This Introduction to Business course provides a comprehensive overview of the business world, structured into 17 chapters:
- Understanding Economic Systems and Business: Introduces the nature of business, the business environment, macroeconomics, microeconomics, free market competition, and current business trends.
- Making Ethical Decisions and Managing a Socially Responsible Business: Focuses on business ethics, organizational influence on ethical conduct, managing socially responsible businesses, stakeholder responsibilities, and trends in ethics and corporate social responsibility.
- Competing in the Global Marketplace: Covers global trade in the U.S., reasons for international trade, trade barriers, fostering global trade, international economic communities, global market participation, multinational corporations, and global competition trends.
- Forms of Business Ownership: Discusses sole proprietorships, partnerships, corporations, specialized business forms, franchising, mergers and acquisitions, and trends in business ownership.
- Entrepreneurship: Starting and Managing Your Own Business: Explores entrepreneurship today, characteristics of successful entrepreneurs, the role of small business in America, starting and managing a small business, the Small Business Administration, and trends in entrepreneurship.
- Management and Leadership in Today's Organizations: Examines the role of management, planning, organizing, leading, controlling, managerial roles and skills, and current trends in management and leadership.
- Designing Organizational Structures: Looks at building organizational structures, contemporary structures, team use, authority, centralization, organizational design considerations, informal organizations, and trends in organizational structure.
- Managing Human Resources and Labor Relations: Addresses human resources management, recruitment, selection, training and development, performance evaluation, compensation and benefits, labor relations, managing conflicts and grievances, legal environment, and trends in HR and labor relations.
- Motivating Employees: Discusses early motivation theories, Hawthorne Studies, Maslow's hierarchy of needs, McGregor's theories, Herzberg's theory, contemporary motivation views, application of motivation theory, and trends in employee motivation.
- Achieving World-Class Operations Management: Covers production and operations management, the production process, location decisions, resource planning, operations control, improving production and operations, technology in production, and trends in this field.
- Creating Products and Pricing Strategies to Meet Customers' Needs: Focuses on the marketing concept, marketing strategy, marketing mix, buyer behavior, market segmentation, product creation, product life cycle, pricing strategies, and trends in product development and pricing.
- Distributing and Promoting Products and Services: Explores distribution functions, wholesaling, retailing, supply chain management, promotion strategy, advertising, personal selling, sales promotion, public relations, social media trends, and e-commerce trends.
- Using Technology to Manage Information: Discusses transforming businesses through information, computer networks, management information systems, technology management and planning, protecting computers and information, and trends in information technology.
- Using Financial Information and Accounting: Covers the basics of accounting, the accounting profession, accounting procedures, balance sheets, income statements, cash flow statements, financial statement analysis, and accounting trends.
- Understanding Money and Financial Institutions: Looks at the nature of money, the Federal Reserve System, U.S. financial institutions, bank deposit insurance, international banking, and trends in financial institutions.
- Understanding Financial Management and Securities Markets: Examines the role of finance and financial managers, fund usage, short-term and long-term financing, equity financing, securities markets, securities exchanges, and trends in financial management and securities markets.
- Your Career in Business: Provides guidance on learning business basics, developing interpersonal skills, career planning, the importance of college education, starting a career, and self-assessment guidelines.
Each chapter includes key terms, a summary of learning outcomes, skills for the workplace, ethics activities, internet resources, critical thinking cases, and interactive exercises, providing a well-rounded understanding of the modern business landscape.