A foreign exchange (FX) rate or international exchange rate is the price of one country's money (currency) in terms of another's. Technically, this is known as the nominal exchange rate, as contrasted with the real exchange rate, which is the relative price of comparable goods between two countries.
The level of international trade is a relevant indicator of economic growth worldwide. Foreign exchange markets facilitate this trade by providing a resource where currencies from all nations can be bought and sold.
Since its founding in 1919 the International Labor Organization (ILO) has worked to improve the working and living conditions of people worldwide by promoting standards that reduce social injustice in the areas of employment, pay, health, and working conditions. The ILO also believes that workers have the right to freedom of association.
International law is often defined as the body of rules and norms that regulate activities carried on outside the legal boundaries of states. More particularly, it is the law that applies to three international relationships: (1) relations among nation-states; (2) relations among individuals (including corporations) and foreign nations; and (3) relations among individuals from different nations.
As trade barriers recede and businesses in developed economies increasingly pursue market opportunities abroad, competency and effectiveness in international management are paramount skills at many companies.
International marketing occurs when a business directs its products and services toward consumers in more than one country. While the overall concept of marketing is the same worldwide, the environment within which the marketing plan is implemented can be drastically different.
The International Monetary Fund (IMF) is perhaps one of the most misunderstood economic institutions operating on a worldwide scale. The IMF, as is often thought, is not a global central bank, it is not a development bank for Third World nations, nor does it dictate monetary policy to its members.
The International Monetary Market (IMM) was opened in May 1972 by the Chicago Mercantile Exchange and provides a forum for trading in foreign currency futures. The Chicago Mercantile Exchange began in 1919 as a nonprofit organization providing a marketplace for trading in agricultural commodity spot and forward contracts.
The International Organization for Standardization (ISO) is a private (nongovernmental) worldwide federation, which was founded to promote the creation and implementation of uniform standards facilitating international exchange of goods and services. The ISO's members are elected representatives from national standards organizations in more than 120 countries.
Privatization opens unprecedented opportunities for investment throughout the world. Thus, it is a major force in the globalization of business, and it is of great interest to investors and businesses around the world.
Whereas during the Internet's early commercialization companies were consumed with simply getting online, perhaps without much forethought about what to do once they got there, increasingly corporations are formulating exacting Internet strategies to capitalize on the network's strengths as well as to cope with its shortfalls. Despite the popular metaphor of a virtual store serving all the same functions as a physical store, conventional transaction-based commerce is not the appropriate Internet business model for all companies.
Internships, the temporary and often unpaid entry-level positions companies offer college students and recent graduates, are an increasingly important tool for young workers to gain job experience and make professional contacts. By definition internships are intended to be learning opportunities in some career path, rather than menial or dead-end jobs, even if the tasks assigned to interns aren't always the most challenging.
The Interstate Commerce Commission (ICC)—which was abolished in 1995 and replaced by the Surface Transportation Board—was established as an independent regulatory agency by the Interstate Commerce Act of 1887. The ICC was originally limited to regulating interstate commerce by railroad or by a combination of water and rail.
Coined by Gifford Pinchott in 1986, "intrapreneur" refers to someone who possesses entrepreneurial skills and uses them within a company, instead of using them to launch a new business. Intrapreneurs—also called corporate entrepreneurs—can help established companies implement innovative policies and procedures or introduce innovative products or services.
A company's inventory is all of its merchandise intended for sale to its customers in the normal course of business. Inventories are considered current assets in that they usually are sold within a year or within a company's operating cycle.
Inventory control (also known as inventory management) refers to the systems and strategies businesses use to ensure that they have adequate supplies of raw materials for production and finished goods for shipment to customers, while also minimizing their inventory carrying costs. Storing excess inventory is costly, because the space and financial resources invested in the goods can often be put to better use elsewhere.
The Investment Advisers Act (IAA) was passed in 1940 in order to monitor those who, for a fee, advise people, pension funds, and institutions on investment matters. Impetus for passage of the act began with the Public Utility Holding Company Act of 1935 which authorized the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) to study investment trusts.
Investment analysis is an ongoing process of evaluating current and potential allocations of financial assets and choosing those allocations that best fit the investor's needs and goals. The two opposing considerations in investment analysis are growth rate and risk, which are usually directly proportionate in any given investment vehicle.
Before stocks and bonds are issued, investment bankers perform due diligence examinations, which entail carefully evaluating a company's worth in terms of money and equipment (assets) and debt (liabilities). This examination requires the full disclosure of a company's strengths and weaknesses.
Investment management comprises a broad spectrum of topics ranging from the workings of capital markets, to valuation of financial securities, to the construction of portfolios of assets to meet the objectives of investors. Investment itself can be considered any activity that requires the commitment of current wealth to some set of specified assets for the purpose of enhancing future wealth.
The ISO 14000 Series International Environmental Management Standards are receiving significant attention from business managers and their legal and economic advisers, and it is said that the standards may be a "watershed in the annals of environmental regulation." Business managers view ISO 14000 as a market-driven approach to environmental protection that provides an alternative to "command and control" regulation by government. Therefore, the standards are of significant interest to business organizations and their legal representatives; environmental groups and their members; and governments, their agencies, and their officials.
The ISO 9000 Series Standards for Quality Management and Assurance were issued by the International Organization for Standardization (ISO) in 1987. They reflect an important trend in business practice.
Japan is one of the economic superpowers of global trade. Japan's gross national product (GNP) is second only to the United States'.
In the post-World War II era a set of Japanese cultural patterns and managerial practices came to be known collectively as the Japanese management style or Japanese management techniques. Many of these techniques were credited with helping vault the Japanese economy to its status as the world's second largest, behind only the United States, and with making Japanese businesses, particularly in the manufacturing sector, more competitive than their international counterparts.
Japanese manufacturing techniques, as an area of influential practices and philosophies, emerged in the post-World War II era and reached the height of their prominence in the 1980s. Many adaptations of Japanese methods, and indeed, Japanese manufacturing vocabulary, have made their way into U.S.
When two or more companies agree to combine some of their operations as a means of sharing costs and reducing operating expenses, they enter into a joint operating agreement (JOA). Benefits involve cost savings and economies of scale.
Joint ventures are domestic or international enterprises involving two or more companies joining temporarily to undertake a particular project. They have grown in popularity in recent years—joint ventures between U.S.
The term "junk bonds" dates to the 1920s, apparently originating as traders' jargon. Financial publisher John Moody applied the less pejorative label, "high-yield bonds," as early as 1919, but noninvestment-grade debt received little attention outside a small circle of professional specialists prior to the mid-1980s.