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217 Cards in this Set
- Front
- Back
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Baby-Boom echo |
A demographic group of Canadians that were born in the period from 1980 to 1995; the children of the baby boomers. |
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Baby Boomers |
A demographic group of Canadians that were born in the period from 1947 to 1966. |
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Business |
Any activity that seeks to provide goods and services to others while operating at a profit |
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Business Environment |
The surrounding factors that either help or hinder the development of businesses. |
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Demography |
The statistical study of the human population with regard to its size, density, and other characteristics such as age, race, gender, and income. |
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E-Business |
Any information system or application that empowers business processes. |
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E-Commerce |
The buying and selling of goods and services over the internet. |
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Empowerment |
Giving front-line workers the responsibility, authority, and freedom to respond quickly to customer requests. |
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Entrepreneur |
A person who risks time and money to start and manage a business |
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Factors of Production |
The resources used to create wealth: land, labour, capital goods, entrepreneurship, and knowledge. |
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Goods |
Tangible products such as computers, food, clothing, cars and appliances. |
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Greening |
The trend toward saving energy and producing products that cause less harm to the environment. |
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Loss |
When a business' expenses are more than its revenues. |
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Profit |
The amount a business earns above and beyond what it spends for salaries and other financial sources. |
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Services |
Intangible products (i.e. products that can't be held in your hand) such as education, health care, insurance, recreation, and travel and tourism. |
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Non-Profit Organization |
An organization whose goals do not include making a personal profit for its owners or organizers. |
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Quality of Life |
The general well-being of a society in terms of its political freedom, natural environment, education, health care, safety, amount of leisure, and rewards that add to the satisfaction and joy that other goods and services provide. |
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Stakeholders |
All the people who stand to gain or lose by the policies and activities of a business. |
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Regulations |
Restrictions that provincial and federal laws place on businesses with respect to the conduct of their activities. |
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Standard of Living |
The amount of goods and services people can buy with the money they have |
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Outsourcing |
Assigning various functions, such as accounting, production, security, maintenance, and legal work to outside organizaitons. |
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Revenue |
The total amount of money that is received during a given period for goods sold, services rendered, and other financial sources |
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Productivity |
The amount of output that is generated given the amount of input. |
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Risk |
Refers to the chance of loss, the degree of probability of loss,and the amount of possible loss (i.e. time and money). |
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Offshoring |
Sourcing part of the purchased inputs outside of the country. |
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Brain Drain |
The loss of educated people to other countries. |
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Business Cycles (Economic Cycles) |
The periodic rises and falls that occur in economies over time. |
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Capitalism |
An economic system in which all or most of the factors of production and distribution are privately owned and operated for profit. |
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Command Economy |
An economy in which the government largely decides what goods and services are produced, who gets them, and how the economy will grow. |
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Communism |
An economic and political system in which the state (the government) makes all economic decisions and owns almost all of the major factors of production. |
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Consumer Price Index (CPI) |
A monthly statistic that measures the pace of inflation or deflation. |
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Deflation |
A situation in which prices are declining. |
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Demand |
The quantity of products that people are willing to buy at different prices at a specific time. |
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Depression |
A severe recession. |
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Disinflation |
A situation in which price increases are slowing (the inflation rate is declining). |
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Economics |
The study of how society chooses to employ resources to produce goods and services and distribute them for consumption among various competing groups and individuals. |
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Free-market economy |
An economy in which the market largely determines what goods and services are produced, who gets them, and how the economy grows. |
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Gross Domestic Product (GDP) |
The total value of goods and services produced in a country in a given year. |
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Inflation |
A general rise in the prices of goods and services over time. |
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Invisible Hand |
A phrase coined by Adam Smith to describe the process that turns self-directed gain into social and economic benefits for all. |
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Macroeconomics |
The part of economic study that looks at the operation of a nation's economy as a whole. |
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Market Price |
The price determined by supply and demand. |
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Microeconomics |
The part of economic study that looks at the behaviour of people and organizations in particular markets. |
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Mixed economies |
Economic systems in which some allocation of resources is made by the market and some by the government. |
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Monopolistic Competition |
The market situation in which a large number of sellers produce products that are very similar but that are perceived by buyers as different. |
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Monopoly |
A market in which there is only one seller for a product or service. |
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Oligopoly |
A form of competition in which just a few sellers dominate the market. |
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Perfect Competition |
