HR Competencies - Business Acumen Flashcards
Accounts Payable
Money an organization owes its vendors and suppliers
Accounts Receivable
Money an organization’s customers owe the organization.
Affinity Diagramming
Data-sorting technique in which a group categorizes and subcategorizes data until relationships are clearly drawn
Assets
Financial, physical, and sometimes intangible properties an organization owns
Authentic Leadership
Leadership style that focuses on challenging and developing members of an organization to attain long-range results through continuous evolution, improvement, or change, based on the leader’s vision and strategy.
Balance Sheet
Statement of an organization’s financial position at a specific point in time, showing assets, liabilities, and shareholder equity.
Bias
Conscious or unconscious beliefs that influence a person’s perceptions or actions, which may cause that person to become partial or prejudiced.
Bribery
Exchange of anything of value to gain greater influence or preference
Business Case
Tool or document that defines a specific problem, proposes a solution, and provides justifications for the proposal in terms of time, cost efficiency, and probability of success.
Business Intelligence (BI)
Raw data, internal and external to an organization, that is translated into meaningful information for decision makers to use in taking strategic action.
Cash Flow Statement
Statement of an organization’s ability to meet its current and short-term obligations, showing incoming and outgoing cash and cash reserves in operations, investments, and financing.
Civil Law
Legal system based on written codes (laws, rules, or regulations).
Common Law
Legal system in which each case is considered in terms of how it relates to legal decisions that have already been made; evolves through judicial decisions over time.
Confidentiality
Treatment of personal information that has been disclosed to another person (e.g., one’s doctor, lawyer or financial advisor) or organization (e.g., one’s employer or a hospital).
Conflict of Interest
Situation in which a person or organization may potentially benefit, directly or indirectly, from undue influence, due to involvement in outside activities, relationships, or investments that conflict with or have an impact on the employment relationship or its outcomes.
Contrast Effect
Tendency to enhance or diminish the strength or credibility of a statement or person based on one’s impression of a preceding statement or person.
Cultural Noise
Type of measurement bias in which analyst fails to recognize that individual is responding with answers the analyst wants to hear.
Cultural Relativism
Concept that argues that ethical behavior is determined by local culture, laws, and business practices.
Culture
Basic beliefs, attitudes, values, behaviors and customs shared and followed by members of a group, which give rise to the group’s sense of identity.
Delphi Technique
Technique that progressively collects information from a group without physically assembling the contributors.
Dilemma Reconciliation
Process of charting a course through cultural differences.
Due Diligence
Requirement to thoroughly investigate an action before it is taken, through diligent research and evaluation.
Due Process
Concept that laws are enforced only through accepted, codified procedures.
Emotional Intelligence (EI)
Ability to be sensitive to and understand one’s own and others’ emotions and impulses.
Equity
Amount of owners’ or shareholders’ portion of a business.
Ethical Universalism
Concept that argues that there are fundamental ethical principles that apply across cultures.
Extraterritoriality
Extension of the power of a country’s laws over its citizens outside that country’s sovereign national boundaries.
First-Impression Error
Type of measurement bias in which investigator makes snap judgements and lets first impression (either positive or negative) cloud subsequent evaluation.
Focus Group
Small group of invited persons (typically 6 - 12) who actively participate in a structured discussion, led by a facilitator, for the purpose of eliciting their input on a specific product, process, policy or program.
Global Mindset
Ability to have an international perspective, inclusive of other cultures’ views.
Gross Profit Margin
Ratio of gross profit to net sales
Halo Effect
Type of measurement bias in which analyst allows one strong point that he or she values highly and that works in subject’s favor to overshadow all other information.
High-Context Culture
Society or group characterized by complex, usually long-standing networks of relationships; members share a rich history of common experience, so the way they interact and interpret events is often not apparent to outsiders.
Horn Effect
Type of measurement bias in which analyst allows one strong point that he or she values highly and that works against subject to overshadow all other information.
Income Statement
Statement that reports revenues, expenses, and profits for a specified period of time, for example, quarterly or annually.
