Business

Business has a very important role to play in a capitalist economy. It is business activity that generates most of a nation's wealth, creates the lion's share of jobs, and provides most of the...

In business, regionalization is a business strategy frequently employed by globalized companies to compensate for some of the problems raised by globalization. Globalization means the...

A company profile is just what the name implies. It is a document explaining what your company is and what you do. It is a public-facing document, so one should take care to not include any...

A positioning map should not be confused with a perceptual map. The first is the actual positioning of a brand within a competitive marketplace, while the second is the consumer perception of a...

Proponents of privatization argue that it facilitates economic growth and should be prioritized by governments. However, detractors maintain that little has been done to mitigate the negative...

The political environment of business refers to the political or government actions that impact business operations. The political factors usually go hand in hand with the legal ones and are...

There are a number of advantages and limitations to using graphs and charts. To start with the advantages, graphs and charts enable data to be summed up and understood in an instant, without...

One advantage is that Nike is an internationally known brand and can thus sell shoes all over the world. Nike also can keep labor costs down by using laborers in the developing world—this allows...

The average cost curve is u-shaped because costs reduce as you increase the output, up to a certain optimal point. From there, the costs begin rising as you increase the output. To understand why...

In its most basic terms, the Dunlop Systems Theory in Industrial Relations is about the structure and development of relationships among the three integral members of labor relations (labor,...

Entrepreneurship involves the development of a business around an innovative idea, with the aim of regional or international growth. The entrepreneur in this case will need to find avenues to...

Environmental uncertainty is when conditions are constantly changing within a business environment. As a result, management has little influence over factors that are outside of the company’s...

When establishing a product mix, a business must decide where it places itself in terms of its target market. Does it want to compete to be the best-priced product, or the most luxurious, for...

Economic decisions are those decisions in which people (or families or countries) have to choose what to do in a condition of scarcity. Scarcity occurs because people have unlimited wants but only...

We'll begin with two scenarios to illustrate price elasticity of demand. First, there is a particular movie you want to buy on DVD, but the price is rather high when the movie is first released, so...

True. The trial balance uses the double entry system, which means that debits have to balance with the credits. False. Liability accounts have credit balances. True. True. False. The trial balance...

A free market economy has two key advantages. First, it allows for individuals to innovate. Individuals have the freedom to create new ideas, new products, and new services to sell for profit. They...

Supply and demand go hand in hand and are very intrinsically linked. Usually, assuming everything else remains the same, a rise in one causes a rise in the other. If, however, they both rise at the...

A monopoly is an economic market structure in which a single individual or a corporation is the only seller of unique goods and services; the seller has no other competitors and enjoys the...

A capitalist democracy system denotes a system based on economic incentives and free markets to boost businesses. It also supports a social system based on diversity with regards to views,...

In an ideal world, there’s clear differences between business administration and public administration. The former’s main concern is the business itself. When it comes to business administration,...

There are five dimensions of the business environment that influence many firms. These dimensions include the economic environment, the social environment, the political environment, the legal...

The best way to think of the difference between travel and tourism is one is part of the other but this did does not mean that they are the same. In short, tourism is a part of travel, but not all...

The fishbone diagram was designed by Japanese quality control expert Kaoru Ishikawa. His purpose was to provide a means of identifying underlying causes of problems so that solutions were not...

In business, authority and responsibility need to be aligned appropriately, with the person responsible for certain outcomes having the authority to make them happen. Authority refers to the...

Behavior, output and input controls are managerial means of controlling job requirements and expectations and end results in terms of company objectives and production targets. Effectiveness of...

Major branded hotel chains have the choice of standardizing their offerings across the brand or of letting individual properties customize their offerings to meet the needs of local markets. The...

Someone with good listening habits pays full attention to the speaker and asks follow-up questions to indicate that she is listening. In addition, the listener does not interrupt and resists the...

The difference between a method and a procedure is similar to the difference between strategy and tactics, in that the two are often confused, and understandably so. Perhaps the easiest way to...

A business entrepreneur is any individual who starts and operates a business while assuming the risks associated with any such venture (e.g., using one's own collateral in exchange for start-up...

The very word "organization" emphasizes the importance of planning, since without planning, there is no way to be organized. In the short-term, planning covers such basic matters as cashflow,...

The four steps in the control process are: Establishing Standards and Methods for Measuring Performance; Measuring the Performance; Determination of Whether the Performance Matches the Standard,...

Kappa Omicron Nu, a collegiate honors society, describes professionalism as the feeling of support an individual has for their chosen profession or an individual’s ability to positively represent...

A project is defined as a temporary activity aimed at achieving specific/narrow organization objectives. Programs, on the other hand, are organization activities aimed at achieving broader...

The marketing concept asserts that businesses are required to focus on the consumers' needs and wants so they can offer products or services that will satisfy these needs better than the...

There is a difference between opened and closed environments in a management information system. In an open environment, the various components of an organization will communicate and share...

The terms listed are payment terms. Payment terms are defined as the time period within which a firm expects payment for goods or services rendered. The terms listed above are defined as: 1/15,...

The similarities between oligopoly and monopoly competition are: They both exhibit imperfect competition in that oligopoly has few sellers while monopoly has many sellers. Firms have some level of...

We study "ethics" because society cannot function without a series of commonly-accepted moral codes that define boundaries of acceptable behavior. We also study ethics because there is not always a...

Trade refers to the buying and selling of goods and services, facilitated by a medium of exchange, such as money. When goods and services are exchanged for other goods and services, without the use...

Americans call a "pay-in slip" a "deposit slip." This is a preprinted form which is the size of a standard check and typically comes in the back of the checkbook. It has the customer's name and...

Distinctive competence refers to the core skills and practices that increase the competitiveness of an organization and make it different from its competitors. An organization's competitors cannot...

The contribution sales ratio is the contribution to the income of the company that each sale of a product has. Essentially, it is a factor or percentage that determines how much money the company...

A factor of production is any item used in the production of other goods and services. Machinery used in the manufacturing process is capital. You require capital to establish a business. Most...

A capitalist democracy is a combination of a capitalist economic system and a democratic political system. Thus, advantages and disadvantages of the hybrid system can be derived from the two...

Direct materials are those that are used directly in the production process and are reflected in the final product. For example, timber would be a direct material in the production of furniture. In...

The main factors affecting tourism demand include the economy, the number of sights and sites of potential interest to tourists, such as historical locations or natural wonders that cannot be seen...

The Economic cost is the monetary value of all resources employed in the course of business. It also refers to the opportunity cost of the inputs used in the enterprise. For example, a business...

Though the phrases are very similar in their external appearance, they hold different meanings. A change in quantity supplied is a simple phrase meaning the number of items you ordered has...

A free market, or market, economy is one which allows the market to do as it pleases and essentially lets the science of economics dictate how business perform. A market economy was much more...