Corporate Culture

It refers to "the values, beliefs and tradition in a company which influence the behavior of its staff. It is important for job-seekers to know about the culture of an organization before accepting the job." Benchmark (Whitby, 2006).
Corporate culture deals with the relationship between staff & management, between colleagues, company traditions, dress code and how an office space is organized. It also refers to the working environment provided.
Think about the following points and give your opinion .
Do you think a company has to

• offer flexible hours.
• give employees their own work space ie a suitable infrastructure.
• provide internet access for their employees.
• offer training to its employees.
• have a workforce with different types of people.
• have rules about what its employees can wear.

Do you know to collocate a word i.e to group a word with another? Try to match a suitable word on the left column with that on the right, to get collocations of words.

1. pay                   a proposal

2. create               a meeting

3. pool                 our ideas

4. put forward      a solution

5. hold                 attention

6. reach               an opportunity

7. come up with   your full potential

8. challenging       atmosphere

9. rewarding        work

10. close             resource

11. friendly         partnership

12. competitive   contact

13. valuable        price.

Complete the above tasks within two days (from the day you access).

Revathi

                                                                                             

Knowing an organizational structure is the first step in learning business vocabulary. Moreover, when you take up a job in an organization, you need to know the organizational structure for various reasons:
1. To know how the company functions.
2. To find out to whom you need to report whenever you indulge in business transactions.
3. To see who are the board of directors of the company.
To know more about it read the following definition given by BusinessDictionary.com (nd)

organizational structure

Definition

The framework, typically hierarchical, within which an organization arranges its lines of authority and communications, and allocates rights and duties. Organizational structure determines the manner and extent to which roles, power, and responsibilities are delegated, controlled, and coordinated, and how information flows between levels of management.
An structure depends entirely on the organization's objectives and the strategy chosen to achieve them. In a centralized structure, the decision making power is concentrated in the top layer of the management and tight control is exercised over departments and divisions. In a decentralized structure, the decision making power is distributed and the departments and divisions have varying degrees of autonomy. An organizational chart illustrates the organizational structure.

View the chart below to understand the basic structure

 1.structure of an organization:

 2. Structure followed within an Office.

Hope you have understood the organizational structure. In the next postings you will learn more about this in detail clearly.

Introduction to Business Vocabulary

Task 1:

Objectives:

• To provide a few web links in Twiiter, to students.
• To expose students to business vocabulary.
• To train them in few tasks that would develop their knowledge of business vocabulary.

A list of words relating to marketing is given below. Find out the meaning of these words from www.BusinessDictionary.com . The link has been provided in your teacher’s twitter.

AGENT

BENCHMARKING

BUYER

CHAIN

CUSTOMER

DIRECT

DISCOUNT

FRANCHISE

INVESTMENT

MARKET LEADER 

RETAIL

STORE

VIRAL MARKETING

Please complete this task within a week and post your response in your blog.

Revathi viswanathan

Introduction to Social Networking Module

Social Networking to Enhance Language Learning

Overall Objectives:

The module is prepared

• To train students in all the four skills of English.
• To expose them to the use of social networking sites such as Facebook , Blog and Twitter.
• To promote learning through social networking sites.
• To train them for BEC preliminary exams.
• To prepare students for facing the corporate world.
• To expose them to various organizational structures.
• To promote business vocabulary among students.
• To provide inputs on softskills.

Dear students,

Having created an account in Twitter.com, follow the steps to create an account in the Twitter blog and facebook. You will get inputs in facebook and twitter. The tasks would be given in the blog.

1.      Creating a Blog

If you have a gmail account it is easy to create a Blog.

You need to follow three steps to create it.

1. Click on Twitter Blog and provide a name for your Blog.
2. Create a URL, which would help you to post messages.
3. Choose a template to your blog.

Once you create the Blog, please give your URL to the teacher.

2. Creating an account in Facebook

This account could be created with the help of either yahoo or gmail account.

1. Sign up in facebook and give a username and password.
2. Make a note of it to access it every time.

Things to remember till the completion of this study:

1. Follow the instruction given by the teacher.
2. Stick to the time to complete the task given to you.
3. Access your Twitter account to see my postings.
4. Access the link ‘webbased lesson via twitter’ to access the tasks.
5. Complete the tasks on your Blog.
6. Inform the teacher about your posting.
7. Give your feedback to the teacher about the difficulty level of the task.

T

on Leadership

What leadership qualities do managers exhibit?
Efficient Managers

• appreciate the work done by employees.
• solve a problem and not blame staff.
• communicate what they want and not order.
• lead by example.
• function effectively in taking care of official jobs.
• set goals to achieve.
• train staff for efficient working pattern.
• practice what they preach.
• maintain individuality.

Watch the following video to learn about leadership. Make a note of the points mentioned in this interview about leadership. Remember, you will have to apply the points you learn in real life. Complete this note-taking task with a day or two.

Revathi.

Decision Making

Do you take decisions with confidence? It is very essential to take important decisions in our daily life and also at work place.
Access the following link and do the online self-assessment questionnaire. Don't worry about the score you get! The aim of giving this activity is to make you think about your capacity to take decisions. Read the article given in this web site, apart from doing the task.
http://www.mindtools.com/pages/article/newTED_79.htm
Once you complete, write down your points and score in your blog. A video is given below, in which the speaker talks about how business networks help him to take decisions. Just watch the video and write what you have learnt out of the video.

How Business Networks Improve Decision Making

Introducing oneself

Hi,
Will you please introduce yourself for others to know about you? Please post the information within a day or two from the day you receive.
Revathi