The market situation in which there are many sellers in a market and no seller is large enough to dictate the price of a product. |
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Recession |
Two or more consecutive quarters of decline in the GDP. |
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Resource Development |
The study of how to increase resources and the creation of the conditions that will make better use of those resources (e.g. recycling). |
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Socialism |
An economic system based on the premise that some, if not most, basic businesses should be owned by the government so that profits can be evenly distributed among the people. |
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Stagflation |
A situation in which the economy is slowing but prices are going up regardless. |
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Supply |
The quantity of products that manufacturers or owners are willing to sell at different prices at a specific time. |
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Unemployment Rate |
The percentage of labour force that actively seeks work but is unable to find work at a given time. |
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Absolute Advantage |
The advantage that exists when a country has a monopoly on producing a specific product or is able to produce it more efficiently than all other countries. |
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Balance of Payments |
The difference between money coming into a country (from exports) and money leaving the country (for imports) plus money flows from other factors such as tourism, foreign aid, military expenditures, and foreign investment. |
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Balance of Trade |
A nation's ratio of exports to imports. |
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Common Market (Trading Bloc) |
A regional group of countries that have a common external tariff, no internal tariffs, and a coordination of laws to facilitate exchange. |
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Comparative Advantage Theory |
Theory that states that a country should sell to other countries those products that it produces most effectively and efficiently, and buy from other countries those products that it cannot produce as effectively or efficiently. |
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Contract Manufacturing |
A foreign country's production of private-label goods to which a domestic company then attaches its brand name or trademark; also called outsourcing. |
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Countertrading |
A complex form of bartering in which several countries may be involved, each trading goods for goods or services for services. |
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Culture |
The set of values, beliefs, rules and institutions held by a specific group of people. |
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Devaluation |
Lowering the value of a nation's currency relative to other currencies. |
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Dumping |
Selling products in a foreign country at lower prices than those charged in the producing country. |
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Embargo |
A complete ban on the import or export of a certain product or the stopping of all trade with a particular country. |
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Ethnocentricity |
An attitude that one's own culture is superior to all others. |
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Exchange Rate |
The value of one nation's currency relative to the currency of other countries. |
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Exporting |
Selling products to another country. |
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Foreign Direct Investment (FDI) |
The buying of permanent property and businesses in foreign nations. |
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Foreign Subsidiary |
A company owned in a foreign country by the parent company. |
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Free Trade |
The movement of goods and services among nations without political or economic barriers. |
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General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT) |
A 1948 agreement that established an international forum for negotiating mutual reductions in trade restrictions. |
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Import Quota |
A limit on the number of products in certain categories that a nation can import. |
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Importing |
Buying products from another country. |
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International Monetary Fund (IMF) |
An international bank that makes short-term loans to countries experiencing problems with their balance of trade. |
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Joint Venture |
A partnership in which two or more companies (often from different countries) join to undertake a major project. |
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Licensing |
A global strategy in which a firm (the licensor) allows a foreign company (the licensee) to product its product in exchange for a fee (a royalty). |
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Multinational Corporation |
An organization that manufactures and markets products in many different countries and has multinational stock ownership and multinational management. |
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North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) |
Agreement that created a free-trade area among Canada, the United States, and Mexico. |
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Producers' Cartels |
Organizations of commodity-producing countries that are formed to stabilize or increase prices to optimize overall profits in the long run. |
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Strategic Alliance |
The process of determining the major goals of the organization and the policies and strategies for obtaining and using resources to achieve those goals. |
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Tariff |
A tax imposed on imports. |
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Trade Deficit |
An unfavourable balance of trade; occurs when the value of a country's imports exceeds that of its exports. |
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Trade Protectionism |
The use of government regulations to limit the import of goods and services. |
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Trade Surplus |
A favourable balance of trade; occurs when the value of a country's exports exceeds that of its exports. |
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World Bank |
An autonomous United Nations agency that borrows money from the more prosperous countries and lends it to less-developed countries to develop their infrastructure. |
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World Trade Organization (WTO) |
The international organization that replaced the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade, and was assigned the duty to mediate trade disputes among nations. |
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Crown Corporation |
Companies that are owned by the federal or provincial government. |
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Deficit |
Occurs when a government spends over and above the amount it gathers in taxes for a specific period of time (namely, a fiscal year). |
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Deregulation |
Government withdrawal of certain laws and regulations that seem to hinder competition. |
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Equalization |
A federal government program for reducing fiscal disparities among provinces. |
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Federal Budget |
