...Chapter 1 What is Business? 1. Differentiate the three meanings of business as commerce, occupation and organization and identify the four main kinds of productive resources. 2. Understand the forces of supply and demand determine fair or market price. 3. Appreciate how a company’s business model is the source of its competitive advantage and the difference between profit and profitability 4. Recognize the way specialization and the division of labor through the “invisible had of the market” lead to increasing profit and wealth. 5. List the reasons why business organizations are created to structure business exchanges and facilitate business commerce. Definitions of Business Business has three dimensions of a meaning A commerce An occupation An organization * Business as a commerce is the process that people produce, exchange and trade goods and services * Business as an occupation is the acquired set of specialized skills and abilities that allows people to create valuable goods and services * Business as an organization is the system of task and authority relationship that coordinates and controls the interactions between people so that they work toward a common goal * Business as a system is a combination of business commerce, occupations, and organizations that produces and distributes the goods and services that create value for people in a society Factors of Production * Regardless of meaning there are four crucial ingredients...
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...What is Business “What is business?” This question has been asked by many different people all over the world. According to Dictionary.com, business is, “an occupation, profession, or trade”. Another definition would be, “a person, partnership or corporation engaged in commerce, manufacturing or a service; profit-seeking enterprise or concern.” Based on those broad definitions we can surmise a single idea about business. Business is a way to advance an individual or group concern. One concern that is always on a business’s agenda is making a profit. This helps to show that the efforts of the business have been positive. Since money is a median of exchange, when the business receives money for the service it provides it is able to take that money and use it to trade for other items the business needs. Once those needs are met with the money anything that is left over can be used as the business sees fit. That is why businesses always want to make a profit so that the extra money earned can be used at their discretion. The issue that sometimes comes along with this concept is one of ethics and moral consequences, but we will leave those concepts to the philosophers. The main concept to understand that businesses basic form of measuring success is how much profit it brings in. In businesses throughout the ages have always relied on business systems or tools to help advance the goals of the business. In ancient times a common business system or tool would have been...
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...What Is Business Ethics? Our textbook states that business ethics comprises the principles, values, and standards that guide behavior in the world of business. Being ethical in business is nothing new and has been around a long time. Business ethics are both good and bad. Unfortunately we hear more about the unethical business behavior than we do about the good behavior of the business world. Unethical business practices have been around since slavery and continue today in the corporate world with firms such as Enron and Lehman Brothers. As a baby boomer and a part of the work force since 1967, I have seen a lot of changes in the corporate world of business ethics. After reading our text, it seems to me that teaching business ethics to the corporate world is the same as what most of our parents taught us growing up, “do the right thing”. They taught us the difference between right and wrong and the golden rule to do unto others as you would have them do unto you. Ethical issues have been around since the beginning of time and the majority of those issues were social and moral issues. As the times and cultures changed so did the social and moral issues but they are still either right or wrong and given different names. Gone are the days when a business deal was decided by a handshake and a promise. In today’s society a handshake is only a formality to introduce two people who may make a decision to choose unethical practices to be sure that the bottom line is met in a business...
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...What is business ethics Name MGT/216 Professor Name University of Phoenix August 21, 2010 What is business ethics? Business ethics often measured good standards, by his or her business conduct and professionalism. It is imperative that leaders and management of businesses uphold the business to its highest degree of ethics, also in his or her personal lives. The motive for this is essential, business can influence social and to consumers confidence. If a business is constantly showing unprofessional ethical behaviors, the business communities will consider them not trustworthy. To build business cliental it is vital to maintain a high sense of business ethics. According to the UFCW, 2010 working’s union said the public think the merchandise Wal-Mart sales are made right here in the United States, most of Wal-Mart department store private label clothing were manufactured in countries worldwide (UFCW, 2010). Wal-Mart is one of the major importers of overseas merchandise according the to UFCWs website. This is an ethical decision because the sweatshops pay is little to nothing, when being compared to the United States. Wal-Mart is as slave masters, put workers in a small room, put material before them, and tell them to work, these overseas countries work at a poverty wage, this is measured as an ethical decision since these sweat shops usually pay workers at very low hourly rate compared to American workers. When businesses outsource their...
