Understanding Canadian Business - McGraw Hill Textbook
Chapter 1 - The Dynamic Business Environment
Terms from Chapter 1
• Goods -Tangible Products such as computers, food, clothing, cars and appliances.
• Services - Intangible Products such as education, health care, insurance, recreation
and travel.
• Business - An activity that seeks to provide goods and services to others while
operating at a profit.
• Entrepreneur - A person who risks time and money to start and manage a business
- (entrepreneurship) is accepting the risk of starting and running a business.
- Learns early that a business needs a reliable accountant, good lawyer and
strong managers. Often find themselves going to a financial institution or to
venture capital firms to borrow money.
• Revenue - The total amount of money received during a given period for goods sold
and services rendered, and from other financial sources.
• Pro t - The amount a business earns above and beyond what is spends for salaries
and other expenses.
• Loss - When a business’ expenses are more than its revenues
• Risk - The chance of loss, the degree of probability of loss and the amount of
possible loss.
• Standard of Living - The amount of goods and services people can buy with the
money they have.
• 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.
• Stakeholders - All the people who stand to gain or lose by the policies and activities
of a business.
• Offshoring - Sourcing parts of the purchased inputs outside of the country.
• Outsourcing - Assigning various functions, such as accounting, production, security,
maintenance and/or legal work to outside organizations.
• Insourcing - Assigning various functions that could go to an outside organization to
employees in the company.
• Non Pro t Organization - an organization whose goals do not include making a
personal profit for its owners or organizers. (Schools, salvation army, hospitals, etc)
• Social Entrepreneurs - people who use business principles to start and manage non
profit organization and help address social issues
- Social Enterprises - ventures established by social entrepreneurs and which act
as vehicles for addressing social and / or environmental needs.
fi fi
, • Factors of Production - the resources used to create wealth: land, labour, capital
goods, entrepreneurship and knowledge.
• Business Environment - the surrounding factors that either help or hinder the
development of businesses.
• Regulations - restrictions that provincial and federal laws place on businesses with
respect to the conduct of their activities.
• Technology - everything from phones and copiers to computers, mobile devices,
medical imaging machines and the various software programs and apps that make
business processes more effective, efficient and productive.
• Productivity - the amount of output that is generated given the amount of input
(hours worked)
• E-Commerce - the buying and selling of goods and services over the internet (kijiji,
Facebook marketplace, etc)
• E-Business - any information system or application that empowers business
processes
• Database - an electronic storage file for information
• Identity Theft - obtaining an individuals personal information, such as Social
Insurance Number or Credit Card numbers, for illegal purposes.
• Crowdsourcing - using the expertise of a large group of people to solve a business
problem.
• Empowerment - giving front line workers responsibility, authority and freedom to
respond quickly to customer requests.
• Demography - the statistical study of the human population with regards to its size,
density and other characteristics such as age, race, gender and income.
• Generation X - a demographic group of Canadians who were born in the period of
1965 5o 1976
• Generation Y (Millennial) - a demographic group of Canadians who were born in
the period from 1977 to 1994, the children of baby boomers
• Baby Boomers - a demographic group of Canadians born between 1946 to 1964
• Generation Z - born from 1995 onwards.
• Climate Change - the movement of the temperature of the planet up or down over
time.
• Greening - the trend toward saving energy and producing products that cause less
harm to the environment.
• Sustainability - Social perspectives focus on quality of human life; economic views
emphasize a stead-state economy.
• Circular Economy - Reusing, redistributing, refurbishing and recycling products
instead of dumping them in landfills.
• Intellectual Capital - includes employee knowledge and skills that can be used to
create new products, attract new customers and increase profits.
Chapter 1 - The Dynamic Business Environment
Terms from Chapter 1
• Goods -Tangible Products such as computers, food, clothing, cars and appliances.
• Services - Intangible Products such as education, health care, insurance, recreation
and travel.
• Business - An activity that seeks to provide goods and services to others while
operating at a profit.
• Entrepreneur - A person who risks time and money to start and manage a business
- (entrepreneurship) is accepting the risk of starting and running a business.
- Learns early that a business needs a reliable accountant, good lawyer and
strong managers. Often find themselves going to a financial institution or to
venture capital firms to borrow money.
• Revenue - The total amount of money received during a given period for goods sold
and services rendered, and from other financial sources.
• Pro t - The amount a business earns above and beyond what is spends for salaries
and other expenses.
• Loss - When a business’ expenses are more than its revenues
• Risk - The chance of loss, the degree of probability of loss and the amount of
possible loss.
• Standard of Living - The amount of goods and services people can buy with the
money they have.
• 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.
• Stakeholders - All the people who stand to gain or lose by the policies and activities
of a business.
• Offshoring - Sourcing parts of the purchased inputs outside of the country.
• Outsourcing - Assigning various functions, such as accounting, production, security,
maintenance and/or legal work to outside organizations.
• Insourcing - Assigning various functions that could go to an outside organization to
employees in the company.
• Non Pro t Organization - an organization whose goals do not include making a
personal profit for its owners or organizers. (Schools, salvation army, hospitals, etc)
• Social Entrepreneurs - people who use business principles to start and manage non
profit organization and help address social issues
- Social Enterprises - ventures established by social entrepreneurs and which act
as vehicles for addressing social and / or environmental needs.
fi fi
, • Factors of Production - the resources used to create wealth: land, labour, capital
goods, entrepreneurship and knowledge.
• Business Environment - the surrounding factors that either help or hinder the
development of businesses.
• Regulations - restrictions that provincial and federal laws place on businesses with
respect to the conduct of their activities.
• Technology - everything from phones and copiers to computers, mobile devices,
medical imaging machines and the various software programs and apps that make
business processes more effective, efficient and productive.
• Productivity - the amount of output that is generated given the amount of input
(hours worked)
• E-Commerce - the buying and selling of goods and services over the internet (kijiji,
Facebook marketplace, etc)
• E-Business - any information system or application that empowers business
processes
• Database - an electronic storage file for information
• Identity Theft - obtaining an individuals personal information, such as Social
Insurance Number or Credit Card numbers, for illegal purposes.
• Crowdsourcing - using the expertise of a large group of people to solve a business
problem.
• Empowerment - giving front line workers responsibility, authority and freedom to
respond quickly to customer requests.
• Demography - the statistical study of the human population with regards to its size,
density and other characteristics such as age, race, gender and income.
• Generation X - a demographic group of Canadians who were born in the period of
1965 5o 1976
• Generation Y (Millennial) - a demographic group of Canadians who were born in
the period from 1977 to 1994, the children of baby boomers
• Baby Boomers - a demographic group of Canadians born between 1946 to 1964
• Generation Z - born from 1995 onwards.
• Climate Change - the movement of the temperature of the planet up or down over
time.
• Greening - the trend toward saving energy and producing products that cause less
harm to the environment.
• Sustainability - Social perspectives focus on quality of human life; economic views
emphasize a stead-state economy.
• Circular Economy - Reusing, redistributing, refurbishing and recycling products
instead of dumping them in landfills.
• Intellectual Capital - includes employee knowledge and skills that can be used to
create new products, attract new customers and increase profits.
