Business: General: Contemporary Business and Economic Issues

Capitalism is an economic system characterized by private property and freely functioning markets without central planning. Prices in capitalist economic systems are determined by the free and open exchanges of buyers and sellers guided by self-interest but constrained by both an ethical consensus and the rule of law.

Communism (from the Latin communis, meaning "shared" or "common") advocates public ownership and communal control of the major means of production, distribution, transportation, and communication.

An organization's culture is often seen as manifested in its policies and practices and the understandings, language, behavior and attitudes of organizational members.

Corporate identity is not only what an organization perceives itself to be but also what an organization says it is. Hence, corporate identity is often understood as an externally oriented concept.

In current usage, the keyword “corporation” is synonymous with “business corporation,” generally referring to a for-profit organization that can operate at the discretion of its owners and managers free of social and legislative control.

Economic growth is most commonly defined as the rate of increase in the value of a country’s output over a period of time. It is often presumed that economic growth is necessary and valuable to a society because it is accompanied by an improved quality of life for that society’s citizens.

The study of how individuals, house holds, and societies choose to use their scarce resources efficiently in order to satisfy their diverse wants.

The modern field of study concerned with production, distribution, and consumption of goods and services.

The term “economy” in its contemporary sense came into use only quite recently. It is often assumed that the idea of the economy, defined as the relations of material production and exchange in a given territory and understood as an object of expert knowledge and government administration, was introduced by political economists such as William Petty,

From The Handbook of Economic Sociology
The global economy has changed in very significant ways during the past several decades, and these changes are rooted in how the global economy is organized and governed. These transformations affect not only the flows of goods and services across national borders, but also the implications of these processes for how countries move up (or down) in the international system.

A big buzzword in political speech and a ubiquitous analytical category in academic debate, globalization operates today rather like modernization did in the mid-twentieth century as the key term of a master discourse about the general state of the world. The most common political version of the discourse depicts globalization as an unstoppable process of global integration, a supposedly inevitable process that while being driven by free market capitalism also necessitates all the free market reforms of neo-liberalism.

Macroeconomics is a part of economic analysis that focuses on the understanding of economic issues at the aggregated level.

Company or enterprise operating in several countries, usually defined as one that has 25% or more of its output capacity located outside its country of origin.

Almost all types of private organizations that can demonstrate independence from government control and establish an overall mission focusing on a public good can be categorized as a non-governmental organization (NGO).

FromThe Encyclopedia of Public Choice
Although public choice theorists and other researchers typically dichotomize the economy into the private and public sectors, a large and growing segment of the U.S. economy does not appropriately belong in either category: nonprofit entities. The terms “third sector” and “independent sector” are used to refer collectively to nonprofit organizations and to emphasize how they differ from for-profits firms and governmental bodies.

Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), agency of the U.S. government created by the Securities Exchange Act of 1934 and charged with protecting the interests of the public and investors in connection with the public issuance and sale of corporate securities.

A much used, and abused, term. It can be employed to refer to quite different social and political systems.

Organized market for the trading of stocks and bonds (see bond; stock). Such markets were originally open to all, but at present only members of the owning association may buy and sell directly.

Many of the world’s largest businesses rival nationstates, religions, and even nature itself as agents of change. Multinational corporations have become the primary force shaping human material well-being.

Accounting fraud caused the seventh largest corporation in United States to fall victim to white-collar crime. Its demise was due to accounting practices in violation of Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) regulations.

Sympathetic cessation of work by a majority of the workers in all industries of a locality or nation.

Labor law, legislation dealing with human beings in their capacity as workers or wage earners.

Association of workers for the purpose of improving their economic status and working conditions through collective bargaining with employers.

In its simplest form, privatization is the transfer of control and management away from the government to the private sector. A publicly owned asset is literally sold off to the private market.

Strike, concentrated work stoppage by a group of employees, the chief weapon of organized labor.

Granting of goods, services, or money in return for a promise of future payment. Most credit is accompanied by an interest charge, which usually makes the future payment greater than an immediate payment would have been.

Economic inequality most commonly refers to an analysis of the degree of disparity (inequality) within an economy. This study is accomplished by measuring, for instance, the amount of income, wealth, or expenditure distributed among a chosen population and geographic area.

Of all the historical events that shaped the internal structure of America, three stand out above the rest: the War of American Independence, the Civil War, and the Great Depression. The Depression years were a time of great hardship and sweeping change.

Rapid and uncontrolled inflation, or increases in prices, usually associated with political and/or social instability, as in Germany in the 1920s.

Inflation is an economic situation in which the average price level of all goods and/or salaries rises steeply, which affects most severely those with fixed or relatively unresponsive incomes, such as pensioners.

This concept describes an empirical reality, both globally and in individual societies, but the meaning of which is contested. What constitutes poverty depends on how it is defined and measured.

Debt incurred by the central government of a country to its own people and institutions and also to overseas creditors.

A state of the economy that occurs when there is a slowdown or downturn of economic activity for two consecutive quarters or more. The slowdown is a manifestation of increased unemployment above its natural (long-run) rate and plummeting real output (GDP).

The Wall Street crash of 29 Oct 1929 and the Great Depression that followed were such a shock to most Americans that some early attempts to explain their causes blamed sunspot activity or medieval prophecy.

A major topic of social research during periods of mass unemployment in the twentieth century, unemployment arose with the growth of dependency on waged employment. It involves exclusion from paid employment but definitions and measurement remain contentious.