...' Academy ol Management Executive, 2002, Vol. 16, No. 4 Four Seasons goes to Paris floger HalloweU, David Bowen, and Carin-Isabel Knoop Europe is different from North America, and Paris is very different. I did not say difficult. I said diffeient. —A senior Four Seasons manager Executive Summary Four Seasons Hotels and Resorts opened its first French property in 1999. This article presents that opening as a case study to illustrate a perspective on how a company with a strong and highly successful organizational culture might approach a new national culture when that cuhure is both distinct and intense, as is the case in France. Managers can henefit from the case by understanding this approach to organizational and national culture, which the authors believe represents a useful framework for global management. The article begins with a discussion of the linkage between corporate cuifure and competitive advantage for service organizafions. It then describes the corporate support structure and the philosophy that Four Seasons developed over two decades to support its international expansion and to manage the type of challenges its French property posed. Finally, it describes how the firm went about transforming that property into one of its crown jewels. The Linkage Between Service Culture and Competitive Advantage The enduring success of service organizations such as Southwest Airlines, The Walt Disney Company, Wal-Mart, and USAA (among others) is frequently ...
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...Growing Up Asian in Australia file:///D|/ /Calibre Library/Wei Zhi/Growing Up Asian in Australia (799)/text/part0000.html[2014-6-18 23:54:32] Growing Up Asian in Australia file:///D|/ /Calibre Library/Wei Zhi/Growing Up Asian in Australia (799)/text/part0000.html[2014-6-18 23:54:32] Growing Up Asian in Australia Growing up Asian in Australia file:///D|/ /Calibre Library/Wei Zhi/Growing Up Asian in Australia (799)/text/part0001.html[2014-6-18 23:54:33] Growing Up Asian in Australia Growing up Asian in Australia ...................................... Alice Pung Edited by file:///D|/ /Calibre Library/Wei Zhi/Growing Up Asian in Australia (799)/text/part0002.html[2014-6-18 23:54:33] Growing Up Asian in Australia Published by Black Inc., an imprint of Schwartz Media Pty Ltd Level 5, 289 Flinders Lane Melbourne Victoria 3000 Australia email: enquiries@blackincbooks.com http://www.blackincbooks.com Introduction and this collection © Alice Pung & Black Inc. Individual works © retained by the authors. Reprinted 2008 . ALL RIGHTS RESERVED. 2008. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form by any means electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise without the prior consent of the publishers. Photo of Hoa Pham by Alister Air. Photo of Joy Hopwood by Yanna Black. The National Library of Australia Cataloguing-in-Publication entry: Pung, Alice (ed.) Growing up...
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...MEG CABOT Pants on Fire One “Oh my God, what’s she doing here?” my best friend, Sidney van der Hoff, was asking, as I came up to the corner booth to hand out menus. Sidney wasn’t talking about me. She was glaring at someone at another table. But I couldn’t be bothered to look and see who Sidney was talking about, since my boyfriend, Seth, was sitting next to her, smiling up at me…that smile that’s been making girls’ insides melt since about the fifth grade, when we all started noticing Seth’s even white teeth and highly kissable lips. It still freaks me out that out of all the girls in school, I’m the one he picked to kiss with those lips. “Hey, babe,” Seth said to me, blinking his long, sexy eyelashes—the ones that I overheard my mom telling Sidney’s mom over the phone are totally wasted on a guy. He snaked an arm around my waist and gave me a squeeze. “Hi,” I said, a little breathlessly. Not just because of the squeeze, but because I had a twelve-top (Mrs. Hogarth’s ninety-seventh birthday party) that was running me ragged, refilling their iced tea glasses and such, so I was panting a little anyway. “How was the movie?” “Lame,” Sidney answered for everyone. “You didn’t miss anything. Lindsay should stick with red; blond does nothing for her. Seriously, though. What’s Morgan Castle doing here?” Sidney used the menu I’d just given her to point at a table over in Shaniqua’s section. “I mean, she’s got some nerve.” I started to say...
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...This page intentionally left blank The Study of Language This best-selling textbook provides an engaging and user-friendly introduction to the study of language. Assuming no prior knowledge of the subject, Yule presents information in short, bite-sized sections, introducing the major concepts in language study – from how children learn language to why men and women speak differently, through all the key elements of language. This fourth edition has been revised and updated with twenty new sections, covering new accounts of language origins, the key properties of language, text messaging, kinship terms and more than twenty new word etymologies. To increase student engagement with the text, Yule has also included more than fifty new tasks, including thirty involving data analysis, enabling students to apply what they have learned. The online study guide offers students further resources when working on the tasks, while encouraging lively and proactive learning. This is the most fundamental and easy-to-use introduction to the study of language. George Yule has taught Linguistics at the Universities of Edinburgh, Hawai’i, Louisiana State and Minnesota. He is the author of a number of books, including Discourse Analysis (with Gillian Brown, 1983) and Pragmatics (1996). “A genuinely introductory linguistics text, well suited for undergraduates who have little prior experience thinking descriptively about language. Yule’s crisp and thought-provoking presentation of key issues works...