A comprehensive report that reveals government financial policies for the coming year. |
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Fiscal Policy |
The federal government's effort to keep the economy stable by increasing or decreasing taxes or government spending. |
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Industrial Policy |
A comprehensive, coordinated government plan to guide and revitalize the economy. |
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Marketing Boards |
Organizations that control the supply or pricing of certain agricultural products in Canada. |
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Monetary Policy |
The management of the money supply and interest rates. |
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National Debt (Federal Debt) |
The accumulation of government surpluses and deficits over time. |
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National Policy |
Government directive that placed high tariffs on imports from the United States to product Canadian manufacturing, which had higher costs. |
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Privatization |
The process of governments selling Crown Corporations. |
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Surplus |
An excess of revenues over expenditures. |
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Transfer Payments |
Direct payments from governments to other governments or to individuals. |
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Compliance-based Ethics Codes |
Ethical standards that emphasize preventing unlawful behaviour by increasing control and by penalizing wrongdoers. |
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Corporate Philanthropy |
Dimension of social responsibility that includes charitable donations. |
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Corporate Policy |
Dimension of social responsibility that refers to the position a firm takes on social and political issues. |
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Corporate Responsibility |
Dimension of social responsibility that includes everything from hiring minority workers to making safe products. |
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Corporate Social Initiatives |
Dimension of social responsibility that includes enhanced forms of corporate philanthropy that are more directly related to the company's competencies. |
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Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) |
A business's concern for the welfare of society. |
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Ethics |
Standards of moral behaviour; that is, behaviour that is accepted by society as right versus wrong. |
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Insider Trading |
An unethical activity in which insiders use private company information to further their own fortunes or those of their family and friends. |
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Integrity-based Ethics Codes |
Ethical standards that define the organization's guiding values, create an environment that supports ethically sound behaviour, and stress a shared accountability among employees. |
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Social Audit |
A systematic evaluation of an organization's progress toward implementing programs that are socially responsible and responsive. |
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Sustainable Development |
Implementing a process that integrates environmental, economic, and social considerations into decision making. |
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Triple-bottom Line (TBL, 3BL, aka People, Planet, Profit) |
A framework for measuring and reporting corporate performance against economic, social, and environmental parameters. |
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Whistleblowers |
People who report illegal or unethical behaviour. |
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Acquisition |
One company's purchase of the property and obligations of another company. |
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Articles of Incorporation |
A legal authorization from the federal or provincial/territorial government for a company to use the corporate format. |
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Conglomerate Merger |
The joining of firms in completely unrelated industries. |
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Co-operative |
An organization that is owned by members and customers, who pay an annual membership fee and share in any profits. |
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Corporate Governance |
The process and policies that determine how an organization interacts with its stakeholders, both internal and external. |
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Corporation |
A legal entity with authority to act and have liability separate from its owners. |
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Franchise |
The right to use a specific business's name and sell its goods or services in a given territory. |
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Franchise Agreement |
An arrangement whereby someone with a good idea for a business sells the rights to use the business name and sell its goods and services in a given territory. |
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Franchisee |
A person who buys a franchise |
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Franchisor |
A company that develops a product concept and sells others the rights to make and sell the products. |
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General Partner |
An owner (partner) who has unlimited liability and is active in managing the firm. |
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General Partnership |
A partnership in which all owners share in operating the business and in assuming liability for the business's debts. |
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Horizontal Merger |
The joining of two firms in the same industry. |
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Leveraged Buyout (LBO) |
An attempt by employees, management, or a group of investors to purchase an organization primarily through borrowing. |
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Liability |
For a business, it includes the responsibility to pay all normal debts and to pay because of a court order or law, for performance under a contract, or payment of damages to a person or property in an accident. |
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Limited Liability |
The responsibility of a business's owners for losses only up to the amount they invest; limited partners and shareholders have limited liability. |
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Limited Liability Partnership (LLP) |
A partnership that limits partners' risk of losing their personal assets to only their own acts and omissions and to the acts and omissions of people under their supervision. |
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Limited Partner |
An owner who invests money in the business but does not have any management responsibility or liability for losses beyond the investment. |
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Limited Partnership |
A partnership with one or more general partners and one or more limited partners. |
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Merger |
The results of two firms forming one company. |
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Partnership |
A legal form of business with two or more parties. |
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Partnership Agreement |
Legal document that specifies the rights and responsibilities of each partner. |
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Private Corporation |
Corporation that is not allowed to issue stock to the public, so its shares are not listed on stock exchanges; it is limited to 50 or fewer shareholders. |
