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Text 3 Disruption may bc the buzzword in boardrooms, but the most striking feature of business t...
Text 3
Disruption may bc the buzzword in boardrooms, but the most striking feature of business today is not the overturning of the established order. It is the stabilisation of a group of superstar companies at the heart of the global economy. Some are emerging-market champions, like Samsung, which have seized the opportunities provided by globalisation. The elite of the elite are high-tech wizards-Google, Apple, Facebook and the rest-that have conjured up corporate empires from bits and bytes.
The superstars are admirable in many ways. They churn out products that improve consumers' lives, from smarter smartphones to sharper televisions. They provide Americans and Europeans with an estimated $280 billion-worth of "free" services-such as search or directions-a year. But they have two big faults. They are squashing competition, and they are using the darker arts of management to stay ahead. Neither is easy to solve. But failing to do so risks a backlash which will be bad for everyone.
Bulking up is a global trend. The annual number of mergers and acquisitions is more than twice what it was in the 1990s. But concentration is at its most worrying in America. The share of GDP generated by America's 100 biggest companies rose from about 33% in 1994 t0 46% in 2013. In the home of the entrepreneur, the number of startups js lower than it has been at any time since the 1970s. More firms are dying than being bom. Founders dream of selling their firms to one of the giants rather than of building their own titans.
The weight of the superstars also reflects their excellence at less productive activities. About 30% of global foreign direct investment (FDl) flows through tax havens, big companies routinely use "transfer pricing" to pretend that profits generated in one part of the world are in fact made in another. None of this helps the image of big business. Paying tax seems to be unavoidable for individuals but optional for firms. Rules are unbending for citizens, and up for negotiation when it comes to companies. Nor do profits translate into jobs as once they did. In 1990 the top three carmakers in Detroit had a market capitalisation of $36 billion and l.2 million employees. In 2014 the top three firms in Silicon Valley, with a market capitalisation ofover $l trillion, had only 137,000 employees.
So, by all means celebrate the astonishing achievements of today's superstar companies. But also watch them. The world needs a healthy dose of competition to keep today's giants on their toes and to give those in their shadow a chance to grow.
31. According to Paragraph l, today's business world is
Disruption may bc the buzzword in boardrooms, but the most striking feature of business today is not the overturning of the established order. It is the stabilisation of a group of superstar companies at the heart of the global economy. Some are emerging-market champions, like Samsung, which have seized the opportunities provided by globalisation. The elite of the elite are high-tech wizards-Google, Apple, Facebook and the rest-that have conjured up corporate empires from bits and bytes.
The superstars are admirable in many ways. They churn out products that improve consumers' lives, from smarter smartphones to sharper televisions. They provide Americans and Europeans with an estimated $280 billion-worth of "free" services-such as search or directions-a year. But they have two big faults. They are squashing competition, and they are using the darker arts of management to stay ahead. Neither is easy to solve. But failing to do so risks a backlash which will be bad for everyone.
Bulking up is a global trend. The annual number of mergers and acquisitions is more than twice what it was in the 1990s. But concentration is at its most worrying in America. The share of GDP generated by America's 100 biggest companies rose from about 33% in 1994 t0 46% in 2013. In the home of the entrepreneur, the number of startups js lower than it has been at any time since the 1970s. More firms are dying than being bom. Founders dream of selling their firms to one of the giants rather than of building their own titans.
The weight of the superstars also reflects their excellence at less productive activities. About 30% of global foreign direct investment (FDl) flows through tax havens, big companies routinely use "transfer pricing" to pretend that profits generated in one part of the world are in fact made in another. None of this helps the image of big business. Paying tax seems to be unavoidable for individuals but optional for firms. Rules are unbending for citizens, and up for negotiation when it comes to companies. Nor do profits translate into jobs as once they did. In 1990 the top three carmakers in Detroit had a market capitalisation of $36 billion and l.2 million employees. In 2014 the top three firms in Silicon Valley, with a market capitalisation ofover $l trillion, had only 137,000 employees.
So, by all means celebrate the astonishing achievements of today's superstar companies. But also watch them. The world needs a healthy dose of competition to keep today's giants on their toes and to give those in their shadow a chance to grow.
31. According to Paragraph l, today's business world is
参考答案: C
参考解析: 事实细节题。根据定位词定位到第一段。该段中提到当今商业界，由本段第二句superstar companies aI the heart ofthe global economy（超级明星企业稳占全球经济的核心领域）可推断，C项“由超级明星公司主导”为正确选项。【干扰排除】文章开头提到Disruption（破坏），但作者是正话反说，实际上，“如今商业界最突出的特点并非推翻现有秩序，而是一群超级明星企业稳占全球经济的核心领域”，故A项和B项错误；第一段举例“新兴市场的龙头企业，例如三星，它抓住了全球化带来的机遇”，并非被新兴市场分散注意力，故D项错误。
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