Con-Cos

Consultants and Consulting

Consultants are professionals with expertise in a particular field who offer advice related to their experience. Consulting, then, is the business of providing advice to clients in order to solve a problem or range of problems within a particular area of business.

Consumer Advocacy

Consumer advocacy refers to actions taken by individuals or groups to promote and protect the interests of the buying public. Historically, consumer advocates have assumed a somewhat adversarial role in exposing unfair business practices or unsafe products that threaten the welfare of the general public.

Consumer Credit Reporting

Commonly known as credit bureaus, a number of companies collect and disseminate information about consumer credit history. These agencies exist chiefly to provide creditors with uniform and comprehensive information about individuals with whom they may enter into credit agreements.

Consumer Price Index (CPI)

The Consumer Price Index (CPI), sometimes called the cost-of-living index, measures the average change in prices that typical American wage earners pay for basic goods and services, such as food, clothing, shelter, transportation, and medical care. It is expressed as a percentage of the cost of the same goods and services in a base period.

Consumer Product Safety Commission (CPSC)

The Consumer Product Safety Commission (CPSC), an independent federal regulatory agency, was established with the passage of the Consumer Product Safety Act in 1972. The primary responsibility of the CPSC is to protect the public from unreasonable risks of injury associated with consumer products.

Consumerism

The term "consumerism" was originally used in reference to individuals acquiring goods and services for personal use. By the 1970s, however, the term had oftentimes come to be used pejoratively when "consumerism" for various reasons became identified with radical social and political activism and reform.

Consumption Tax

A consumption tax is a broad category of tax that is levied on the consumption value of goods and services. Examples of consumption taxes include retail sales taxes, excise taxes, value added taxes, use taxes, taxes on gross business receipts (also known as business transfer taxes), and import duties.

Continuing Education

Continuing education—the acquisition or improvement of work-related skills by people already in the workforce—became increasingly vital throughout the 20th century partially as a result of technological advances, which led many industries to depend on high-tech equipment. Furthermore, the corporate downsizing of the 1980s and 1990s added to the need for workers to upgrade their skills in order to retain their positions or to compete effectively for new ones.

Contracts

A contract is a legally enforceable promise. Contracts are vital to society because they facilitate cooperation and trust.

Controller

The top finance and accounting positions in an organization are usually the vice president of finance, also known as the chief financial officer (CFO), the controller, and the treasurer. Whereas the controller is concerned with accounting matters, the treasurer is usually responsible for financial matters, such as handling corporate investments, managing relations with creditors, and meeting capital needs.

Cooperatives

A cooperative is an enterprise in which individuals voluntarily organize to provide themselves and others with goods and services via democratic control and for mutually shared benefit. Members generally contribute to, and control via a democratic process, the cooperative's capital.

Coordinating Committee for Multilateral Export Controls and the Wassenaar Arrangement

The Coordinating Committee for Multilateral Export Controls (COCOM) was created in 1949 for the purpose of preventing Western companies and countries from selling strategic goods and services to the Eastern bloc countries behind the "iron curtain." The founding members of COCOM were the United States, Belgium, France, Italy, the Netherlands, Luxembourg, and the United Kingdom. Countries joining COCOM at later dates were Spain, Canada, Australia, Denmark, Germany, Greece, Italy, Norway, Portugal, Japan, and Turkey.

Copyright

Copyright protection provides the author of an original work in any tangible medium of expression with certain rights to use and to authorize the use of the work. Copyright law provides the copyright holder with several effective remedies when there is copyright infringement.

Corporate Control

The term "corporate control" refers to the authority to make the decisions of a corporation regarding operations and strategic planning, including capital allocations, acquisitions and divestments, top personnel decisions, and major marketing, production, and financial decisions. This concept is frequently applied to publicly traded companies, which may be susceptible to changes in corporate control when large investors or other companies seek to wrest control from managers or other shareholders.

Corporate Culture

Corporate culture, sometimes also called organizational culture, refers to the shared values, attitudes, standards, codes, and behaviors of a company's management and employees. Some would argue that the corporate culture extends to the broader circle of relationships a business maintains, such as with customers, vendors, strategic partners, and so forth.

Corporate Debt

Debt represents borrowed funds in which the borrower promises to make interest payments and to repay the principal in accordance with an agreed upon schedule. Along with equity (common stock plus retained earnings), debt represents one of the two major sources of capital for business enterprises.

Corporate Divestiture

Divestiture involves the disposal of an ownership interest in a company or subsidiary in exchange for other forms of assets. Divestiture may be a voluntary act effected to raise money, stem operating losses, or reorganize a corporation.

Corporate Finance

Corporate finance pertains to the acquisition and allocation of a company's resources to maximize shareholder wealth. More simply, it is the process of obtaining funds and investing them in a manner that will maximize profits and build value for shareholders.

Corporate Governance

The ultimate control of the corporation rests with the shareholders. The shareholders elect the members of the board of directors, who set overall policy for the corporation, and appoint the officers.

Corporate Growth

Corporate growth can be defined in numerous ways and be achieved in several strategic forms. In general, the matter of whether—and at what rate—a company is growing can be highly ambiguous.

Corporate Identity

The management and communication of a company's identity increasingly is being viewed by senior executives as vital to corporate success. The concept of corporate identity can be traced to the earliest firms that used specific marks or logos to differentiate themselves from their competitors and imprint their image in the minds of consumers.

Corporate Ownership

Corporate ownership is one of three broad categories of legal ownership of a business, the other two being sole proprietorship and partnership. In a sole proprietorship, the owner is personally liable for his or her business's debts and losses, there is no distinction made between personal and business income, and the business terminates upon the death of the owner (unless some specific arrangement is made for someone to inherit the business).

Corporate Philanthropy

Corporate philanthropy is the widespread business practice of donating money, goods, and services to charitable causes. In 1997, according to annual figures compiled by the American Association of Fund-Raising Counsel (AAFRC), companies in the United States donated some $8.2 billion to charities.

Corporate Profits

The term "corporate profits" refers to the amount of revenue remaining from a corporate enterprise after all expenses—including labor, materials, and taxes—have been paid. Corporate profit is also known as return on capital, or earnings.

Corporate Restructuring

The rapid advancement of technologies related to new product development and design, engineering, manufacturing, marketing, and distribution has caused many companies to gain new competitive advantages over rivals with regard to the efficiency of providing products and services. Conversely, companies that have failed to incorporate these advancements have lost the ability to compete effectively, resulting in losses in market share and profit margin.

Corporate Sponsorship

Akin to advertising and promotion, corporate sponsorship is a type of marketing where a corporation partially or fully funds a program, project, activity, or event in exchange for public recognition. In other words, corporate sponsors pick up the bills for public programs, projects, activities, and events in return for the rights to associate their corporate names, images, and advertising with the programs and events they are sponsoring.

Corporate Welfare

Corporate welfare is an unofficial term used to describe government subsidies and tax breaks that support American businesses and industries. The term implies that these subsidies are equivalent to the government assistance, or welfare, traditionally provided to poor persons.

Cost Accounting

Manufacturing costs flow through three basic responsibility centers: the raw materials storeroom, the factory, and the finished good storeroom. These inventory accounts are usually provided to accumulate costs as they relate to the three responsibility centers: raw material inventory, work-in-process inventory, and finished good inventory.