一、business and businesses商業和公司
a business,company,or firm is an organization that sells goods or services .a business may also be referred to formally as a concern.business is the production,buying,and selling of goods and services.
a business may be referred to approvingly as an enterprise to emphasize its adventurous, risk-taking qualities, and business in general may be referred to in the same way, for example in combinations such as free enterprise and private enterprise.
business is also referred to as commerce. this word, and its related adjective commercial, are often used to distinguish the business sphere from other areas such as government or the arts, or to distinguish it from nonmoney-making activities.
注釋：
business 商業；生意；公司 company 公司；商號
firm (合夥的)商號；商行 concern 康采恩（壟斷企業形式之一）
commerce 商業； 商務 commercial 商業的；商務的；商用的
enterprise 企事業單位 free enterprise 自由企業
private enterprise 私人企業
二、from multinationals to small firms 從跨國公司到小型企業
large companies are referred to as corporations, especially in the united states. corporate is used to describe things relating to a corporation, or to corporations in general, in expressions like the ones in the next exercise. large companies operating in many countries are multinationals.
big business can refer to large business organizations or to any business activity that makes a lot of money. small companies are referred to as small businesses or small firms.
unlike some languages, english does not have an everyday term for small and medium-sized companies, apart from this rather clumsy expression.
注釋：
corporation 大公司；股份有限公司 corporate 法人；團體
multinational 跨國的；多國的 big business 大型企業；大公司
small and medium sized companies中小規模的公司
small business 小公司 small firm 小公司
三、industries and sectors 工業及其部門
businesses may be classified according to which industry they are in: for example construction, oil, banking, food.
sector is sometimes used to mean industry in the same way, particularly by specialists such as financial journalists, but it is more often used to talk about different parts of the economy in combinations such as public sector and private sector, or about types of business in expressions like service sector and manufacturing sector.
注釋：
industry 工業；產業 sector 部門；部分
public sector 公共部門 private sector 私營部門
manufacturing sector 製造部門 service sector 服務部門
四、public sector and private 公共部門和私營部門
when a private company is bought by the state and brought into the public sector, it is nationalized in a process of nationalization. a nationalized company is state-owned. when the state returns a company to the private sector in a sell-off, it is privatized. this is privatization.
the first to be sold off in a privatization program are often the companies responsible for the public supply of electricity, water and gas: the utilities.
注釋：
nationalized 國有化的 nationalization 國有化
privatized 私有化的 privatization 私有化
state-owned 國有的 sell off 廉價出清
utilities 公用事業；公用事業部門
五、stakes 份額；股份
if company a owns shares or equity in company b, a has or holds a stake, holding or shareholding in b. if a owns less than half the shares in b, it has a minority stake in b.
if a owns more than half the shares in b, it has a majority stake or controlling stake in b. if you have shares in a company you are a shareholder.
注釋：
shares/stake 份額；股份 equity 股份；產權；普通股票
holding 持有；股票額 shareholding 持有股票數
shareholder 股東 hold a stake 持有份額
majority stake 大股東（50%以上） controlling stake 大股東
minority stake 小股東
原作者： mba100
商務英語重點辭彙(2)
一、parents and sisters 母公司和姐妹公司
a holding or holding company is one that holds stakes in one or more subsidiaries. if it owns all the shares in a subsidiary, the subsidiary is a wholly-owned one.
a holding company´s relationship to its subsidiaries is that of parent company, and the subsidiaries relationship to each other is that of sister companies. a holding and its subsidiaries form a group.
a conglomerate is a group containing a lot of different companies in different businesses. journalists also refer to large groups as giants.
注釋：
holding company 控股公司 subsidiary 子公司
wholly-owned subsidiary 全資子公司 parent company 母公司
sister company 姐妹公司 group 集團公司
conglomerate 聯合大企業 giant 大企業；企業巨人（新聞用語）
二、predators,raiders,and white knights 掠奪者、搶劫者和善意合作者
the takeover process is often described in terms of one animal hunting another: a company or individual seeking to take over another company may be referred to as a predator, and the target company as the prey. predators are also referred to as raiders or corporate raiders.
a company wishing to resist, ward off, or fend off being taken over has a number of options. it may devise plans that give existing shareholders special rights, or it may make itself less attractive to bidders by selling off a valuable part of the company, or holding on to an unattractive one. actions like these are poison pills.
or it may persuade a friendly partner, a white knight, to take a stake in the company, thus preventing a complete takeover by a hostile bidder. bidders may agree to withdraw their bid if paid enough money for the shares they hold in the target company. this is green mail.
