Chapter 1

Baby boomers: a demographic group of Canadians who were born in the period from 1946 to 1964.

Business: any activity that seeks to provide goods and services to others while operating at a profit.

Business environment: the surrounding factors that either help or hinder the development of
businesses.

Climate change: the movement of temperature of the planet up or down over time.

Crowdsourcing: using the expertise of a large group of people to solve a business problem.

Database: an electronic storage file for information.

Demography: the statistical study of the human population with regard to its size, density and other
characteristics, such as age, race, gender and income.

E-business: any information system or application that empowers business processes.

E-commerce: the buying and selling of goods and services over the internet.

Empowerment: giving front-line workers the responsibility, authority, and freedom to respond
quickly to customer requests.

Entrepreneur: a person who risks time and money to start and manage a business.

Factors of production: the resources used to create wealth: land, labour, capital goods,
entrepreneurship, and knowledge.

Generation X: a demographic group of Canadians who were born in the period from 1965 to 1976.

Generation Y (Millennials): a demographic group of Canadians who were born in the period from
1977 to 1994; the children of baby boomers.

Generation Z: a demographic group of Canadians who were born in the period from 1995 onward.

Goods: tangible products such as computers, food, clothing, cars, and appliances.

Greening: the trend toward saving energy and producing products that cause less harm to the
environment.

Humanistic management: a people-oriented management approach that emphasizes the dignity

and well-being of employees.

Identity theft: obtaining an individual’s personal information, such as Social Insurance Number and
credit card numbers, for illegal purposes.

Insourcing: assigning various functions that could go to an outside organization to employees in the
company.

Loss: when a business’s expenses are more than its revenues.

Non-profit organization: an organization whose goals do not include making a profit for its owners
or organizers.

Offshoring: sourcing part 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.

Productivity: the amount of output that is generated given the amount of input (e.g. hours worked).

Profit: the amount a business earns above and beyond what it spends for salaries and other
expenses.

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.

Regulations: restrictions that provincial and federal laws place on businesses with respect to the
conduct of their activities.

Revenue: the total amount of money received during a given period for goods sold and services
rendered, and from other financial sources.

Risk: the chance of loss, the degree of probability of loss, and the amount of possible loss (i.e., time
and money).

Services: intangible products (i.e., products that can’t be held in your hand) such as education,
health care, insurance, recreation, and travel and tourism.

Stakeholders: all the people who stand to gain or lose by the policies and activities of a business.

Standard of Living: the amount of goods and services people can buy with the money they have.

Sustainability: social perspectives focus on quality of human life; economic views emphasize a
steady-state economy.

Technology: everything from phones and copiers to computers, mobile devices, medical imaging
machines, and the various software programs and apps that make businesses processes more
effective, efficient and productive.

Appendix A
Broadband technology: technology that offers users a connection to the internet and allows users to
send and receive mammoth flies that include voice, video and data much faster than ever before.

Business Intelligence (BI) (or analytics): the use of data analytic tools to analyze an organization’s
raw data and derive useful insights.

Cloud computing: a form of virtualization in which a company’s data and applications are stored at
offsite centers that are accessed over the Internet (the cloud).

Cookies: pieces of information, such as registration data or user preferences, sent by a website over
the Internet to a web browser that the browser software is expected to save and send back to the
server whenever the user returns to that website.

Data analytics: the process of collecting, organizing, storing, and analyzing large sets of data (“big
data”) in order to identify patterns and other information that is most useful to the businesses now
and for making future decisions.
Data mining: a technique to find hidden patterns and previously unknown relationships among the
data.

Data processing: name for business technology in the 1970s; included technology that supported an
existing business and was primarily used to improve the flow of financial information.

Enterprise portal: a centralized and secure online network for information and transactions.

Extranet: a semi-private network that uses Internet technology and allows more than one company
to access the same information or allows people on different severs to collaborate.

Hackers: people who illegally access online information.

Information systems (IS): technology that helps companies do business; includes such tools as
automated teller machines (ATMs) and voice mail.

