Business Flashcards
Bargaining unit
A group of employees recognized by the National Labor Relations Board to be an appropriate body for collective bargaining under the National Labor Relations Act.
Barriers to entry
Obstacles that impede an organization as it seeks to enter a market.
Branding
A community-wide communication effort to convey the mission and the competitive advantage of an organization.
Breach of contract
A contracting party’s failure or refusal to perform its obligations specified in a contract.
Business model
The underlying structure of an organization; the means through which an organization creates and delivers value to its customers and earns revenues.
Business plan
A model of a specific strategy or function that guides design, operations, and goal setting.
Certificate of need
Certificate or approval for new services and for construction or renovation of hospitals or related facilities; issued in many states.
Collective bargaining
An activity whereby union and management officials attempt to resolve conflicting interests in a manner that will sustain and possibly enrich their continuing relationships.
Contract
A voluntary, deliberate, and legally binding agreement between two or more competent parties; usually written but sometimes spoken or implied.
Core competencies
The internal activities and functions central to fulfilling an organization’s mission; strategically valuable, they are the essence of what makes the organization unique in providing value to its customers.
Crisis communications plan
A process for disseminating information to all organizational stakeholders in the event of an emergency.
Defamation
The act of making untrue statements about another that damage the person’s reputation; written defamation is libel, and oral defamation is slander.
Disruptive innovation
Innovation that creates a new market by discovering new categories of customers, eventually displacing the existing market; occurs when new technologies are harnessed or when new business models exploit old technologies.
Economies of scale
Reductions in unit cost as a result of an increase in number of products or services produced.
First movers
Organizations that consistently search for innovation opportunities and attempt to gain competitive advantages by being among the first to enter a new market or industry.
Five Forces model
A framework devised by Harvard economist Michael Porter for analyzing the degree of competition in a market and the ability of established organizations to influence prices.
Forecasting
Use of data from the past and present to analyze trends and predict the future; also called scenario planning.
Four basic types of market structure
(1) Perfect competition, (2) monopolistic competition, (3) oligopoly, and (4) monopoly; each type reflects the number Of organizations in a market and their degree of market influence.
Four Ps
Four attributes that have traditionally been used to establish an organization’s market position: (1) product, (2) price, (3) promotion, and (4) place.
Gantt chart
A bar chart that lays out the schedules, steps, and time frames of a project or projects.
Gap analysis
A method of identifying the distance between an organization’s current position and its desired position with regard to its mission, vision, and values.
Generic strategies
Commonly used strategies that combine a target market (e.g., a small segment of a population) and a type of differentiation (e.g., low cost).
Healthcare disparities
Differences in access to or availability of healthcare facilities and services; related but different, health disparities refer to variation in the rates of disease occurrence and disabilities among socioeconomic, geographic, social, cultural, and sexual- or gender identity-defined population groups.
Herfindahl-Hirschman Index
A measure of market concentration calculated by squaring the market share percentage of each organization in a market and then summing the numbers.
Horizontal expansion
The acquisition or merger of two or more organizations that produce similar products or services.
Internal environmental analysis
Evaluation of an organization’s products, assets, operations, and other factors to determine whether the organization is carrying out its mission effectively and efficiently.
Malfeasance
Wrongdoing or improper and dishonest conduct, especially by a person who holds public office or a position of trust.
Market share
The percentage of total sales volume in a market captured by a brand, product, service, or company.
Market structure
The organizational characteristics of a market that exert a strategic influence on the intensity and form of competition.
Marketing
The deliberate effort to establish fruitful relationships with exchange partners and stakeholders.
Portfolio analysis
A method of assessing an organization’s products or strategic business units that considers various factors, including competitive position, profitability, growth, and mission importance.
Product (or service) life cycle
Four distinct but not wholly predictable stages every product or service goes through: (1) introduction to the market; (2) growth in utilization and revenue; (3) maturity, when utilization and revenue stabilize; and (4) decline, when utilization and revenue start to fall and eventually become too little for the product or service to remain viable.
Project charter
A tool commonly used in project management to clarify the key components of a project (e.g., scope, desired outcomes, participants, resources, time frames, responsible parties) and to ensure that the project’s definition and desired outcomes coincide with an organization’s strategic priorities and goals.
Scenario analysis
A technique of proposing alternative futures that could come to pass if a specified environmental change occurs; used by leaders to better understand and plan for future contingencies.
Segmentation
The division of a market into subsets of consumers with similar needs and wants; enables marketers to focus their marketing efforts on consumers most likely to buy a product or use a service.
Stakeholders
Persons who have a claim to or obtain some benefit from an organization.
Strategic action cycle (four stages)
(1) Strategic planning, (2) budgeting, (3) implementing strategy, and (4) controlling problems and monitoring progress.
Strategic alliance
A long-term, formal, and mutually beneficial relationship between two or more parties to pursue a set of agreed-upon goals or to meet a critical business need while remaining independent organizations.
Strategic management
Opportunities that, when narrowed for use in business plans, involve quantum shifts in service capabilities or market share, usually by interaction with competitors, large-scale capital investments, and revisions to several line activities.
