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Text 1 If sustainable competitive advantage depends on workforce skills, American firms have a problem. Human resource management is not traditionally seen as central to the competitive survival of the firm in the United States. Skill acquisition is considered an individual responsibility. The lack of important attached to human resource management can be seen in the corporate hierarchy(社团中的等级制度). In an American firm the chief financial officer is almost always second in command. The post of the head of human resource management is usually a specialized job, off at the edge of the corporate hierarchy. The executive who holds it is never consulted on major strategic decisions and has no chance to move up to Chief Executive Officer. While American firms often talk about the vast amounts spent on training their work forces, in fact they invest less in the skills of their employees than do either Japanese or German firms. The money they do invest is also more highly concentrated on professional and managerial employees. And the limited investments that are made in training workers are also much more narrowly focused on the specific skills necessary to do the next job rather than on the basic background skills that make it possible to absorb new technologies. As a result, problems emerge when new breakthrough technologies arrive. If American workers, for example, take much longer to learn how to operate new flexible manufacturing stations than workers in Germany(as they do), the effective cost of those stations is lower in Germany than it is in the United States. 1. Which of the following applies to the management of human resources in American companies? A. They hire people at the lowest cost regardless of their skills. B. They see the gaining of skills as their employees’ own business. C. They attach more importance to workers than to equipment. D. They only hired skilled workers because of keen competition. 2. What is the position of the head of human resource managem