But taken too far, attempting to keep up with or beat competitors brings about detrimental results for a company. In some cases, companies compromise product quality by switching to inferior, less expensive materials in order to keep prices competitive. Other times, plant managers ignore important employee-safety measures just to save money. And companies are even known to trade off consumer safety in the interest of competition. Perhaps the paradigmatic case involved the Ford Pinto, where Ford management rejected an inexpensive retrofit that would have saved hundreds of lives in rear-end collisions, solely in order to shave a few dollars off the cars sticker price , thereby enhancing the cars competitiveness.
Competition can even bring about large-scale social change that some consider undesirable. For instance, the emergence of large, efficient factory farms has resulted in the virtual disappearance of family farming in the U.S. And it isnt clear that the factory farms always improve farming practices, in the case of the tomato, the old homegrown kind are far superior in taste and texture to the tough, underripe version that has been genetically engineered for machine picking in huge quantity.
In conclusion, competition frequently motivates changes that are beneficial in many ways. But competition is a double-edged sword that can also result in inferior or unsafe products and dangerous working conditions for employees. Moreover, large competitors can swallow up smaller concerns without yielding noticeably better products or practices.
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