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  3. If sustainable competitive advantage depends on work-force skills, American firms have a problem. Human-resource management is n

If sustainable competitive advantage depends on work-force skills, American firms have a problem. Human-resource management is n

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问题     If sustainable competitive advantage depends on work-force skills, American firms have a problem. Human-resource management is not traditionally seen as central to the competitive survival of the firm in the United States. Skill acquisition is considered an individual responsibility. Labour is simply another factor of production to be hired rented at the lowest possible cost much as one buys raw materials or equipment.
    The lack of importance attached to human-resource management can be seen in the corporate hierarchy. In an American firm the chief financial officer is almost always second in command. The post of head of human-resource management is usually a specialized job, off at the edge of the corporate hierarchy. The executive who holds it is never consulted on major strategic decisions and has no chance to move up to Chief Executive Officer (CEO). By way of contrast, in Japan the head of human-resource management is central  usually the second most important executive, after the CEO, in the firm’s hierarchy.
    While American firms often talk about the vast amounts spent on training their work force, in fact they invest less in the skills of their employees than do either Japanese or German firms. The money they do invest is also more highly concentrated on professional and managerial employees. And the limited investments that are made in training workers are also much more narrowly focused on the specific skills necessary to do the next job rather than on the basic background skills that make it possible to absorb new technologies.
    As a result, problems emerge when new breakthrough technologies arrive. If American workers, for ex ample, take much longer to learn how to operate new flexible manufacturing stations than workers on Germany (as they do), the effective cost of those stations is lower in Germany than it is in the United States. More time is required before equipment is up and running at capacity, and the need for extensive retraining generates costs and creates bottlenecks that limit the speed with which new equipment can be employed. The result is a slower pace of technological change. And in the end the skills of the bottom half of the population affect the wages of the top half. If the bottom half can’t effectively staff the processes that have to be operated, the management and professional jobs that go with these processes will disappear.
According to the passage, the decisive factor in maintaining a firm’s competitive advantage is______.
选项
答案the improvement of workers’ basic skills。
解析 根据题干中关键信息the money American firms put in training mainly goes我们可以把该题定位到么三段的开头两句。第三段中开头即用一个路标词while给我提到：“……美国公司在培训职工技能方面的投资比日本和德国公司都要少。他们所投资的对象的确也仅是更多地集中在专业人员和管理人员身上。用于培训凤工的那部分有限的资金也是更多地用于培训员工做好一份新工作所需的具体技能而不是用于培训员工的基本技能。然而正是这些基本技能使得员工能够吸收掌握
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