Intercultural Wisdom
Capacity to recognize, interpret, and behaviorally adapt to multicultural situations and contexts; also called cultural intelligence.
Jurisdiction
Right of a legal body to exert authority over a given geographical territory, subject matter, or persons or institutions.
Key Performance Indicators (KPIs)
Quantifiable measures of performance that gauge an organization’s progress toward strategic objectives or other agreed-upon performance standards.
Liabilities
Organization’s debts and other financial obligations.
Low-Context Culture
Society in which relationships have less history; individuals know each other less well and don’t share a common database of experience, so communication must be very explicit.
Mean
Average score or value.
Median
Middle number in a range of values.
Mind Mapping
Data-sorting technique in which group members add related ideas and indicate logical connections, eventually grouping similar ideas.
Mode
Value that occurs most frequently in a set of data.
Motivation
Factors that indicate, direct, and sustain human behavior over time.
Negative emphasis
Type of measurement bias that involves weighting a small negative reaction or piece of information more than it should objectively merit.
Negotiation
Process by which two or more parties work together to reach agreement on a matter.
Net Profit Margin
Ratio of net income (gross sales minus expenses and taxes) to net sales.
Networking
Process of developing mutually beneficial contacts through the exchange of information.
Nominal Group Technique
Technique in which participants each suggest ideas through a series of rounds and then discuss the items, eliminate redundancies and irrelevancies, and agree on the importance of the remaining items.
Organizational Culture
The basic beliefs and customs shared by members of an organization that contribute to the organization’s sense of its identity.
Ratio Analysis
Using relationships between data in financial statements to measure the financial health of an organization.
Regression Analysis
Statistical method used to determine whether a relationship exists between variables and the strength of the relationship.
Reliability
Extent to which a measurement instrument provides consistent results.
Root-Cause Analysis
Type of analysis that starts with a result and then works backward to identify fundamental cause.
Rule of Law
Concept that stipulates that no individual is beyond the reach of the law and that authority is exercised only in accordance with written and publicly disclosed laws.
Scenario/What-If Analysis
Statistical method used to test the possible effects of altering the details of a strategy to see if the likely outcome can be improved.
Social Intelligence
Ability to create connections or rapport with others.
Stakeholder Concept
Concept that proposes that any organization operates within a complex environment in which it affects and is affected by a variety of forces or stakeholders who all share in the value of the organization and its activities.
Stereotyping
Generalized opinions about how people of a given gender, race, religion, age, education level, job type, or national origin look, think, act, feel, or respond.
Strategic Management
System of actions that leaders take to drive an organization toward its goals and objectives.
Strategic Planning
Process of setting goals and designing a path toward organizational success.
Strategy
Plan of action for accomplishing an organization’s overall and long-range goals.
Transformational Leadership
Leadership style that focuses on challenging and developing members of an organization to attain long-range results through continuous evolution, improvement, or change, based on the leader’s vision and strategy.
Transparency
Extent to which an organization’s agreements, dealings, information, practices, and transactions are open to disclosure and review by relevant persons.
Trend Analysis
Statistical method that examines data from different points in time to determine if a variance is an isolated event or if it is part of a longer trend.
Unweighted Average
Raw average of data that gives equal weight to all values, with no regard for other factors.
Validity
Extent to which a measurement instrument measures what it is intended to measure.
Value
The benefit created when an organization meets its strategic goals; measure of usefulness, worth, or importance.
Value Chain
The process by which an organization creates the product or service it offers to the customer.
Variance Analysis
Statistical method for identifying the degree between planned and actual performance or outcomes.
Weighted Average
Average of data that adds factors to reflect the importance of different values.
Religious Law
Legal system based on religious beliefs and conventions.
Conflict of Laws
A situation in which the laws of two or more jurisdictions differ and may exert a different result on a legal case depending on which system is deemed to have jurisdiction.
Forum or Jurisdiction Shopping
The practice of taking complaints to jurisdictions sympathetic to the complainants’ case.
Levels of Law
Analyzing laws by their areas of control: national, subnational, supranational, international
