单选题Staffing in a Foreign Subsidiary If you travel to another country, you will be struck at how the whole feel of the place is different. You will therefore not be surprised to learn that in general, the nature of institutions, the structure of commerce and work organization and the behavior of people in the workplace differ from country to country. These national differences form a crucial part of our understanding of the International Human Resource Management(IHRM). The role of Human Resource(HR)manager of a foreign subsidiary is to develop HR practices that are(1)acceptable within the local culture and(2)acceptable to management at the headquarters of the multinational corporation(MNC). However, the balancing of these two requirements is a difficult task. Whether subsidiary HR managers are home, host, or third country nationals, they bring their own " cultural baggage, " which may affect their ability to accommodate cultural differences in the host work force. Employees in a subsidiary may consist of a mixture of home, host, and third country nationals—all with their own distinct cultural backgrounds and preferences. The subsidiary"s HR manager must help all employees adapt to the HR practices operating in the subsidiary, even though these practices may be derived from the cultures very different from their own. The following text will focus on staffing in describing the difficulties faced by subsidiary HR managers in developing an effective HR system. A subsidiary HR manager ought to use a hiring process that fits the local labor market. For example, an MNC may need the services of a local personnel selection agency to identify the sources of skilled employees. Local employment laws must be adhered to, and premium salaries may have to be offered to lure highly qualified individuals away from local firms. In Japan, the collective nature of Japanese society traditionally has made it difficult for foreign companies to hire qualified Japanese employees. These individuals tend to "stay in the family" and work for Japanese, not foreign, employers. Although during the downturn in the Japanese economy during the early 1990s this attitude became less prevalent, it still remains a problem. In some countries, hiring may require using a government-controlled labor bureau. This may be particularly prevalent in hierarchical cultures with high power distance. In Vietnam, for example, local labor bureaus are heavily involved in the hiring process. Sometimes the local bureaus may supply a foreign subsidiary with employees who are not adequately skilled for the job, and it may be difficult for the subsidiary to refuse employment. Important staffing issues may have to be approved by very high government officials. The development of a selection system may be complicated by the fact that selection tests used in the home country of the MNC may be culturally biased and inappropriate elsewhere. For example, many personality tests were developed using Western samples. The personality profiles provided by such tests, and certainly their normative data, would be meaningless in trying to understand the behavior of Japanese or Thai job applicants. Assertive individuals who take initiative and stand out from the crowd may appear well adjusted according to the norms of Western personality tests. However, a Japanese job applicant with a similar score might be a disaster if hired to work in the MNC"s subsidiary in Tokyo because " standing out" as an individual is inconsistent with the more collectivist Japanese culture. Even if the concepts measured by the tests are applicable, there are difficulties in getting many tests adequately translated into the host country language. Issues of race, age and sex discrimination can cause considerable difficulties for the subsidiary HR manager. In Singapore, a fairly hierarchical and masculine culture, it is acceptable and legal to place job advertisements that specifically state the race, age range, and sex of employees being sought. This would blatantly violate American EEO laws. An American working as HR manager in a Singapore subsidiary could experience a considerable moral dilemma in following practices that are in line with local laws and culture but conflict with home country laws and home country organizational culture. There also can be unexpected disadvantages associated with hiring particular types of local employees. For example, in a multicultural society, the use of an employee from one ethnic group in a managerial position may not be acceptable to members of other ethnic groups. In India, the caste system, which historically has played a prominent role in Indian society, could make it inappropriate to hire someone from a lower caste to supervise employees of a higher caste. In some countries(Japan, for example), it may be inappropriate to hire a younger person for a job that has supervisory responsibilities over older employees.

单选题Germany has gold reserves of just under 3, 400 tons, the second-largest reserves in the world after the United States. Much of that is in the safekeeping of central banks outside Germany, especially in the U. S. One would think that with such a valuable stash, worth around 133 billion($170 billion), the German government would want to keep a close eye on its whereabouts. But now a bizarre dispute has broken out between different German institutions over how closely the reserves should be checked. Germany"s federal audit office, the Bundesrechnungshof, which monitors the government"s financial management, is unhappy with how the central bank, the Bundesbank, keeps tabs on its gold. According to media reports, the auditors are dissatisfied with the fact that gold reserves in Frankfurt are more closely monitored than those held abroad. In Germany, spot checks are carried out to make sure that the gold bars are in the right place. But for the German gold that is stored on the Bundesbank"s behalf by the U. S. Federal Reserve in New York, the Bank of England in London and the Banque de France in Paris, the German central bank relies on the assurances of its foreign counterparts, that the gold is where it should be. The three foreign central banks give the Bundesbank annual statements confirming the size of the reserves, but the Germans do not usually carry out physical inspections of the bars. According to German media reports, the Bundesrechnungshof has now recommended in its confidential annual audit of the Bundesbank for 2011 that Germany"s central bank check its foreign gold reserves with yearly spot checks. The Bundesbank has rejected the demand, arguing that central banks do not usually check each others" reserves, and there are no doubts about the integrity and the reputation of these foreign depositories. Germany moved some of its gold reserves abroad during the Cold War to protect them from a possible Soviet attack. Some of the gold was moved back to Frankfurt after the collapse of communism. But the Bundesbank argues that it still makes sense to store some gold in major financial centers so that it can be sold quickly if necessary. Although the Bundesbank does not provide exact details about the distribution, it has revealed that the largest share of Germany"s gold is held in New York, followed by Frankfurt, London and Paris. In times of uncertainty about the future of Europe"s common currency, gold is a hot topic, and some Germans take a dim view of the fact that much of the country"s gold—which theoretically belongs to the people—is held abroad. Some members of parliament have even expressed doubts as to whether the foreign gold reserves really exist. Philipp Missfelder, a member of the conservative Christian Democratic Union(CDU), wanted to see the gold for himself and traveled to New York in person to inspect the holdings, according to the newspaper Frankfurter Rundschau. Peter Gauweiler, a Bundestag member with the Christian Social Union(CSU), is also skeptical about the foreign gold reserves. In recent years he has attempted to gain more information about Germany"s gold through parliamentary questions. Last year, he had an economics professor prepare an expert report on the subject, which concluded that the Bundesbank was not fulfilling its inventory regulations by failing to physically inspect the gold. Gauweiler doubts that the Bundesbank would have immediate access to all its gold if necessary, suggesting that part of the gold may have even been lent out—a claim that the Bundesbank rejects. Some Germans even want to bring the gold reserves back to Germany. An initiative called " Gold Action" is campaigning under the slogan: "Repatriate Our Gold!" Its petition has been signed by prominent industrialist Hans-Olaf Henkel and Frank Schaffler, a parliamentarian with the business-friendly Free Democrats. The initiative alleges that there is an "acute" danger that the German gold could be expropriated as a result of the financial and debt crisis. They argue that the German government could soon be forced to sell gold to cover the costs of the crisis. But the Bundesbank wants to leave the gold where it is. Observers point out that apart from the high cost of transporting the gold back to Frankfurt, the symbolic effect of Germany repatriating its gold reserves might unsettle the nervous financial markets, who could see it as a sign of an impending collapse of the euro.