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...HARRY POTTER AND THE PRISONER OF AZKABAN BY J.K. ROWLING CHAPTER ONE OWL POST Harry Potter was a highly unusual boy in many ways. For one thing, he hated the summer holidays more than any other time of year. For another, he really wanted to do his homework but was forced to do it in secret, in the dead of night. And he also happened to be a wizard. It was nearly midnight, and he was lying on his stomach in bed, the blankets drawn right over his head like a tent, a flashlight in one hand and a large leather-bound book (A History of Magic by Bathilda Bagshot) propped open against the pillow. Harry moved the tip of his eagle-feather quill down the page, frowning as he looked for something that would help him write his essay, ‘Witch Burning in the Fourteenth Century Was Completely Pointless — discuss.’ The quill paused at the top of a likely looking paragraph. Harry pushed his round glasses up the bridge of his nose, moved his flashlight closer to the book, and read: Non-magic people (more commonly known as Muggles) were particularly afraid of magic in medieval times, but not very good at recognizing it. On the rare occasion that they did catch a real witch or wizard, burning had no effect whatsoever. The witch or wizard would perform a basic Flame-Freezing Charm and then pretend to shriek with pain while enjoying a gentle, tickling sensation. Indeed, Wendelin the Weird enjoyed being burned so much that she allowed herself to be caught no less than forty-seven times in various...
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...Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban By J.K. Rowling CHAPTER ONE Owl Post Harry Potter was a highly unusual boy in many ways. For one thing, he hated the summer holidays more than any other time of year. For another, he really wanted to do his homework but was forced to do it in secret, in the dead of night. And he also happened to be a wizard. It was nearly midnight, and he was lying on his stomach in bed, the blankets drawn right over his head like a tent, a flashlight in one hand and a large leather-bound book (A History of Magic by Bathilda Bagshot) propped open against the pillow. Harry moved the tip of his eagle-feather quill down the page, frowning as he looked for something that would help him write his essay, ‘Witch Burning in the Fourteenth Century Was Completely Pointless — discuss.’ The quill paused at the top of a likely looking paragraph. Harry pushed his round glasses up the bridge of his nose, moved his flashlight closer to the book, and read: Non-magic people (more commonly known as Muggles) were particularly afraid of magic in medieval times, but not very good at recognizing it. On the rare occasion that they did catch a real witch or wizard, burning had no effect whatsoever. The witch or wizard would perform a basic Flame-Freezing Charm and then pretend to shriek with pain while enjoying a gentle, tickling sensation. Indeed, Wendelin the Weird enjoyed being burned so much that she allowed herself to be caught no less than forty-seven times in various...
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...Can You Keep A Secret? Sophie Kinsella Contents Acknowledgements One Two Three Four Five Six Seven Eight Nine Ten Eleven Twelve Thirteen Fourteen Fifteen Sixteen Seventeen Eighteen Nineteen Twenty Twenty-one Twenty-two Twenty-three Twenty-four Ttwenty-five Twenty-six Twenty-seven Acknowledgements A big thank you to Mark Hedley, Jenny Bond, Rosie Andrews and Olivia Heywood for all their generous advice. And hugest gratitude as always to Linda Evans, Patrick Plonkington-Smythe, Araminta Whitley and Celia Hayley, my boys and the board. ONE Of course I have secrets. Of course I do. Everyone has a secret. It's completely normal. I'm sure I don't have any more than anybody else. I'm not talking about big, earth-shattering secrets. Not the-president- is-planning-to-bomb-Japan-and-only-Will-Smith-can-save-the-world type secrets. Just normal, everyday little secrets. Like for example, here are a few random secrets of mine, off the top of my head: 1. My Kate Spade bag is a fake. 2. I love sweet sherry, the least cool drink in the universe. 3. I have no idea what NATO stands for. Or even what it is. 4. I weigh 9 stone 3. Not 8 stone 3, like my boyfriend Connor thinks. (Although in my defence, I was planning to go on a diet when I told him that. And to be fair, it is only one number different.) 5. I've always thought Connor looks a bit like Ken. As in Barbie and Ken. 6. Sometimes, when we're right in the middle of passionate sex, I suddenly want to...
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...onaryDictionary of Ònìchà Igbo 2nd edition of the Igbo dictionary, Kay Williamson, Ethiope Press, 1972. Kay Williamson (†) This version prepared and edited by Roger Blench Roger Blench Mallam Dendo 8, Guest Road Cambridge CB1 2AL United Kingdom Voice/ Fax. 0044-(0)1223-560687 Mobile worldwide (00-44)-(0)7967-696804 E-mail R.Blench@odi.org.uk http://www.rogerblench.info/RBOP.htm To whom all correspondence should be addressed. This printout: November 16, 2006 TABLE OF CONTENTS Abbreviations: ................................................................................................................................................. 2 Editor’s Preface............................................................................................................................................... 1 Editor’s note: The Echeruo (1997) and Igwe (1999) Igbo dictionaries ...................................................... 2 INTRODUCTION........................................................................................................................................... 4 1. Earlier lexicographical work on Igbo........................................................................................................ 4 2. The development of the present work ....................................................................................................... 6 3. Onitsha Igbo ...................................................................................................
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