Information technology (IT): technology that helps companies change business by allowing them to
use new methods.

Internet2: the private Internet system that links government supercomputer centers and select a
group of universities; it runs more than 22 000 times faster than today’s public infrastructure and
supports heavy-duty applications.

Internet of Things (IoT): refers to data-collecting technologies that connect ordinary objects to the
internet through sensors, cameras, software, databases, and massive data centers. Often, those
technologies can communicate with one another.

Intranet: a company wide network, closed to public access, that uses Internet-type technology.

Phishing: e-mails embellished with a stolen logo from a well-known enterprise (often from financial
institutions) that makes the messages look authentic, but which are used to collect personal data
and use it to commit fraud.

Virtual networking: a process that allows software-based, networked computers to run multiple
operating systems and programs, and share storage.

Virtual private network (VPN): a private data network that creates secure connections, or “tunnels”
over regular Internet lines.

Virus: a piece of programming code inserted into other programming to cause some unexpected
and, for the victim, usually undesirable event.

Web 2.0: the set of tools that allow people to build social and business connections, share
information, and collaborate on projects online (including blogs, wikis, social networking sites and
other online communities, and virtual worlds).

Web 3.0: a combination of technologies that adds intelligence and changes how people interact with
the web, and vice versa (consists of the semantic web, mobile web, and immersive Internet).

Chapter 2
Boom: a period that brings jobs, growth, and economic prosperity.

Brain drain: the loss of educated people to other countries.

Business cycles (economic cycles): the periodic rises and falls that occur in economies over time.

Capitalism: an economic system in which all or most of the factors of production and distribution are
privately owned and operated for profit.

Command economy: an economy in which the government largely decides what goods and services
are produced, who gets them, and how the economy will grow.

Communism: an economic and political system in which the state (the government) makes all the
economic decisions and owns almost all of the major factors of production.

Consumer price index (CPI): a monthly statistic that measures the pace of inflation or deflation.

Deflation: a situation in which prices are declining.

Demand: the quantity of products that people are willing to buy at different prices at a specific time.

Depression: a severe recession.

Disinflation: a situation in which price increases are slowing (the inflation rate is declining).

Economic cycles (business cycles): the periodic rises and falls that occur in economies over time.

Economics: the study of how society chooses to employ resources to produce goods and services
and distribute them for consumption among various competing groups and individuals.

Free-market economy: an economy in which the market largely determines what goods and services
are produced, who gets them, and how the economy grows.

Gross domestic product (GDP): the total value of goods and services produced in a country in a
given year.

Human development index (HDI): a measure of a country’s progress that includes wealth, health
and education.

Inflation: a general rise in the prices of goods and services over time.

Invisible hand: a phrased coined by Adam Smith to describe the process that turns self-directed gain
into social and economic benefits for all.

Macroeconomics: the part of economic study that looks at the operation of a nation’s economy as a
whole.

Market price: the price determined by supply and demand.

Microeconomics: the part of economic study that looks at the behavior of people and organizations
in particular markets.

Mixed economies: economic systems in which some allocation of resources is made by the market
and some by the government.

Monopolistic competition: the market situation in which a large number of sellers produce very
similar products that buyers nevertheless perceive as different.

Monopoly: a market in which there is only one seller for a product or service.

Oligopoly: a form of competition in which just a few sellers dominate the market.
Perfect competition: the market situation in which there are many sellers in a market and no seller
is large enough to dictate the price of a product.

Recession: two or more consecutive quarters of decline in the GDP.

Recovery: when the economy stabilizes and starts to grow.

Resource development: the study of how to increase resources and the creation of conditions that
will make better use of those resources (e.g., recycling).

Socialism: an economic system based on the premise that some, if not most, basic businesses should
be owned by the government so that profits can be evenly distributed among the people.

Stagflation: a situation in which the economy is slowing but prices are going up regardless.

Supply: the quantity of products that manufactures or owners are willing to sell at different prices at
a specific time.

Unemployment rate: the percentage of the labour force that actively seeks work but is unable to
find work at a given time.