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...The purpose of business is to provide people with a product or service and we all understand that businesses have those to whom it is responsible, whether it is the stock/shareholder or the consumer. Providing a service or making something is very black or white in the area of product or service responsibilities, where it becomes grey is in the area of social responsibility. Who would have ever dreamed that the same Ford Motor Company that destroyed thousands upon thousands of acres of rain forest in the in the jungles of South America in the early Nineteenth Century in search of an abundance of rubber would today be a champion of eco-fuels and rain forest preservation? Businesses are perceptive and have the fundamental understanding that in order to survive in today’s hypersensitive, politically correct society, they must be perceived as guardians of “what’s in” rather than concentrating on their bottom line because in many instances, that perception ends up affecting their bottom line. God created the universe and all that’s in it for us to enjoy and utilize. In Genesis, we learn that after the fall and the realization of our nakedness that Adam and Eve utilized animal skins in order to cover their bodies due to shame. They actually had to do some “dirty work” in order to make the skins into clothing. This alone tells us that having dominion over the animals and the things of the earth means we are to utilize them as needed but at the same time to be good stewards. It...
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...Business Strategies 14.1 Introduction business strategy describes how a particular business intends to succeed in its chosen market place against its competitors. It therefore represents the best attempt that the management can make at defining and securing the future of that business. A business strategy should provide clear answers to the questions: A s s s s What is the scope of the business (or offering) to which this strategy applies? What are the current and future needs of customers and potential customers of this business? What are the distinctive capabilities or unique competence that will give us competitive advantage in meeting these needs now and in the future? What in broad terms needs to be done to secure the future of our business? These questions should have been addressed during the process of strategy formulation. The processes and techniques and processes described in Part III may have contributed to answering them. In this chapter, we are concerned with some of the practical issues that arise when thinking and analysis leads into action and commitment. We are concerned also with what makes the difference between good and indifferent business strategies. We suggest that a good business strategy will meet six tests of quality: s s s s s s It will be correctly scoped. It will be appropriately documented. It will address real customer needs. It will exploit genuine competencies. It will contribute to competitive advantage...
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...Abstract The articles, “What is business ethics?” by Peter Drucker and “The Social Responsibility of Business is to Increase its Profits” by Milton Friedman are about Business ethics and social responsibility to society at large. While both authors agree that we should have ethics in the business world, they argue that society holds corporations and ordinary individuals to different set of standards. Keywords: Social Responsibilities and Business Ethics In order to exam the assigned articles, it was important to understand the true definition of what is meant by social responsibility and business ethics to better understand whether Drucker and Friedman fully exploited ethics as we understand it in the business world today. Equally important was to examine the backgrounds of Milton Friedman and Peter Drucker. According to Wikipedia, Social responsibility is defined as an ethical ideology or theory that an entity, be it an organization or individual, has an obligation to act to benefit the society at large. According to Wikipedia, Business ethics (also known as corporate ethics) is defined as a form of applied ethics or professional ethics that examines ethical principles and moral or ethical problems that arise in a business environment. It applies to all aspect of business conduct and is relevant to the conduct of individual and business organizations as a whole. Based on Woopidoo “Milton Friedman (born July 31, 1912), won The Bank of Sweden Prize in Economic Sciences...
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...What is Ethics? Ethics is about values, consistently making decisions to be the best person you can be. Eudemonia is a type of happiness, one that only comes from an active well-being by living virtuously. The career of a CAs(SA) involves a great amount of acquired skills, but also the capacity for others to instill their trust. Trust is a value only placed in people of strong moral principle and integrity. The motto of SAICA is “Integritas” meaning ‘totality’,’ integrity’ and for accountants and auditors integrity is without a doubt a non-negotiable ethical value. It is possible for ethics and values to be non-negotiable. The IFRS has been adopted in over 100 countries, although the same cannot be said for ethics. Even though different countries and businesses around the world are creating and adopting their own ‘Code of Conduct for Ethical Behaviour’, there is no organisation to enforce a Globe Code with international ethical standards to guard public and corporate interest. Without a set of ethical codes, a company cannot presume that other organizations around the world act under the same array of ethical standards and codes as they do, and it could ultimately lead to the diminished merit of financial statements that are prepared using the IFRS. Often people are inclined to go down a road that challenges their ethical values because it appears to be less confrontational, easier than the alternative and more beneficial. People fail to think for the long term, past...