单选题Sapir-Whorf Hypothesis, also called as Linguistic determinism, has alternatively been referred to as ______.

单选题Here for his envy, will not drive us hence: Here we may reign secure, and in my choice To reign is worth ambition though in Hell; Better to reign in Hell, than serve in Heav" nThe title of the work that contains the following selection is______.

单选题As the process of communication is essentially a process of conveying meaning in a certain context , pragmatics can also be considered as a kind of meaning study.

单选题Yoknapatawpha County is often used as the background in the novels written by______.

单选题The word ______ simply refers to a "unit of explicit sound contrast" : the existence of a minimal pair automatically grants phonemic status to the sounds responsible for the contrasts.

单选题John Dos Passos" trilogy of U.S.A. in the 1930s includes ______(① The 42nd Parallel ②1919 ③District of Columbia ④The Big Money)

单选题The phatic function refers to language function for establishing or maintaining social contact rather than for exchanging information or ideas.(清华2001研)

单选题Professor Johnson's retirement______from next January.

单选题My train arrives in Shenyang at seven o'clock tomorrow. The plane I would like to take from there ______by then.

单选题The Chinese version of Meetic is planning to screen its customers by imposing a relatively high membership charge.

单选题I'd rather that my father______me an ipod as a birthday present. Instead he gave a disc-man.

单选题NASA"s new Mars probe, a $2.5 billion, nuclear-powered rover the size of a small car, is at the Florida launch site being prepared for its nine-month journey to the red planet, with one key issue still unresolved—where to land. The Mars Science Laboratory, nicknamed Curiosity, will delve deeper than any previous science mission to answer the age-old question about whether there is life beyond Earth. The goal of the project is to determine if the region where Curiosity lands has or ever had the fight conditions to support microbial life. Scientists spent years poring over pictures and analyzing chemical data collected by a fleet of robotic spacecraft circling Mars before narrowing down the options to four finalists: Eberswalde Crater, Mawrth Vallis, Holden Crater and Gale Crater. "Each site has things that make it good and things that make it not quite so good," said planetary scientist Matt Golombek. "It"s kind of hard to select because it boils down to which kind of science is important to you, and that"s almost personal." The rover will touch down within a 12.4-by-15.5 mile targeted area. a relatively small patch of real estate for interplanetary travel. Being able to make a precision touchdown hasn"t made things easy for scientists tapped to choose Curiosity"s landing spot. In the past, lots of scientifically interesting sites were eliminated because of concerns the spacecraft wouldn"t be able to make a safe landing. Eberswalde Crater stands out among the four contenders because of a single, stunning geologic feature—a delta, believed to be a buildup of sediment left by flowing water. "If you want a site that probably has the highest chance of preserving organics and biosignatures that might have existed, this is the place," Golombek said. "It"s just a spectacular example where water came and built up a sediment." The attractive Eberswalde site, however; has a serious drawback as well. If its deposits turn out to be nothing more than clay-dusted rocks, the mission would be largely a bust. The next candidate site, Mawrth Vallis, is an open book of Martian history, with exposed valley walls that date back about 3.7 billion years, nearly as old as the planet itself. Its clays, known as phyllosilicates, form in the presence of water, believed to be a necessary ingredient for life. Mawrth"s short-coming is that scientists don"t understand how it formed. Water that once flowed in the valley could have been far too acidic for life to flourish.

单选题The United States Supreme Court has the power to______the decisions of lower courts.

单选题Which is the correct description of the English vowel[i:]?

单选题Which of the following is NOT directly related to the Age of Enlightenment in the 18th century?

单选题If not______with the respect he feels due to him, Jack gets very ill-tempered and grumbles all the time.

单选题The term______mainly refers to those young American expatriate writers caught in the war and cut off from the old values and yet unable to come to terms with the new era after World War I when civilization had gone mad.

单选题A Native to South America B and cultivated there for thousands of years, the peanut C is said to D have introduced to North America by early explorers.