feedback or failure?) sends signals about risk-taking. Who she fires, what she puts up with, and what she rewards shape the culture powerfully.

A project team worked weekends launching a multimedia web site on a tight deadline. Their CEO was on holiday when the site launched. She didn’t call to congratulate the team. To her, it was a matter of keeping her personal life sacred. To the team, it was a message that her personal life was more important than the weekends and evenings they had put in to meet the deadline. Next time, they may not work quite so hard. The emotion and effect on the culture was real, even if it wasn’t what the CEO intended. Congratulations from the CEO on a job well done can motivate a team like nothing else. Silence can demotivate just as quickly.

Team-building is the CEO’s #3 duty. The CEO hires, fires, and leads the senior management team. They, in turn, hire, fire, and lead the rest of the organization.

The CEO must be able to hire and fire non-performers. She must resolve differences between senior team members, and keep them working together in a common direction. She sets direction by communicating the strategy and vision of where the company is going. Strategy sets a direction. With clear direction, the team can rally together and make it happen.

Don’t underestimate the power of setting direction. In 1991, at Intuit’s new employee orientation, CEO Scott Cook presented his vision of Intuit as the center of computerized personal finance. Intuit had just 120 employees and one product. Ten years later, it’s a billion-dollar company with thousands of employees and dozens of products. Worldwide, it is the winner in personal finance, bar none. The success is due in no small part to every Intuit employee knowing and sharing the company’s vision and strategy.

If vision is where the company is going, values tell how the company gets there. Values outline acceptable behavior. The CEO conveys values through actions and reactions to others. Slipping a ship schedule to meet quality levels sends a message of valuing quality. Not over-celebrating a team's heroic recovery when they could have avoided a problem altogether sends a message about prevention versus damage control. People take their cues about interpersonal values—trust, honesty, openness—from CEO’s actions as well.

Capital allocation is the CEO’s #4 duty. The CEO sets budgets within the firm. She funds projects which support the strategy, and ramps down projects which lose money or don’t support the strategy. She considers carefully the company’s major expenditures, and manages the firm’s capital. If the company can’t use each dollar raised from investors to produce at least $1 of shareholder value, she decides when to return money to the investors. Some CEOs don’t consider themselves financial people, but at the end of the day, it is their decisions that determine the company’s financial fate.

Corporate Social Responsibility and Globalization: A Reassessment

Introduction
Social responsibility, in one form or another, has been on the minds of American business for over 100 years. In the late nineteenth century, US pharmaceutical companies established codes of conduct that stressed their need to serve public health while making profits. In 1977, the Reverend Leon Sullivan proposed a human rights code - later expanded into the Global Sullivan Principles of Social Responsibility - for companies doing business in South Africa. By the 1980s, over one hundred mutual funds and investment funds were screening investments for human rights or environmental records.
But the current idea of social activists telling large corporations how to run their businesses - and companies listening - is much newer. Nevertheless, responding to the demands of activists over issues of corporate social responsibility (CSR) has today become integral to the way many large businesses operate. In March 2002, Starbuck's vice-president of corporate social responsibility told The Financial Times, "Activists play a vital and vibrant role in our continued growth and evaluation of who we are as a company." And, as the following examples show, Starbuck's is not alone.
>>more
http://www.aworldconnected.org/article.php/524.html

Corporate social responsibility news and resources

So what's the business case for corporate social responsibility?
Business Respect - 13 Aug 2006
One of the most asked questions within the literature on corporate social responsibility is: what is the business case for CSR? The fact that it is so often asked makes it all the more remarkable that it is so often so badly answered.
A tool for the companies facing the worst dilemmas in the world
Business Respect - 30 Jul 2006
There are business opportunities all over the world. But some bring higher risks than others. How does a company best navigate dilemmas in countries where governments are unwilling or unable to fulfil their responsibilities in relation to some fairly basic, accepted norms? In an attempt to answer this question, the OECD has produced a tool for multinational enterprises operating in what it describes as 'weak governance zones'.

Corporate personality - does it help companies to play fair?
Business Respect - 16 Jul 2006
Microsoft has had a tough couple of weeks in Europe, being fined by the European Commission for not playing fair with its competitors. At the same time, PepsiCo has been bathing in the warm glow of approval after it spurned the offer to benefit from industrial espionage at Coca-Cola. So what does it really mean, to operate within a culture of fair competition?

The crucial role of business in saving the planet
Business Respect - 2 Jul 2006
For decades, the science of sustainability has been obvious to anyone that cared to take an interest. The bit that requires courage and leadership - the politics and the economics of sustainability - has been a lot further behind. We know what we have to do, the question is how and what role does business have to play.
>>more
http://www.mallenbaker.net/csr/index.html