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...Summary Ch.3 An Introduction to Law and Legal Institutions Every country needs a set of rules that should be forced on people to regulate their behavior. This is what LAW is. Back in the years, in medieval Europe, the king had the power to initiate any law, what happened is that the king would choose a set of social norms ( laws of nature) and try to enforce some of them. So, over the years, with many of the King’s laws on crimes, property, and so on, the present court and judges take those cases into consideration to try and give a justified sentence to similar cases. In short, if the two parties are disagreeing on what the law is, and a similar dispute has been solved in the past, then the common thing to do is to follow the past precedent. This is called ‘the Common law’. To mention some of the countries that use the common law, they are England, U.S, Canada, Australia, Ireland, and etc. However the issue is different in France, where in the revolutionaries believed that the king where corrupt and worth nothing so they killed him, and thus abolishing the common law in France. Another major law is the ‘Civil Law’, also called the ‘Napoleon Code’. The two laws differ in how the much the Judge is evolved in the sentencing. For example, in the Common Law the judge has no authority to direct any questions to either side of the party in a court room. That will be the lawyer’s job to do and the judge should be neutral. On the other hand, in the Civil Law, the judge...
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...Strategy evaluation is an attempt to look beyond the obvious facts regarding the short-term health of a business and appraise instead those more fundamental factors and trends that govern success in the chosen field of endeavor. Strategy can also be defined as a set of objectives, policies and plans that, taken together, define the scope of the enterprise and its approach to survival and success. Alternatively, we could say that the particular policies, plans, and objectives of a business express its strategy for coping with a complex competitive environment. A good business strategy can be broadly categorized into functions like consistency, consonance, advantage, and feasibility. A strategy that fails to meet one or more of these criteria is strongly in suspect. It fails to perform at least one of the key functions that are necessary for the survival of the business. Inconsistency in business is not simply a flaw in logic. A key function of strategy is to provide coherence to organizational action. A clear and explicit concept of strategy can foster a climate of tacit coordination that is more efficient than most administrative mechanisms. Organizational conflict and interdepartmental bickering are often symptoms of managerial disorder, but may also indicate problems of strategic inconsistency. It is no exaggeration that to say that competitive strategy is the art of creating or exploiting those advantages that are most telling, enduring, most difficult to duplicate. Competitive...
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...What is the purpose of business? Discuss. INTRODUCTION 1 At a dinner party a doctor, a lawyer and a businessman are sitting around the table chatting and talking about their life and work. At one point another man approaches the table and asks the three men what the purpose of their jobs is. The doctor immediately responds that he wants to help people and save life. The lawyer takes over and says he fights for justice and equality but when it comes to the businessman to answer the question - he remains silent. Would a normal businessman have been able to give readily a precise answer as to the purpose of business? Would he have said is it all about money and making profit? Or would he have answered like Peter Drucker that the customer should have the highest priority in business life and everything should be done to satisfy him1. Or would he have responded like Dave Packard once said: “I think many people assume, wrongly, that a company exists simply to make money. While this is an important result of a company’s existence, we have to go deeper and find the real reasons for our being...” 2 These quotes describe very well the difficulty in answering the question what the purpose of business is and the need for detailed analysis. As everybody is affected and surrounded by business every day, and since one can hardly imagine a world without business, it is crucial to know its purpose. Therefore it is the objective of this paper to examine in greater detail the nature and purpose...
