Narcissus in Greek myth met a nasty end, of course. And in recent years, boss-worship has come to be seen as bad for business. In his management besteller, Good to Great, Jim Collins argued that the truly successful bosses were not the self-proclaimed stars who adorn the covers of Forbes and Fortune, but instead self-effacing, thoughtful, monkish sorts who lead by inspiring example.
A statistical answer may be at hand. For the first time, a new study, "It's All About Me", to be presented next week at the annual gathering of the American Academy of Management, offers a systematic, empirical analysis of what effect narcissistic bosses have on the firms they run. The authors, Arijit Chatterjee and Donald Hambriek, of Pennsylvania State University, examined narcissism in the upper echelons of 105 firms in the computer, and software industries.
To do this, they had to solve a practical problem: studies of narcissism have hitherto relied on surveying individuals personally, something for which few chief executives are likely to have time or inclination. So the authors devised an index of narcissism using six publicly available indicators obtainable without the co-operation of the boss. These are: the prominence of the boss's photo in the annual report; his prominence in company press releases; the length of his "Who's Who" entry; the frequency of his use of the first person singular in interviews; and the ratios of his cash and non-cash compensation to those of the firm's second-highest paid executive.
Narcissism naturally drives people to seek positions of power and influence, and because great self-esteem helps your professional advance, say the authors, chief executives will tend on average to be more narcissistic than the general population. How does that affect a firm? Messrs Chatterjee and Hambrick found that highly narcissistic bosses tended to make bigger changes in the use of important resources, such as research and development, or in spending and leverage; they carried out more and bigger mergers and acquisitions; and their results were both more extreme (more big wins or big losses) and more volatile than those of firms run by their humbler peers. For shareholders, that could be good or bad.
The author uses the example of Larry Ellison to show that ______.
A. people conceive of the boss as an all-conquering hero.
B. the chief executive is an essential person in corporation.
C. lots of bosses always show their narcissistic trait.
D. the truly successful bosses are those who love themselves.
查看答案
Which of the following is NOT the feature of the boss's narcissism?
A. The ratios of his cash and non-cash compensation to those of the firm's second-highest paid executive.
B. The kind of people in his "Who's Who" entry.
C. The rate of occurrence of his use of the first person singular in interviews.
D. The conspicuousness of the boss's photo in the annual report.
Geography is the study of the relationship between people and the land. Geographers(地理学家) compare and contrast (51)places on the earth. But they also (52) beyond the individual places and consider the earth as a (53). The word geography comes from two Greek words, ge , the Greek word for "earth" and graphein, (54) "to write". The English word geography means "to describe the earth".(55)geography books focus on a small area like a town or city. Others deal with a state, a region, a nation, or an(56)continent. Many geography books deal with the whole earth. Another (57)to divide the study of (58)is to distinguish between physical geography and cultural geography. The former focuses on the natural world; the(59) starts with human beings and studies how human beings and their environment act (60)each other. But when geography is considered as a single subject, (61)branch can neglect the other.
A geographer might be described (62)one who observes, records, and explains the(63)between places. If places were alike, there would be little need for geographers.
We know, however,(64)no two places are exactly the same. Geography, then is a point of view, a special way of(65)at places.
A. similar
B. various
C. distant
D. famous
Groundbreaking research by two French geophysicists promises to shed some light on the mystery. Using 80 metres of deep sea sediment (沉淀物) core, they have obtained measurements of magnetic-field intensity that span 11 polarity reversals and four million years. The analysis reveals that intensity appears to fluctuate with a clear, well-defined rhythm. Although the strength of the magnetic field varies irregularly during the short tern, there seems to be an inevitable long-term decline preceding each polarity reversal. When the poles flip—a process that takes several hundred thousand years--the magnetic field rapidly regains its strength and the cycle is repeated.
The results have caused a stir among geophysicists. The magnetic field is thought to originate from molten (熔化的) iron in the outer core, 3,000 kilometers beneath the earth's surface. By studying mineral grains found in material ranging from rocks to clay articles, previous researchers have already been able to identify reversals dating back 170 million years, including the most recent switch 730,000 years age. How and why they occur, however, has been widely debated. Several theories link polarity flips to external disasters such as meteor (陨星) impacts. But Peter Olson, a geophysicist at the Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore, says this is unlikely if the French researchers are right. In fact, Olson says intensity that predictably declines from one reversal to the nest contradicts 90 percent of the models currently under study. If the results prove to be valid geophysicists will have a new theory to guide them in their quest to understand the earth's inner physics. It certainly points the direction for future research.
Which of the following titles is most appropriate to the passage?
A. Polarity Reversal :A Fantastic Phenomenon of Nature
B. Measurement of the Earth's Magnetic-Field Intensity
C. Formation of the Two Poles of the Earth
D. A New Approach to the Study of Geophysics
Part A
Directions: Read the following four texts. Answer the questions below each text by choosing A, B, C or D. (40 points)
Internet advertising is booming. The industry has gone from $9.6 billion in revenue in 2001 to $27 billion this year, according to Piper Jaffray, an investment bank. And it is still early days. The internet accounts for only 5% of total spending on advertising, but that figure is expected to reach at least 20% in the next few years. The single largest category within this flourishing industry, accounting for nearly half of all spending, is "pay-per-click" advertising, which is used by firms both large and small to promote their wares.
The benefits of the pay-per-click approach over traditional advertising (television, radio, print and billboards) are obvious. Since advertisers pay only to reach the small subset who actually respond to an advertisement, the quality of the leads generated is very high, and advertisers are prepared to pay accordingly. The price: per click varies from $0.10 to as much as $30, depending on the keyword, though the average is around $0.50. Google made most of its $6.1 billion in revenue last year from pay-per-click advertising.
But as pay-per-click advertising has grown into a huge industry, concern has mounted over so-called "click fraud"—bogus clicks that do not come from genuinely interested customers. It takes two main forms. If you click repeatedly on the advertisements on your own website, or get other people or machines to do so on your behalf, you can generate a stream of bogus commissions. Click fraud can also be used by one company against another: clicking on a rival firm's advertisements can saddle it with a huge bill. Bogus clicks are thought to account for around 10% of all click traffic, though nobody knows for sure.
A few months ago Mr. Gross pioneered an alternative to the pay-per-click model. In February, Snap, a search engine backed by Mr. Gross, launched "pay-per-action" (PPA), a new model in which advertisers pay only if a click on an ad is followed by an action such as a purchase or a download.
Might this put an end to click fraud? Don't bet on it, says Mike Zeman at Starcom, an advertising agency. Payper-action will be a niche, he predicts, since converting a click into an action depends on a variety of factors such as the ease of use of the advertiser's website. Google and its peers will be reluctant to be so dependent on factors outside their control. But Mr. Tobaccowala thinks pay-per-action could become a real alternative to pay-per-click. As bigger companies spend more on internet advertising; they will demand more accountability and a wider range of options, he says. At the very least, that means clamping down on click fraud; but it also presents an opportunity for entrepreneurs to invent new models that are less vulnerable to abuse.
The situation of "pay-per-click" advertising can be described as ______.
A. a fresh industry.
B. an efficient tool to attract the consumers.
C. the trend of internet advertising.
D. the good choice for both large and small companies.