Preface
My goal in writing this textbook is to provide instructors with a fully developed teaching package that enhances student learning and supports teaching initiatives. Exploring Business is designed to be a powerful but simple-to-use teaching tool. I’ve devised a broad range of features that allow instructors to introduce students to business in an exciting way, but also worked to fashion material that’s straightforward, current, relevant, and easy to teach from. The text covers business essentials and maintains academic rigor without burdening students and instructors with unnecessary detail. In creating the teaching package, I relied on my twelve years of experience developing, directing, and teaching an award-winning Introduction to Business course.
What’s New in the Fourth Edition
Given the dynamic nature of business today, it is essential that introduction-to-business texts stay current. Consequently, this was a major goal of the Version 4.0. To accomplish this goal, the coverage in each chapter was updated to reflect today’s business environment. The chapter content, cases, tables, figures, exercises, problems, and assessment questions were all updated. Recent topics of interest to students were added, including discussions on the coronavirus pandemic, capitalism and socialism, unethical practices of medical profession contributing to the opioid crisis, global warming and climate change, artificial intelligence, 3-D printing, and the Internet of Things. Additional company examples were added to the text, bringing the number of company examples of interest to students to seventy-five.
The COVID-19 global pandemic that appeared in early 2020 impacted nearly every aspect of society, government, the business environment, and, of course, businesses themselves—large and small, profit and nonprofit alike. As I prepared the final manuscript for Version 4.0, the medium- and long-term impacts of the pandemic were still very hazy. There will certainly be any number of sacrifices to make and obstacles to overcome for the duration of this crisis. Many will suffer terrible losses. We do not know what the “new normal” will turn out to be once the initial crisis abates. What we do know, however, is that the spirit of innovation and an underlying resilience are key qualities unique to Americans. Businesses will face the challenges to come and either adapt and thrive or disappear. It takes a flexible, entrepreneurial mindset to succeed in such unpredictable times.
In addition to the revisions throughout Version 4.0 that are related to COVID-19, there are a number of numerous new topics, features, and updates that make Version 4.0 current:
Chapter 1 “The Foundations of Business”—Updated the section on What Is Economics by adding a subsection on the “Comparison of Capitalism and Socialism.” Also added a discussion of the impact of the coronavirus pandemic on students, other individuals, and businesses.
Chapter 3 “Selecting a Form of Business Ownership”—Updated the section on “Mergers and Acquisitions” by adding a discussion of the recent acquisition of 21st Century Fox by Disney, and the merger of Keurig Green Mountain and Dr Pepper Group.
Chapter 4 “Business Ethics and Social Responsibility”—Updated the section on “Misgoverning Corporations: An Overview” by adding a subsection on the unethical actions of medical professionals that contributed to the “Unlawful Distribution of Opioids.” Added information on businesses helping during the COVID-19 epidemic to the section on “Corporate Social Responsibility.” Made several expansions and additions to the Environmentalism section, including expanding the discussion on “Air Pollution” and adding a subsection on “Climate Change and Global Warming.”
Chapter 6 “Recruiting, Motivating, and Keeping Quality Employees”—Updated the “Labor Unions” section by expanding the discussion of reasons for the decline in union membership.
Chapter 7 “Product Design and Development” Added a section on “Artificial Intelligence.”
Chapter 8 “Operations Management in Manufacturing and Service Industries”—Updated “The Technology of Goods Production” section by adding a subsection on “Automation and Robots” and a subsection on “3D Printing.”
Chapter 10 “Marketing: Providing Value to Customers”—Updated “The Marketing Environment” section by adding a subsection on “Generation Z.”
Chapter 11 “Operating in a Digital Marketing and Social Networking Environment”—Updated the “Product” section by adding a subsection on “The Internet of Things (IoT).”
Chapter 13 “Managing Financial Resources”—Updated the “Role of the Financial Manager” section by expanding the discussion on “Crowdfunding.”
Given the increasing student interest in entrepreneurship, the text adopts an entrepreneurial chapter order that follows the steps an entrepreneur would take in starting and growing a business. But, and this is important, this chapter order can be changed to accommodate your preferences. Using FlatWorld’s fast and easy-to-use online editor, you can easily customize your book to suit your needs and those of your students. You can rearrange chapters and add, remove, or restructure content to create the perfect text for your class and improve student success.
Overview of Textbook Package
I’ve built a textbook package that’s as supportive as possible to both students and instructors. The textbook package supports learning through content and teaching materials designed to help students master topics and assess their knowledge. The text is written using a student-friendly, conversational writing style that simplifies complex materials, captures students’ attention and makes reading the book enjoyable.
The seventeen chapters are written using a modular format with self-contained sections. Each module ends with a list of “Key Takeaways,” assessment questions, and relevant exercises written to assist students as they learn from the text.
This text uses more than seventy-five company-specific examples of interest to students, including Uber, Facebook, Under Armour, Tesla, Airbnb, GoPro, Apple, Amazon, Ben & Jerry’s, Starbucks, and Subway. However, I improve on the traditional approach by adding an optional case study of a dynamic organization that can easily be integrated into each chapter of the text. The company chosen for this purpose is Nike (although an instructor could use any company of his or her choice). I have also included an optional business plan project.
