Exam Semester 1 2012

Université PANTHÉON - ASSAS (PARIS II) Droit - Economie - Sciences Sociales Session : Septembre 2012 Deuxième année de licence économie-gestion mention sciences économiques ANGLAIS - Deuxième année d’Économie-Gestion (Unité d'Enseignements Complémentaires 1 - code 7032) Responsable de l’épreuve : Mme BUHL Durée de l’épreuve :1h30 Document(s) autorisé(s) : Aucun 1. Grammar (5pts) a)Complete each sentence with the correct form of ‘make’ or ‘do’. (3pts) - The negotiators _______________________________ considerable progress yesterday. - The new packaging ___________________________ all the diference in our sales. - ___________________________ overtime is not my idea of a good time. b)Use the prompts below to make sentences in the second conditional. (2pts) - If workers had a stake in the firm, ______________________________ (go on strike less often). - I wish I ___________________________________________(to anticipate the credit crunch). 2. Vocabulary (5 pts) Make a sentence with the following words. You can give a definition or write your own sentence whose context will clarify the meaning of the word. a)buoyant_________________________________________________________________________ ______________________________________________________________________________ b)collective bargaining ___________________________________________________________________________________ __________________________________________________________________________________ c)a scheme ___________________________________________________________________________________ ___________________________________________________________________________________ 1 d) a vacancy __________________________________________________________________________________ __________________________________________________________________________________ e) to slash the payroll ___________________________________________________________________________________ ___________________________________________________________________________________ 3. Summary (20pts) Read the article below and write a synoptic summary in about 300 words and in your own English. Sequences of more than 3 words from the text will not be regarded as your own English. OUT OF INDIA The Economist March 3rd 2011 Under Ratan Tata, the business group that bears his name has transformed itself from an Indian giant into a global powerhouse The Tata group, of which Ratan Tata is chairman, is a giant —or rather a collection of them. This family of companies covers cars and consulting, software and steel, tea and cofee, chemicals and hotels. (…) Overall, the group earned 3.2 trillion rupees, or $67.4 billion, in revenues in 2009-10 (see chart) and 82 billion rupees in profits. Mr Tata has transformed the group. When he became chairman in 1991, (…) Tata seldom ventured outside its home market. Today, as he prepares to step down in late 2012 (…) India is one of the world’s most dynamic economies and Tata operates in over 80 countries. (…) But the Tata story is about more than its own 2 transformation. Just as Tata played a leading role in nation-building from its foundation in 1868, creating India’s first Indian-owned steel plant, power station, luxury hotel, domestic airline (…), it is now one of the stars of India’s globalisation. The group has also projected a new type of company onto the global stage—more diversified than Western firms, more engaged in the life of the community and, if its employees are to be believed, better equipped to prosper in both developed and developing markets. The house that Ratan built Mr Tata’s appointment in Bombay House, the group’s headquarters, took place just before the liberalisation of India’s economy, an event that Indian business people habitually call the country’s “second independence”. He spotted that liberalisation was both an opportunity and a threat. It was an opportunity because it set Tata free: the economy had been so tightly regulated that you could be fined or even imprisoned for exceeding your output quotas. It was a threat because Tata was vulnerable. Its companies were unco-ordinated, overstafed and undermanaged. (…) The group embraced globalisation. The pace of foreign acquisitions has grown dramatically: in 1995-2003 Tata companies made, on average, one purchase a year; in 2004 they made six; and in 2005-06 more than 20. So has the scale. Tata Tea’s takeover of Tetley Group, a British company, for $450m in 2000 was the first of several bold buys of well-known brands that announced the group’s arrival in the global big league. In 2007 Tata Steel bought Corus, Europe’s second-largest steelmaker, for $12.1 billion. A year later Tata Motors paid $2.3 billion for Jaguar Land Rover (JLR). In all, Tata has spent around $20 billion on foreign companies. Today it earns about three-fifths of its revenue abroad and employs more British workers than any other manufacturer, and two of its biggest companies, Tata Motors and Tata Communications, are listed on the New York Stock Exchange. Tata has been busy in emerging markets, too. Tata Steel and Tata Motors have been snapping up Asian companies, such as Thailand’s Millennium Steel and South Korea’s Daewoo trucks. At home Tata Motors makes the first Indian-designed car, the Indica, and the world’s cheapest, the Nano. Mr Tata talks about the company’s duty to produce ground-breaking products for the world’s poor with missionary zeal. The changes have been dramatic. A group that used to be identified with secure employment (…) has become obsessed by serving its customers and matching international standards. Tata Steel has more than doubled its output since 1994 (from 3m tonnes to 6.4m) while cutting its workforce in India by more than half (from 78,000 to 30,000). (…) That is partly because of caution and reverence for tradition, but also because there is logic behind the group’s diversity. Tata is held together by a common culture that has been marinating for 140 3 years. Employees love to tell tales of how Tata got the better of the British overlords. They also love to point out that Tata created many of India’s greatest institutions, such as the Indian Institute of Science, the Tata Institute of Fundamental Research and the Tata Memorial Hospital. Tata prides itself above all on its culture, which it argues is defined by three things: loyalty, dignity and what is now called corporate social responsibility (CSR). (…) Tata charitable trusts own two-thirds of the holding company, Tata Sons. Alan Rosling, a former Tata executive who spearheaded the group’s globalisation, liked to say, “We’re making money so that our shareholders can give it away.” The trusts funded worthy causes, from clean-water projects and literacy programmes to the various Tata institutions (…). In globalising, Tata has been a fast learner (…). It has become more ambitious. Tata also claims that it is easier for Indian companies to compete in Western markets than it is for Western ones to adapt to the complicated demands of developing markets. (…) 4.

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