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Business

Business

Business refers to at least three closely related commercial topics. The first is a commercial, professional or industrial organization or enterprise, generally referred to as "a business." The second is commercial, professional, and industrial activity generally, as in "business continues to evolve as markets change." Finally, business can be used to refer to a particular area of economic activity, such as the "record business" or the "computer business" (see Industry). This article is concerned primarily with the first definition of individual businesses, but also contains links to general business and management topics, in the sense of the second definition. Individual businesses are established in order to perform economic activities. With some exceptions (such as cooperatives, non-profit organizations and generally, institutions of government), businesses exist to produce profit. In other words, the owners and operators of a business have as one of their main objectives the receipt or generation of a financial return in exchange for expending time, effort and capital.

Types of Businesses

There are many types of businesses, and, as a result, businesses can be classified in many ways. One of the most common focuses on the primary profit-generating activities of a business, for example:
- Manufacturers produce products, from raw materials or component parts, which they then sell at a profit. Companies that make physical goods, such as cars or pipes, are considered manufacturers.
- Service businesses offer intangible goods or services and typically generate a profit by charging for labor or other services provided to other businesses or consumers. Organizations ranging from house painters to consulting firms to restaurants are types of service businesses.
- Retailers and Distributors act as middle-men in getting goods produced by manufacturers to the intended consumer, generating a profit as a result of providing sales or distribution services. Most consumer-oriented stores and catalogue companies are distributors or retailers.
- Agriculture and mining businesses are concerned with the production of raw material, such as plants or minerals.
- Financial businesses include banks and other companies that generate profit through investment and management of capital.
- Information businesses generate profits primarily from the resale of intellectual property and include movie studios, publishers and packaged software companies.
- Utilities produce public services, such as heat, electricity, or sewage treatment, and are usually government chartered.
- Real estate businesses generate profit from the selling, renting, and development of properties, homes, and buildings.
- Transportation businesses deliver goods and individuals from location to location, generating a profit on the transportation costs. There are many other divisions and subdivisions of businesses. The authoritative list of business types for North America (although it is widely used around the world) is generally considered to be the NAICS, or North American Industry Classification System. The equivalent European Union list is the [http://www.fifoost.org/database/nace/nace-en_2002AB.php NACE].

Business departments

Within businesses one can often find similar departments, named (and not limited to):
- Administration
- Finance & controlling
- Human ressources
- Management
- Marketing & sales
- Production/service
- Purchasing

Business and Government

Most legal jurisdictions specify the forms that a business can take, and a body of commercial law has developed for each type. Some common types include partnerships, corporations (also called limited liability companies), and sole proprietorships.

Business and Management

The study of the efficient and effective operation of a business is called management. The main branches of management are financial management, marketing management, human resource management, strategic management, production management, service management, information technology management, and business intelligence.

External links

- [http://business-articles.us/ Business Articles]
- [http://www.growfolio.com/ growFolio - Online Business Magazine for Fresh Thinkers]
- [http://finance.yahoo.com/ Yahoo! Finance] Aggregates some really good business articles
- Category:Academic disciplines Category:School subjects ja:ビジネス th:ธุรกิจ

Non-profit organization

A non-profit organization (sometimes abbreviated to "not-for-profit," "non-profit" or "NPO") is an organization whose primary objective is to support some issue or matter of private interest or public concern for non-commercial purposes. Non-profits may be involved in an innumerable range of areas relating to the arts, charities, education, politics, religion, research, or some other endeavor. Although non-profits do not operate to generate profit, they still need to generate revenue in order to finance their activities. However, the extent to which non-profits may generate income may be constrained, or the use of such income may be restricted. Non-profits are therefore typically funded by donations from the private or public sector. Private donations may sometimes be tax deductible. A charity is a type of non-profit organization, and some non-governmental organizations may also be non-profit organizations.

