Introduction to Canadian Business System

Chapter 1: The Canadian Business System

• Businesses aim to profit by producing and selling products
  • Example: Clothing store buying clothes from manufacturers and selling for profit
• Non-profit organizations provide goods and services without profit aims
  • Example: Charity raising money for homeless shelter
• Government interactions with businesses:
  • Government buys goods and services
  • Government may compete with businesses
  • Sets regulations: Environmental and safety standards
  • Collects taxes from profit and payroll
  • Offers incentives for job creation and innovation
  • Provides essential services like education, healthcare
• Canadian economy: Focused on private enterprise with minimal government controls
  • Individuals have freedoms, choice, profit and compete

Degrees of Competition

• Perfect Competition: Many firms, identical products, low entry barriers
  • Example: Agricultural markets
• Monopolistic Competition: Many firms, differentiated products, low entry barriers
  • Example: Restaurants
• Oligopoly: Few firms, high entry barriers
  • Example: Telecommunications industry (Rogers, Bell, Telus)
• Monopoly: One firm, no competition
  • Example: Utility company with exclusive right to provide electricity

Chapter 6: Managing the Business Enterprise

• Management Process "P.L.O.C": Planning, Leading, Organizing, Controlling

  • Planning: Setting goals and strategies to achieve them
  • Example: Creating a five-year strategic plan

• Key Management Skills: Technical, Human Relations, Conceptual, Time Management, and Decision Making

  • Technical Skills: Knowledge to perform tasks (like software developer's coding)
  • Human Relations Skills: Working effectively with people
  • Conceptual Skills: Seeing the "big picture"
  • Time Management Skills: Time use effectively
  • Decision-Making Skills: Deciding among alternatives

Setting Goals and Formulating Strategy

• Strategic Management: Aligning the organization with its external environment and achieving its goals.
  • Mission Statement: Defining the organizational purpose
  • Example: A company's mission could be "provide high quality affordable products that improve people's lives"
  • SWOT Analysis: Identifying internal strengths/weaknesses, and external opportunities/threats
  • Example: Finding ways to keep a coffee shop's cost down
  • Hierarchy of Plans: Strategic, tactical, and operational plans
    • Example: Strategic: Opening 5 stores in 3 years, Tactical: Getting funding and hiring staff

Chapter 2: Managing in a Global Environment

• Organizational Boundaries and Environments
  • External Environment: Factors (government regulations, competition, economic conditions) outside company control
  • Organizational Boundaries: Separates a company from its external environment, e.g., factory walls or legal frameworks
• Dimensions of the External Environment: Economic, Technological, Political-Legal, and Socio-Cultural

Chapter 4: Managing Entrepreneurially

• Small Business: Owner-managed business with fewer than 100 employees
• New Venture: Newly formed organization offering products or services
• Entrepreneurship: Identifying and capitalizing on marketplace opportunities
  • Entrepreneur: Person who seizes the opportunity
  • Intrapreneur: Creates something new within an existing organization.
• Role of Small Businesses: Important for job creation and innovation, in Canada about 98% of employers

Entrepreneurial Process

• Identifying Opportunities: Generting and screening ideas
• Developing Opportunities: Creating a business plan
• Accessing Resources: Different financing methods (e.g., personal savings, loans, equity)
• Assessing the Fit: Making sure entrepreneur, opportunity, and resources align

Buying an existing Business

• Advantages: Established customer base, tested business model
• Disadvantages: Potential problems, inheriting mistakes

Forms of Business Organizations

• Sole Proprietorship: Owned by one person, simple structure, low start-up costs, unlimited liability, difficult raising money
• Partnership: Two or more owners, shared resources and expertise, complex structure, unlimited liability, potential for conflict
• Corporation: Separate legal entity from owners, limited liability, complex structure, double taxation -Public corporation: shares traded on an exchange -Private corporation: shares held by a few investors
• Co-operative: Owned and controlled by members

Chapter 7: Organizing the Business Enterprise

• Organizational Structure Definition: Specification of jobs and their relationships
• Key Determinants: Purpose, size, technology, and environment
• Building Blocks of Organizational Structure
  • Specialization: Assigning individuals to specific jobs
  • Departmentalization: Grouping jobs to logical units (e.g., functions, customers, products, geographic)
• Decision-Making Hierarchy: Flow of power and responsibility
• Centralization vs. Decentralization
• Span of Control
• Forms of Authority
• Basic Organizational Structures: Functional, Divisional, Project, and Matrix

Chapter 8: Managing Human Resources

• Human Resource Management (HRM)
  • Job analysis: Studying job duties and needed qualifications
  • Forecasting HR Demand and Supply: Determining future staffing requirements
  • Recruiting
  • Selecting
  • Training and Development
  • Performance Appraisal
  • Compensation and Benefits
• Legal Context of HRM: Meeting legal requirements (e.g., employment equity, safety)
• Managing Workforce Diversity

Chapter 9: Leadership: Part A

• Employee Behaviour: Actions contributing to the organization's goals
• Organizational Citizenship: Going above and beyond
• Counterproductive Behaviors: Actions harmful to the organization
• Individual Differences: Personality, attitudes, emotions (e.g., emotional intelligence)
• Job Satisfaction

Chapter 9: Leadership: Part B

• Leadership Definition: Motivating others to meet goals
• Leadership Approaches: Trait, Behavioral, and Situational
• Leadership Styles: Autocratic, Democratic, and Free-Rein
• Recent Trends in Leadership

Chapter 10: Part A Operations Management

• Operations Management: Methods used in production
• Creating Value Through Production
  • Utility (time, place, ownership, and form)
• Operations Processes: Planning, layout, and control
  • Capacity Planning
  • Layout Planning
  • Scheduling
  • Materials Management

Chapter 10: Part B Productivity and Quality

• Productivity-Quality Connection, concepts, tools for quality assurance and improvement

Chapter 11: Accounting

• Accounting: Collecting, analyzing, communicating financial information.
  • Bookkeeping: Recording financial transactions.
  • Accounting Information System (AIS): Systems for managing financial information.
• Users of accounting information
  • Managers
  • Employees
  • Investors
  • Creditors
  • Government agencies
• Types of accounting
  • Financial accounting (reporting to external parties)
  • Managerial accounting (reporting to internal managers)
• Accounting Standards