The textbook package is flexible enough to meet the needs of four groups of instructors—those who want to:
teach the course using the textbook alone;
teach the course using the comprehensive, optional Nike case (or a company of their choice);
teach the course using the optional business plan project; or
teach the course by incorporating both a company case study and the business plan project.
Enhanced Learning
“Tell me and I forget. Teach me and I remember. Involve me and I learn.”
I believe that this quote [often attributed to Benjamin Franklin] summarizes an important goal of this textbook package: to encourage students to be active learners. Thus, I’ve designed the textbook to facilitate the attainment of this goal. To give you a flavor of the purpose of these online materials, let’s take a quick tour of the features available for each chapter:
Active Figures—which simulate the process that a faculty member goes through in class when diagramming a concept on the board, one piece at a time.
Active Exercises—which engage students in active learning and help them master key concepts.
Active Assessment Questions—which provide students with instant feedback and reinforce learning.
In addition, I strive to enhance student learning through thought-provoking questions, problems, and cases that ask students to do more than merely regurgitate information from the text. Most of these exercises require students to gather information, assess a situation, think about it critically, and reach a conclusion. Many are based on current business situations involving well-known companies of interest to students.
Each chapter presents a number of questions and problems as well as five end-of-chapter cases on areas of skill and knowledge endorsed by the Association to Advance Collegiate Schools of Business (AACSB): Learning on the Web, Career Opportunities, The Ethics Angle, Team-Building Skills, and The Global View. The questions are challenging and stimulating, and most are appropriate for in-class discussions. More than 70 percent of our items help students build skills in areas designated as critical by AACSB, including analytical skills, ethical awareness and reasoning abilities, multicultural understanding and globalization, use of information technology, and communications and team-oriented skills.
Assessment is a vital part of the learning process. Comprehensive assessments, such as final exams, help determine what students comprehend and retain from the material they have studied, usually over an extended period of time. Interim assessments, such as quizzes and homework assignments, help faculty and students determine if a student is on track to successful achievement of learning outcomes. Consequently, a key goal of the teaching package that accompanies Exploring Business is to provide an ample number of well-constructed items that get to the heart of student learning and measure critical understandings of core concepts. Adopters of this book have access to a total of 4,000 author-prepared questions, including 400 quiz questions embedded in the online book that feature immediate feedback; 300 end-of-section questions and problems; 90 end-of-chapter questions, problems, and cases; 600 items preloaded into FlatWorld’s online homework system; and 2,500 test-item questions available in three options: as a Word file; pre-loaded into a computer-generated test system; and as a pre-formatted file for easy import into the most popular learning management systems (LMS).
Author-Prepared Supplements
For twelve years, I developed, coordinated, and taught an Introduction to Business course in which first-year students were introduced to business. During this twelve-year period, more than 3,500 students took the course. Over the years, sections of the course were taught by a mix of permanent faculty, business executives, adjuncts, graduate students, and even the dean. Each semester, I oversaw the course and guided approximately ten instructors as they taught their sections—a task that was made possible through the development and continuous improvement of teaching materials.
This text offers an extensive assortment of teaching materials, including a Test Item File, Test Generator, Homework System, Instructor’s Manual, PowerPoint Slides, Flash Cards, optional chapter-integrated Case Study, and optional Business Plan Project. In addition, it includes two packets of relevant materials: one for those using the business plan and the other for those adopting the case study. Because I feel strongly that well-structured and easily understood teaching materials are vital to the success of this course, I have personally written or completely revised all of the supplements.
Test Item File
The teaching package includes an extensive Test Item File designed to assess students’ understanding of each of the learning objectives. The comprehensive Test Item File is grouped by module and consists of more than 2,000 items. I have written most of the test questions, including questions on the new material, and have reviewed the others. All items, which have been updated for this new edition, are meant to reinforce the major topics of the chapters.
Test Generator
FlatWorld is pleased to provide a computer-generated test program to assist instructors with selecting, randomizing, formatting, loading online, or printing exams. Please contact your local FlatWorld representative or FlatWorld support (support@fwk.com) for more information or to request the program.
Free Homework System
Do you want to find out how your class is doing? Or know if your students comprehend the material being covered? Measuring class progress and comprehension is easy using FlatWorld’s web-based homework system. And the best part: The system is free. Students get access to the homework system with their textbook at no extra cost. It’s also easy to use—you can create an assignment in minutes by selecting questions from a pool of specifically designed, multi-format questions (plus some of your own if you want), and FlatWorld does the rest. The system provides feedback to each student and class statistics to you. It can be accessed through FlatWorld’s stand-alone interface or through your learning management system (e.g., Canvas, Moodle, Brightspace/D2L, Blackboard). Students can complete their homework assignment from any device using a standard web browser. To learn more about the system and to watch a demo go to https://catalog.flatworldknowledge.com/homework. As with all the supplements, I have written or revised all of the questions included in the homework system.