Structure

Most non-profits do not have members, although they may. The non-profit may also be a trust or association of members. The organization may be controlled by its members who elect the Board of Directors or Board of Trustees. Not-for-profit organizations may have a delegate structure to allow for the representation of groups or corporations as members. Alternately, it may be a non-membership organization and the board of directors may elect its own successors. Although the characteristic of not earning or "making" a profit is widely believed by the general public to be definitive, most experts today agree that it is actually legal and ethical restrictions on the distribution of profits to owners or shareholders that is the defining characteristic of nonprofits.

Resource Capacity

Capacity support is a chronic issues faced by all non-profits that rely on external funding to maintain their operations. Often nonprofit capacity needs do not reflect donor priorities. For a more complete discussion on this issue, references and resources see Capacity building

Status

In most countries, non-profit organizations may apply for a tax exempt status; this means that financial donors may claim back any income taxes paid on money donated. A primary difference between a non-profit and a for-profit corporation is that a non-profit does not issue dividends, and may not enrich its directors. However, like for-profit corporations, non-profits may still have employees and can compensate their directors within reasonable bounds. Some critics of corporations argue that when they donate instead of paying taxes, the companies whitewash their reputations, sometimes paying even less than they would in taxes and benefitting in terms of marketing and public relations purposes. In some countries, e.g. in Europe, the idea of deductible donations is not endorsed as it is considered to violate the popular sovereignty. In a democracy, the people, i.e. the parliament, should be able to decide where the tax money goes. Donors indirectly decide on the use of their taxes which should be the privilege of parliament, not of individuals. In countries where donations are not tax-deductible, the state usually assumes a much larger role in supporting non-profit organizations.

Goals

Such "organizations" are often charities or service organizations; they may be organized as a not-for-profit corporation or as a trust, a cooperative or they may be purely informal. Sometimes they are also called foundations, or endowments that have large equity funds. Most foundations give out grants to other not-for-profit organizations, or fellowships to individuals. However, the name foundation may be used by any not-for-profit corporation -- even volunteer organizations or grass roots groups. A non-profit organization may be a very loosely organized group such as a block association, or a trade union, or it may be a complex structure such as a university, hospital, documentary film production company or educational book publisher. In many countries applying Germanic or Nordic law (e.g. Germany,Sweden, Finland), it is typical that non-profit organizations are voluntary associations although there are some non-profit organizations with a corporate structure (e.g. housing corporations). A voluntary association is usually founded upon a principle of one man–-one vote. A large, nation-wide organization is usually organized as a league: the local level has a town- or county-level association with natural person membership, these associations being members of the national association. This is perceived to give the local level the maximal autonomy, while it also protects the organization from financial blunders of any single association. The organization of such league (e.g. trade union or a party) may be extremely complex. Often there are separate laws regulating usual, “idealist“ associations (anything from a sports club to trade union), political parties and religious denominations, restricting each type of organization to its chosen field.

Laws

Most countries have laws governing the setting up, running, and reporting requirements of these organizations. Most larger organizations are required to publish their financial reports detailing their income and expenditure for the public. In many aspects they are similar to business entities though there are often significant differences. Both non-profit and for-profit entities must have board members, steering committee members, or trustees who owe the organization a fiduciary duty of loyalty and trust. A notable exception to this involves churches, which are often not required to disclose finances to anyone, not even its own members if the leadership choose.

Examples

The largest non-profit organization in the United States is the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, which has an endowment of approximately $27 billion. The second-largest is the Howard Hughes Medical Institute, which has an endowment of approximately $11 billion. The largest organisation of this kind in the rest of the world is probably the British Wellcome Trust, though it is a "charity" in British usage, not a "non-profit". Note that this listing excludes universities, at least a few of which have assets in the tens of billions of dollars.

Laws on non-profit organizations

- Commonwealth non-profit laws
- European Union non-profit laws
- People's Republic of China non-profit laws
- Republic of India non-profit laws
- Republic of Japan non-profit laws
- Russian Federation non-profit laws
- United States of America non-profit laws

United Kingdom

In the United Kingdom non-profit organizations are rarely considered as a single class of entity. All philanthropic organizations have to be registered with the Charity Commission and they are referred to as charities, not as non-profits. Other groups which are classified as non-profit organizations in the U.S., such as trade unions, are subject to separate regulations, and are not conflated with charities in British usage.