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Public Corporation |
Corporation that has the right to issue shares to the public, so its shares may be listed on a stock exchange. |
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Sole Proprietorship |
A business that is owned, and usually managed, by one person. |
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Unlimited Liability |
The responsibility of business owners for all of the debts of the business. |
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Vertical Merger |
The joining of two companies involved in different stages of related businesses. |
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Affiliate Marketing |
An Internet-based marketing strategy in which a business rewards individuals or other businesses (affiliates) for each visitor or customer the affiliate sends to its website. |
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Angel Investors |
Private individuals who invest their own money in potentially hot new companies before they go public. |
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Business Establishment |
Must meet at least one of the following minimum criteria: it must have at least one paid employee, it must have an annual sales revenue of $30,000, or it must be incorporated and have filed a federal corporate income tax return at least once in the previous three years. |
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Business Plan |
A detailed written statement that describes the nature of the business, the target market, the advantages the business will have in relation to competition, and the resources and qualifications of the owner(s). |
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Employer Business |
Meets one of the business establishment criteria and usually maintains a payroll of at least one person, possibly the owner. |
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Entrepreneurial Team |
A group of experienced people from different areas of business who join together to form a managerial team with the skills needed to develop, make, and market a new product. |
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Entrepreneurship |
Accepting the challenge of starting and running a business. |
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Incubators |
Centres that provide hands-on management assistance, education, information, technical and vital business support services, networking resources, financial advice, as well as advice on where to go to seek financial assistance. |
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Intrapreneurs |
Creative people who work as entrepreneurs within organizations. |
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Market |
People with unsatisfied wants and needs who have both the resources and the willingness to buy. |
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Micro-enterprise |
A small business defined as having fewer than five employees. |
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Micropreneurs |
Small-business owners with fewer than five employees who are willing to accept the risk of starting and managing the type of business that remains small, lets them do the kind of work they want to do, and offers them a balanced lifestyle. |
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Small and Medium-sized Enterprises (SMEs) |
Refers to businesses with fewer than 500 employees. |
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Small Business |
A business that is independently owned and operated, is not dominant in its field, and meets certain standards of size in terms of employees and annual revenues. |
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Venture Capitalists (VCs) |
Individuals or companies that invest in new businesses in exchange for partial ownership of those businesses. |
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Autocratic Leadership |
Leadership style that involves making managerial decisions without consulting others. |
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Brainstorming |
Coming up with as many solutions to a problem as possible in a short period of time with no censoring of ideas. |
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Conceptual Skills |
Skills that involve the ability to picture the organization as a whole and the relationships among its various parts. |
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Contingency Planning |
The process of preparing alternative courses of action that may be used if the primary plans do not achieve the organization's objectives. |
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Controlling |
A management function that involves establishing clear standards to determine whether or not an organization is progressing toward its goals and objectives, rewarding people for not doing a good job, and taking corrective action if they are not. |
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Crisis Planning |
Involves reacting to sudden changes in the environment. |
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External Customers |
Dealers, who buy products to sell to others, and ultimate customers (or end users), who buy products for their own personal use. |
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Free-rein (Laissez-faire) Leadership Goals |
Leadership style that involves managers setting objectives and employees being relatively free to do whatever it takes to accomplish those objectives. |
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Human Relations Skills |
Skills that involve communication and motivation; they enable managers to work through and with people. |
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Internal Customers |
Individuals and units within the firm that receive services from other individuals or units. |
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Knowledge Management |
Finding the right information, keeping the information in a readily accessible place, and making the information known to everyone in the firm. |
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Leading |
Creating a vision for the organization and guiding, training, coaching and motivating others to work effectively to achieve the organization's goals and objectives. |
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Management |
The process used to accomplish organizational goals through planning, organizing, leading, and controlling people and other organizational resources. |
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Middle Management |
The level of management that includes general managers, division managers, and branch and plant managers, who are responsible for tactical planning and controlling. |
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Mission Statement |
An outline of the fundamental purposes of an organization. |
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Objectives |
Specific, measurable, short-term statements detailing how to achieve the organization's goals. |
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Operational Planning |
The process of setting work standards and schedules necessary to implement the company's tactical objectives. |
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Organizational Chart |
A visual device that shows relationships among people and divides the organization's work; it shows who is accountable for the completion of specific work and who reports to whom. |
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Organizing |
A management function that includes designing the structure of the organization and creating conditions and systems in which everyone and everything work together to achieve the organization's goals and objectives. |
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Participative (Democratic) Leadership |
Leadership style that consists of managers and employees working together to make decisions. |
