The International Organization for Standardization (ISO) is a non-governmental organization based in Geneva, Switzerland, that works to develop technical standards for products and services sold around the world. The steady rise in international trade that began in the mid-19th century and has persisted until the present day provided impetus for the global standardization of goods and services.
The Internet is the world's largest computer network. It is a global information infrastructure comprised of millions of computers organized into hundreds of thousands of smaller, local networks.
Intrapreneurship describes the process of developing new products, services, and lines of business within an existing company. It is perhaps best understood as a form of internal entrepreneurship that takes place with the encouragement and support of management.
Inventory management, or inventory control, is an attempt to balance inventory needs and requirements with the need to minimize costs resulting from obtaining and holding inventory. There are several schools of thought that view inventory and its function differently.
Inventory is defined as a stock or store of goods. These goods are maintained on hand at or near a business's location so that the firm may meet demand and fulfill its reason for existence.
The Japanese have had phenomenal impact on world markets. Many industries, such as electronics, cameras, watches, motorcycles, machine tools, automotive products, shipbuilding, and even some aspects of aerospace are either dominated by Japanese firms or are heavily impacted by them.
A job analysis is a step-by-step specification of an employment position's requirements, functions, and procedures. Just as a seed cannot blossom into a flower unless the ground is properly prepared, many human resource management (HRM) practices cannot blossom into competitive advantage unless grounded on an adequate job analysis.
As economies become more globalized, more and more firms are participating in foreign markets. The most popular participation strategies include exporting, licensing, strategic alliances, joint ventures, and direct foreign investment.
Knowledge management refers to an organization's strategic efforts to gain a competitive advantage by capturing and using the intellectual assets held by its employees and customers. Efforts to archive best practices and lessons learned, and to make better use of information stored in databases, also fall under the rubric of knowledge management.
Knowledge workers, alternatively termed knowledge entrepreneurs, free agents, or human capital, constitute the fastest growing sector of the workforce in the world. Peter Drucker, the eminent management writer credited with coining the term knowledge worker, defines these individuals as "high level employees who apply theoretical and analytical knowledge, acquired through formal education, to develop new products or services".
In manufacturing, facility layout consists of configuring the plant site with lines, buildings, major facilities, work areas, aisles, and other pertinent features such as department boundaries. While facility layout for services may be similar to that for manufacturing, it also may be somewhat different—as is the case with offices, retailers, and warehouses.
Studies of leadership styles are diverse in nature and multiple definitions have been offered. However, leadership style can be defined broadly as the manner and approach of providing direction, implementing plans, and motivating people.
Leadership can be defined as a process by which one individual influences others toward the attainment of group or organizational goals. Three points about the definition of leadership should be emphasized.
Associated with Japanese management techniques, just-in-time production (JIT) is a set of principles and practices based on the philosophy that firms should hold little or no inventory beyond that required for immediate production or distribution. That is, a manufacturer should receive raw materials or parts from its suppliers perhaps just hours before they will be used in production, and the firm's output should be shipped to its customers as soon after completion as possible—without holding onto a stock of either raw goods or finished products.
A leveraged buyout (LBO) is a restructuring of the capitalization and ownership of a company. The term leveraged refers to the use of debt as the primary method of financing the restructuring.
A license provides the legal authority to engage in certain acts. Some licenses are required for the protection of the public.
Organizational structure involves, in addition to task organizational boundary considerations, the designation of jobs within an organization and the relationships among those jobs. There are numerous ways to structure jobs within an organization, but two of the most basic forms include simple line structures and line-and-staff structures.
Listening is a critical part of communication, and poor listening can contribute to a host of interpersonal and organizational problems. Because a great deal of communication time is spent listening, errors are often costly.
Being in the right location is a key ingredient in a business's success. If a company selects the wrong location, it may have adequate access to customers, workers, transportation, materials, and so on.