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...What is the definition of business communication? Business Communication: communication used to promote a product, service, or organization. Business communication is nothing but, the communication between the people in the organization for the purpose of carrying out the business activities. It may be oral, verbal, written. Why Is Communication Important in a Business? Good communication matters because business organizations are made up of people. As Robert Kent, former dean of Harvard Business School has said, In business, communication is everything. Communication is important in a business because it conveys messages from one person to another or from one department to another. It also contributes to employee commitment and job satisfaction. Businesses with effective communication between employees have high job satisfaction among employees. Good communication improves management/employee relations and relations between the business and the customers. Communication is important in business because it enables the management and the employees to exchange and share information effectively. It also enables the owners of the business to find out whether they are making loss or profit. Grapevine communication A grapevine communication is a form of informal communication by which people communicates each other without any formal line of communication. It’s called Grapevine because like that of a grape vine it’s impossible to find the origin of information which...
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...In this task I will be talking about what is included in a business plan, things such as the finance, location, market research, human resource policy and much more. Budget This is the amount of money that can be spent on expenditure over a set period of time. For my business I will set a budget for the first six months as I need to keep an eye on how much money is going out, too much outgoing can lead to the business going in debt. Having a budget for a set period of time will help me control my expenditure and will ensure me not over spending. Therefore it is vital to keep a budget. I would also be losing out on a lot of money if I spent without having taken note of how much cash I am spending. Having a budget is a good way of helping me save money because I could then spend the money I saved on something which is useful for the business such as equipment or material for manufacturing the sock. This would avoid me from spending the money on things which are not really needed for the business. Wages for employees (£6.10 an hour, 6hours in total, 6days a week): £219.60 a week The other types of cost are called fixed costs. This is where the cost of the business paying something to someone does not vary or change. It stays the same. An example of this could be the staff’s wage. When a business pays their staff, the cost does not change. It stays the same throughout the cash flow forecast. Below is the fixed cost for my business. Opening Balance: £4000 Total Expenses...
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...Anyone can decide to start a business but there is much more to the process than just coming up with the initial capital. There are three main points to starting a business. The first one is to decide whether if it is in the best interest of the aspiring entrepreneur to start the business. The second is to choose every detail of how this business is going to run. The third is to find ways to maintain and improve the business efficiently. There is no shortcut to a successful business, but with this list of guidelines and lots of hard work anyone can be headed in the right direction. What is an entrepreneur and how does a person become one? According to Vincent Ryan in his article, “Anatomy of an Entrepreneur,” an entrepreneur is “one who organizes, manages and assumes the risks of a business or enterprise” (36-44). That is exactly what starting a business is, a risk. To avoid this risk, the first thing to think of when starting a business is whether it is in the best interest to run this business. Barbara Weltman said in her book, The Complete Idiot’s Guide to Starting a Home-Based Business, when choosing a business there is nothing better than to “turn a passion into a product or service.” From there she claimed one should play to their strengths and weaknesses to decide what kind of business to run (17-21). When a business is chosen it is best to know all the ins and outs of that business. According to Mark Warda, knowing the business at hand “might be the most valuable preparation...
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...Rovelle Young Week 6 This course has helped me develop and implement different strategies for conveying information effectively when operating a business. I have a better understanding when it comes to evaluating collaborations in managing operations and analyzing the different role of supply chain operations within an operations strategy. Now I’m able to correspond with my management staff better when they try to implement change. I found this course worthwhile and it helped me develop strategies/concepts that I will apply to my day to day routine. When I think about the different strategies, concept, or theories, two things come to mind. Being a great communicator and staying up to date with the latest technology. Good business managers are usually great communicators. Being able to communicate successfully when your vendors and employees is key. This can be done several different ways. By calling or sending out thank you notes to your clients will strengthen the relationship with your customers. Always take the time to greet everyone in your business. Being a really good listener is also a key. Listening to what your clients and employees are saying makes it easier to know what products and services that they are really looking for. It is very important to adapt to the latest technology. Another attribute of a good business managers is having technical skills. This is allow you to have and use the latest and greatest cutting edge tools that make them better managers. You...
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