Instructor’s Manual
In writing the Instructor’s Manual I relied on the experiences that I’ve gained in developing these materials for my faculty team. The Instructor’s Manual includes comprehensive teaching notes that integrate material from the chapter with extensive in-class and out-of-class exercises, cases, and teaching tips. Separate teaching packets provide material geared toward the optional Nike case study, and material dedicated to the optional business plan project. The easy-to-use notes include teaching tips and ample in-class activities. The Instructor’s Manual also contains author-prepared solutions to all questions, problems, and cases. The extensive instructors' manual is an extremely helpful aid to instructors teaching in-class, online, or in hybrid classes.
PowerPoint Slides
There are about forty-five to fifty custom-designed PowerPoint slides per chapter. The slides highlight key learning objectives in each module. They are designed to engage students with various learning styles and help instructors cover vital concepts through visuals. To help those instructors teaching either online or hybrid courses, I created all new PowerPoint slides for this 4th edition. These detailed PowerPoint slides can be used online to guide a conversation with students and can be shared with students to supplement their note taking.
Nike: An Optional Case Study
An optional Nike case study is available for those instructors who decide to introduce their students to business using an exciting case—one which is updated yearly. Through an in-depth study of a real company, students can learn not only about the functional areas of business, but how these functional areas fit together. Studying a dynamic organization on a real-time basis allows students to discover the challenges that it faces and exposes them to critical issues affecting the business, such as globalization, ethics and social responsibility, diversity, sustainability, product innovation, supply chain management, e-business, and social media marketing.
Students learn about Nike by reading a case study based on extensive research and executive interviews. The case is broken down into individual case notes, which are linked to the appropriate sections of the text. Each provides a real-world example to help students master a particular business topic. For example, after reading about the ways companies promote their products, students are directed to a Nike case note that traces the evolution of the company’s promotional strategies, including its well-known sports-marketing efforts. After reading chapter materials on the pros and cons of doing business in a global environment, students can read a Nike case note that examines both the benefits that the company derives from its international operations and the responsibilities that Nike has to the countries in which it operates.
Current (and sometimes controversial) topics can be woven into the class through Nike-related memo or e-mail writing (or debating) assignments accompanying each chapter. These assignments, which are updated frequently, provide students with an opportunity to strengthen their writing skills and form opinions on current issues affecting Nike. I’ve found that, by studying Nike, students willingly participate in classroom discussions. Why? Because Nike is on just about everybody’s radar screen. Students enjoy discussing the opportunities and challenges faced by Nike and speculating on what the company intends to do about them, now and in the future.
The Nike case is optional. Instructors can use all of the case, none of the case, or something in between. Alternatively, instructors can use the case as a template for developing a case study based on a company of their choice. I would be happy to help any instructor interested in developing his or her own case.
A “Nike Case” packet is available for any instructor wishing to integrate the Nike case into their course. The packet includes a revised syllabus, Nike case notes, exam questions and answers, writing assignments and grading templates, discussion notes on Nike topics, teaching notes, teaching tips, and numerous other materials I prepared during my twelve years developing and teaching the course, utilizing a two-year faculty fellowship with Accenture and a twelve-year partnership with Nike.
Optional Business Plan Project
Having students develop a business plan as a component of an Introduction to Business course has considerable academic value. A business plan project introduces students to the excitement and challenges of starting a business and helps them discover how the functional areas of business interact. Thus, this textbook package includes an optional business plan project that’s fully integrated into the book. The business plan project is modeled after one used and refined by me and my teaching team over a twelve-year period. During this time period, more than 800 student teams prepared and presented business plans using this approach.
If their instructor elects to assign the business plan project, students begin the project early in the course by reviewing a document describing the business plan project. In the chapters that follow, students are asked to complete another section of the ten-part business plan project. By the time they’ve reached the end of the course, they’re shown how to integrate each of these individual sections into a final version of the plan. Because the project is carefully coordinated with the presentation of course materials, students are able to apply what they’re learning, as they’re learning it, to the practical process of preparing a business plan.
Because I understand that preparing the financial section of the business plan can be difficult for students, we furnish students with an Excel template, which can be accessed at https://downloads.flatworldknowledge.com/collins_3/Collins_ExpBus_v3.0_BusPlan_Template.xls, that simplifies the process of preparing financial reports for their proposed businesses. They don’t even need to be competent in Excel to use it; it’s designed to be simple to use, and we provide detailed instructions.
A “Business Plan Project” packet is available for any instructor wishing to integrate the Business plan project into their course. The packet includes a revised syllabus, team assignment instructions, team-building exercises, team member rating sheets, teaching notes, guest presentation suggestions, instructions for events such as Banker’s Day when student teams seek financing by presenting their business plan to bankers and alum, team presentations, grading templates for presentations, business plan contest guidelines, and numerous other materials.
Introduction-to-Business Community
Those teaching Introduction to Business come from varied backgrounds but share common goals of building excitement among students about business and sparking their interest in future business courses. I wrote this text to provide members of this community with a fully developed teaching package that enhances the learning environment and helps them introduce students to business in an exciting way. My hope is that by sharing my materials, experiences, and approach to teaching with others, they will enjoy the course as much as I have.
Karen Collins