注釋：
predator 掠奪者(惡意吞併其它企業) prey 獵物(被惡意併購的企業)
raider 掠奪者(惡意併購其它企業) corporate raider 合夥掠奪者
fend off a bid 阻止收購 ward off a bid 阻止收購
poison bill毒藥(公司通過給予股東某些特權、或賣掉部分有價值資產，而持有或購進價值不大的資產，從而減少自己對併購公司的吸引力)
white knight
指購買公司部分股份以免遭兼併企業完全兼併的善意和或者。
greenmail 綠函交易
指兼併企業以增加股票價值為條件撤回自己向標的企業投標的交易。
三、leveraged buy-outs and junk bonds 槓桿收購和垃圾債券
in a leveraged buyout, or lbo, a company is acquired by a group of investors, often financed by heavy borrowing. the debt is then paid out of the target company´s operating revenues or by selling its assets.
the borrowing involved in lbos is often high- risk debt called junk bonds.
lbos financed by junk were frequent in the 1980s and after an absence following the excesses of that period, they are now occurring again.
注釋：
leveraged buy-out 槓槓收購 lbo = leveraged buy-out
junk bonds 高風險債券
四、joint ventures and alliances 合資與聯盟
two or more companies may decide to work together by setting up a joint venture or alliance in which each holds a stake.
注釋：
joint venture 合資企業 alliance 企業聯盟
五、mergers 兼併
when two companies combine, usually voluntarily, they merge in a merger.
注釋：
mergers 兼併 merger 兼併
商務英語重點辭彙(3)
一、restructuring 企業重組(1)
a group containing many types of business is diversified. a group´s basic business activity, perhaps the one it originally started with, is its core business. separate business activities may be viewed as profit centers, each responsible for generating profit.
businesses are often encouraged to concentrate or focus on their core activities and to sell off, spin off, or dispose of non-essential assets. these assets are often referred to as non-core assets.
a sale of assets in this way is referred to as a sell-off, spin-off, or disposal. a spin-off can also refer to a business that has been spun off.
注釋：
diversified 多樣化；多角化 core business 核心經營
profit center 利潤中心 focus 集中經營
assets 資產；基金 non-core assets 空心資本
sell off 拋售 spin off 剝離；拆分
dispose of 處理；變賣 disposal 處理；變賣
二、management buy-outs 管理層收購
when a group is restructured, the managers of a business that is to be sold off may want to buy it themselves in a management buy-out or mbo, usually in combination with an organization providing finance in the form of venture capital.
注釋：
management buyout = mbo 管理層收購 venture capital 風險投資
三、entrepreneurs and tycoons 企業家和金融巨頭
an entrepreneur （企業家） is usually someone who builds up a company from nothing: a start-up （新創）company.
entrepreneurs may one day become tycoons（實業界/金融界巨頭）, magnates（產業大王）or moguls（工商巨擘）: rich and successful people with power and influence who head big organizations, usually ones they have built up themselves and in which they have a large personal stake.
四、managers and executives 經理和董事
a manager is someone in a position of responsibility in an organization. an executive（總經理；董事） is usually a manager at quite a high level. executives are also execs, an informal expression. people at the head of an organization are senior executives（高級董事/主管） or senior managers（高層管理者/總經理）, top executives（高層領導者）or top managers（總經理）.
五、ladies and gentlemen of the board 董事會成員
the people legally responsible for a company are its board or board of directors（理事會/董事會）.
in the us,the head of a company may have the title president(總裁/董事長). again, the responsibilities of this post vary from company to company, and the post may be combined with another.
in the us, a senior manager in charge of a function may have the title vice-president（副總裁/副董事長） and may be on the board. one vice president may have responsibility for running the company, or maybe not, as the last example below indicates only too well.
executive directors（執行董事） on a board are high level managers of the company. other directors are non-executive directors（非常務董事）, perhaps bringing their knowledge and experience to several company boards.
商務英語重點辭彙(4)
一、headhunting 獵頭
headhunters（獵頭者） are specialist consultants who search for highlevel, often board-level, executives and try to persuade them to leave their current job in order to go to work in another company. managers found in this way are headhunted in a process of headhunting.
executives may be persuaded to move company by the promise of a golden hello（見面禮）:a large sum of money or some other financial enticement offered by the company they move to.
