Communicative Focus. Task 9. Hand in the chart descriptions of your organizational written as a home assignment after the last class on Unit 1 to your teacher for checking and

Task 9. Hand in the chart descriptions of your organizational written as a home assignment after the last class on Unit 1 to your teacher for checking and grading.

Your teacher will hand out your versions of organizational structure chart descriptions performed as a home assignment on the next lesson, checked and commented on. After you look through the comments made by the teacher on your own summary, ask him/her questions if you do not quite understand or have doubts about some comments.

 

Task 10. Below you can see four different newspaper headings in publishing and printing industry. Read them and guess what these articles are about. Think of any phrases that might appear in these articles (You have 10 minutes for this task).

A. Publishing Company Owner: ‘It’s fantastic—unbelievable!’

B. New People at Perekhid Publishing House

 

Task 11. Project work. Work in pairs of three or four. Imagine you are working for the Publishing House “Vandenhoeck&Ruprecht” as an intern. Organising excursions for schoolchildren is one of your internship obligations. You are given the following information about the Publishing House for making these excursions:

“Vandenhoeck&Ruprecht” has been an academic publishing house for more than 275 years. V&R offers not only a wide range of scholarly works in various academic disciplines but also specialised publications on teaching instructions and on the professional practice. The Publishing House has the following divisions:

· Production

· Advertising / PR / Schoolbook Marketing

· Distribution / Customer Service

· Logistics / IT

· Financial Management

· Human Resources

You also know that the head of the Publishing House is the Managing Director Carola Müller.

During one of such excursions schoolchildren started to ask you questions about the responsibilities of the Publishing House departments. Answer their question and explain the matter. Discuss your answers in groups. After the group discussion one of the students from each of the groups will be requested to make a short presentation (You have 10 minutes for discussion).

 

Task 12. The company “Conduit” has created the network that engages a cross-section of the web's largest and smallest publishers. It also develops different applications for publishers. Here you can see the milestones of this company. Read them attentively and retell the history of this company. You should also express your opinion as for the company’s activities. Say whether they were successful, well-timed, considered (You have 10 minutes for this task).

 

		“Conduit” is founded and seed-funded by Ronen Shilo, DrorErez and Gaby Bilezyk.
Adoption of the technology expands to publishers from different countries and industries including academic, non-profit, travel, sports and more. During 2006, more than 100 new publishers sign up to use the platform every day, with over 25,000 new users daily and over 5,000,000 active users.
		Conduit forms a strategic product partnership with Google to integrate Google-powered search as part of Conduit's core technology.
Support for desktop apps is added, as well as the ability to subscribe to multiple publishers and aggregate apps from various brands.
		Conduit is granted a United States technology patent for its core technology and recognized as a leader by additional publications and strategic partners.
The Conduit Mobile platform is launched, enabling any publisher to easily create mobile and tablet apps at no cost.
		The Conduit Network expands to comprise 250 million users.

 

(The text is borrowed and modified from http://www.conduit.com/AboutUs/Milestones.aspx: as of 29 December 2011)

Task 13. Present your reports prepared as a home task on such a form of business as Limited Liability Company. Presenters should be asked additional questions by the students and the teacher when their presentations are over (Each group has 5 minutes for their presentation).

 

Task 14. Role play. At home you analysed the problem connected with the number of women in senior managerial positions. Now work in groups of four or five. Make the list of advantages and disadvantages that a larger proportion of women in senior managerial positions will bring to the business in general? You have 7 mines to make your lists and after that present them in front of the class. The team whose list is the biggest and most reasonable wins.

Task 15. Role play. Imagine that you are the owner of a huge world known publishing company and all of you are in the board of directors. Your company has a matrix management system (You have read about it in your Workbook). It also has a lot of subsidiary companies all over the world. So the structure of your company has become increasingly complex. That’s why your Managing Director organises a meeting and invites the company “HumanConcepts” to present Organizational Planning Suite. It is a programme that will help you to visualize matrix reporting relationships. Now watch the presentation of this company and decide whether to buy this programme or not. The cost of it is half a million dollars. After watching video for the first time you have 5 minutes to discuss the matter. After that, watch the video for the second time. Then vote and give the explanation of your choice.