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Planning |
A management function that includes anticipating trends and determining the best strategies and tactics to achieve organizational goals and objectives. |
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PMI |
Listing all the pluses for a solution in one column, all the minuses in another, and the interesting in a third column. |
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Resources |
A general term that incorporates human resources, natural resources, and financial resources. |
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Strategic Planning |
The process of determining the major goals of the organization and the policies and strategies for obtaining and using resources to achieve those goals. |
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Supervisory Management |
Managers who are directly responsible for supervising workers and evaluating their daily performance. |
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SWOT Analysis |
A planning tool used to analyze an organization's strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats. |
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Tactical Planning |
The process of developing detailed, short-term statements about what is to be done, who is to do it, and how it is to be done. |
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Technical Skills |
Skills that involve the ability to perform tasks in a specific discipline or department. |
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Top Management |
Highest level of management, consisting of the president and other key company executives, who develop strategic plans. |
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Transactional Leadership |
Leadership style where the leader is given the power to assign tasks and their successful completion leads to rewards and reinforcement. |
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Transformational Leadership |
Leadership style that occurs when leaders can influence others to follow them in working to achieve a desired outcome or goal. |
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Transparency |
The presentation of a company's facts and figures in a way that is clear, accessible, and apparent to all stakeholders. |
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Values |
A set of fundamental beliefs that guide a business in the decisions they make. |
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Vision |
An encompassing explanation of why the organization exists and where it is trying to head. |
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Benchmarking |
Comparing an organization's practices, processes, and products against the world's best. |
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Bureaucracy |
An organization with many layers of managers who set rules and regulations and oversee all decisions. |
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Centralized Authority |
An organization structure in which decision-making authority is maintained at the top level of management at the company's headquarters. |
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Chain of Command |
The line of authority that moves from the top of a hierarchy to the lowest level. |
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Continuous Improvement (CI) |
Constantly improving the way an organization does things so that customer needs can be better satisfied. |
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Core Competencies |
Those functions that an organization can do as well as or better than any other organization in the world. |
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Decentralized Authority |
An organization structure in which decision-making authority is delegated to lower-level managers more familiar with local conditions than headquarters management could be. |
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Departmentalization |
Dividing an organization into separate units. |
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Economies of Scale |
The situation in which companies can reduce their production costs if they can purchase raw materials in bulk and develop specialized labour; resulting in the average cost of goods going down as production levels increase. |
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Flat Organization Structure |
An organization structure that has few layers of management and a broad span of control. |
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Formal Organization |
The structure that details lines of responsibility, authority, and position; that is, the structure shown on organization charts. |
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Hierarchy |
A system in which one person is at the top of the organization and there is a ranked or sequential ordering from the top down of managers who are responsible to that person. |
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Informal Organization |
The system of relationships and lines of authority that develops spontaneously as employees meet and form power centres; that is, the human side of the organization that does not appear on any organization chart. |
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Inverted Organization |
An organization that has contact people at the top and the chief executive officer at the bottom of the organizational chart. |
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Line Organization |
An organization that has direct two-way lines of responsibility, authority, and communication running from top to the bottom of the organization, with all people reporting to only one supervisor. |
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Line Personnel |
Employees who are part of the chain of command that is responsible for achieving organizational goals. |
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Matrix Organization |
An organization in which specialists from different parts of the organization are brought together to work on specific projects but still remain part of a line-and-staff structure. |
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Networking Between Firms |
Using communications technology and other means to link organizations and allow them to work together on common objectives. |
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Organizational (or Corporate) Culture |
Widely shared values within an organization that provide coherence and co-operation to achieve common goals. |
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Re-engineering |
The fundamental rethinking and radical redesign of organizational processes to achieve dramatic improvements in critical measures of performance. |
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Restructuring |
Redesigning an organization so that it can more effectively and efficiently serve its customers. |
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Self-Managed Teams |
Groups of employees from different departments who work together on a long-term basis. |
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Span of Control |
The optimum number of subordinates a manager supervises or should supervise. |
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Staff Personnel |
Employees who advise and assist line personnel in meeting their goals. |
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Tall Organization Structure |
An organization structure in which the pyramidal organization chart would be quite tall because of the various levels of management. |
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Total Quality Management |
Striving for maximum customer satisfaction by ensuring quality from all departments. |
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Virtual Corporation |
A temporary networked organization made up of replaceable firms that join and leave as needed. |
