清华大学考博英语真题阅读理解精选.pdfVIP

中国考博辅导首选学校 清华大学考博英语真题阅读理解精选 Readin Passage 1 The Cost of Survival Most corporations arent managed for change. By Peter McGrath Inthego-goyears of the late 1990s,no economic theorist looked better than Joseph Schumpeter, the Austrian champion of capitalism who died in 1950. His distinction? A theory he called creative destruction.The ideawas straight-forward:inwiththenew,outwith theold.Companieshad lifecycles,justaspeople do.Theywereborn, they grew up. And when a better competitor came along, they died due to capital starvation. It was the way things were, and the way they should be. The markets had no sentiment. Capitalism was relentless, unforgiving. In their book Creative Destruction (367 pages. Doubleday. $27.50), Richard N. Foster and Sarah Kaplan of the consultin firm McKinsey Co. apply Schumpeters logic in the context of a technology-driven economy. They want their corporate readers to understandtheimplicationsofonebasic idea:thereisaninescapable conflict between the internal needs of a corporation and the total indifference capital markets have for those needs. Managers care desperately about the survival of their companies. Investors dont giveahoot.Thiswas alwaystrue,theauthors say,butuntilrecently nobody really noticed because of the relatively languid pace of 中国考博辅导首选学校 economic change. No more. In the 1920s, when the first Standard Poors indexwas compiled, a listed company had a life expectancy of more than 65 years. In 1998the annual turnoverrate of SP firmswas nearly 10 percent, implyin a corporate lifetime of only 10 years. How does anyone manage in this environment? Foster and Kaplan argue that companies today must embrace discontinuity, the idea that everythin they have always done is now irrelevant. Consider Intel:by itstop executives own accounts, the company had to kill its