单选题 For as long as multinational companies have existed—and some historians trace them back to banking under the Knights Templar in 1135—they have been derided by their critics as greedy rich-world beasts. If there was ever any truth to that accusation, it is fast disappearing. While globalisation has opened new markets to rich-world companies, it has also given birth to a pack of fast-moving, sharp-toothed new multinationals that is emerging from the poor world.
The newcomers have some big advantages over the old firms. They are not restricted by the accumulated legacies of their rivals. Infosys, an Indian IT-service company, rightly sees itself as more energetic than IBM, because when it makes a decision it does not have to weigh the opinions of thousands of highly paid careerists in Armonk, New York. That, in turn, can make a difference in the competition for talent. Western multinationals often find that the best local people leave for a local rival as soon as they have been trained, because the prospects of rising to the top can seem better at the local firm.
But the newcomers" advantages are not overwhelming. Take the difference in company ethics, for instance, which worries plenty of rich-world managers. They fear that they will engage in a race to the bottom with rivals unencumbered by the fine feelings of shareholders and domestic customers, and so are bound to lose. Yet the evidence is that companies harmonise up, not down. In developing countries multinationals tend to spread better working practices and environmental conditions; but when emerging-country multinationals operate in rich countries they tend to adopt local mores. So as those companies globalise, the differences are likely to narrow.
Nor is cost as big an advantage to emerging-country multinationals as it might seem. They compete against the old guard on value for money, which depends on both price and quality. A firm like Tata Steel, from low-cost India, would never have bought expensive, Anglo-Dutch Corus were it not for its expertise in making fancy steel.
This points to an enduring source of advantage for the wealthy companies under attack. A world that is not governed by cost alone suits them, because they already possess a formidable array of skills, such as managing relations with customers, polishing brands, building up know-how and fostering innovation.
Nobody said that coping with a new brood of competitors was going to be easy. Some of today"s established multinational companies will not be up to the task. But others will emerge from the encounter stronger than ever. And consumers, wherever they are, will gain from the contest.

单选题 What do we learn from the second sentence of the first paragraph?

单选题 One of the advantages the new multinationals over the old is ______

单选题 Unlike the new multinationals, the established multinationals ______

单选题 It is implied in the passage that one disadvantage with Western multinationals is their ______

单选题 Which of the following questions is the passage written to answer?