二、executive pay 主管人員的收入
when talking about executive pay, compensation（薪水）can refer, confusingly, to two different things:
* what top executives get for running a company.
* what they get on leaving a company.
apart from salary, an executive´s compensation package（工資袋）can include:
* bonuses: extra payments, sometimes, but not always, related to the firm´s performance.
* benefits（福利；津貼）and perks（額外津貼）ranging from share options（優先股票權）, the right to buy the company´s shares at an advantageous price, to a chauffeur-driven car.
remuneration（待遇）is also used to talk about executives´ salary and benefits.
三、executive pay-offs 主管人員的遣散費
a compensation package for an executive leaving a company is also known as a golden goodbye（黃金再見）, golden handshake（黃金握別）, or golden parachute（黃金降落）.
compensation for someone leaving a company may be referred to as a compensation payment, compensation payoff, or compensation payout（賠償金）.
these payments may form part of a severance package（解僱金）.
severance payments can be the subject of complex negotiations when an executive leaves, or is ousted（免職）: forced to leave.
when executives are ousted, people may talk about companies giving them the golden boot（給被解職/離職的主管人員的補償金）.
四、numbers people 計算數值的人
business organizations obviously need people who are good with numbers and computers.
people refer, slightly offensively, to accountants and other numerate specialists as bean-counters（數值計算專家/會計） or numbercrunchers（數值計算專家）.
rocket scientists（這裡指由金融機構聘請的專門處理最新的、極為複雜的金融工具的數學及相關學科的高級專門人才） are people with advanced qualifications in mathematics and related subjects recruited by financial institutions to work on new and extremely complex financial products.
五、management and labour 勞資雙方
people working for a company are referred to as its workforce（勞動力）, employees（僱工）, staff（職員）, of personnel（雇員） and are on its payroll（工資發放名冊）.
in some contexts, especially more conservative ones, employees and workforce refer to those working on the shopfloor（車間）of a factory actually making things. similarly, staff is sometimes used to refer only to managers and officebased workers.
this traditional division is also found in the expressions white-collar（白領） and blue-collar（藍領）.
another traditional division is that between management（資方）and labor（勞方）.
商務英語重點辭彙(5)
一、personnel or human resources? 職員還是人力資源
the people working for an organization are, formally, its personnel（職員/人事）. in large organizations, administration of people is done by the personnel department（人事部）, although this expression is now sometimes rejected. companies talk instead about their human resources（人力資源）or hr and human resource management（人力資源管理） or hrm.
二、hiring and firing 僱傭和解僱
personnel departments are usually involved in finding new staff and recruiting（招聘）them, hiring（僱傭)them, or taking them on, in a process of recruitment. someone recruited is a recruit（新進人員）, or in american english only, a hire. they are also involved when people are made to leave the organization, or fired（被解僱）. these responsibilities are referred to, relatively informally, as hiring and firing（僱傭和解僱）. if you leave a job voluntarily, you quit（辭職）.
三、 delayering and downsizing 延緩和精簡編制
middle managers（中程主管）are those in the hierarchy between senior management and front-line managers（基層管理人員） or line managers（生產線管理人員）, the people managing employees.
middle managers are now most often mentioned in the context of re-engineering（流程再造）, delayering（延緩）, downsizing（精簡編制）, or rightsizing: all these expressions describe the recent trend for companies to reduce the numbers of people they employ, often by getting rid of layers of managers from the middle of the hierarchy. an organization that has undergone this process is lean（精幹的）and its hierarchy flat（扁平的）
四、empowerment 授權
organizations say that they are eliminating middle levels of their hierarchies so as to empower（授權）ordinary workers and employees.
this process of empowerment is designed to give them the authority to make decisions that were previously taken by middle managers.
五、getting the sack 解僱
when people lose their jobs, they are dismissed（被開除） or made redundant（被解僱）. when people are laid off（被辭退）like this, commentators talk about the number of dismissals（裁員）or redundancies（勞力過剩）involved.
六、stress 工作壓力
the people left in an organisation after it has been downsized often have more to do. stress is a combination of tension and anxiety often caused by overwork（工作過度）. working too much. people say that they are under stress, stressed, or stressed out when they are overworked. people who have been under so much stress that they are unlikely to recover enough to do their jobs properly again are described as burned out（筋疲力盡）, or in british english only, burnt out.
七、 outplacement 獲任新職（公司為其被解僱員工在另一公司找到工作）
outplacement is when a company helps people it is making redundant find new jobs in other organizations