Examples of well known non-profit organizations

Some non-profits which are particularly well known, often for the charitable or social nature of their activities conducted over a long period of time, include the following organisations.
- AIESEC
- Amnesty International
- Better Business Bureau
- Big Brothers Big Sisters of America [http://www.bbbsa.com web site]
- Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation
- Idealist.org
- The Nature Conservancy
- Red Cross
- WWF Preserving wild animals
- YMCA
- PBS
- Teaching Matters Many non-profit organizations use the .org top-level domain when selecting a domain name to differentiate themselves from more commercially-focussed entities which typically use the .com space.

External links

- [http://internautconsulting.com/articles-nonprofitcapacity.shtm The Quiet Revolution in Non-profit Capacity Support], Jonathan Peizer, 2003
- [http://www.idealist.org Idealist.org], a database of 50,000 organizations around the world.
- [http://www.oreillynet.com/pub/a/policy/2005/04/28/nonprofits.html How to Build a Nonprofit for Your Community] — Using mozdev.org as an example.
- [http://capaciteria.org Capaciteria: over 1000 free nonprofit capacity support resources by category] ja:NPO simple:Non-Profit

Government

A government is the body that has the power to make and enforce laws within an organization or group. In its broadest sense, "to govern" means to administer or supervise, whether over an area of land, a set group of people, or a collection of assets. The word government is derived the Greek Κυβερνήτης (kubernites), which means "steersman", "governor", "pilot" or "rudder".

Definitions

One approach is to define government as the decision-making arm of the state, and define the latter on the basis of the control it has over violence and the use of force within its territory. Specifically, the state (and by extension the government) has been considered by some to be the entity that holds a monopoly on the legitimate use of force within a territory. This view has been taken by the political economist Max Weber and subsequent political philosophers. The exact meaning of it depends on what is understood by “legitimate”. If we use the term in an ethical sense, then this definition would suggest that an organisation might be considered a state by its supporters but not by its detractors. An alternative definition is to take "legitimate" violence to be simply that which has active or tacit acceptance by the vast majority of the population. In this view, the presence of insurrection or civil war against an entity would jeopardise its claim to be a state, provided the insurrection enjoyed significant popular support. Similarly, an entity that shared military or police power with independent militias and bandits could be considered to have a monopoly on “legitimate” violence but to be failing to enforce it, reducing its claim to statehood. In practice, such situations are often described as "failed states". Government can also be defined as the political means of creating and enforcing laws; typically via a bureaucratic hierarchy. Under this definition, a purely despotic organization which controls a territory without defining laws would not be considered a government. Another alternative is to define a government as an organisation that attempts to maintain control of a territory, where "control" involves activities such as collecting taxes, controlling entry and exit to the state, preventing encroachment of territory by neighbouring states and preventing the establishment of alternative governments within the country. In Commonwealth English, the word "Government" can also be used to refer only to the executive branch, in this context being a synonym for the word "administration" in American English (e.g. the Blair Government, the Bush Administration). In countries using the Westminster system, the Government (or party in Government) will also usually control the legislature. The French use of the word gouvernement covers both meanings, whereas Canadian French generally uses it to mean the executive branch. The German word Regierung refers only to government as the executive branch; the wider meaning of the word, government as a system, can be translated as Staatsgewalt.

Forms of government

Various forms of government have been implemented. A government in a developed state is likely to have various sub-organisations known as offices, departments, or agencies, which are headed by politically appointed officials, often called ministers or secretaries. Ministers may in theory act as advisors to the head of state, but in practice have a certain amount of direct power in specific areas. In most modern democracies, the elected legislative assembly has the power to dismiss the government, but in those states that have a separate head of government and head of state, the head of state generally has great latitude in appointing a new one.

Theories

There are a wide range of theories about the reasons for establishing governments. The four major ones are briefly described below. Note that they do not always fully oppose each other - it is possible for a person to subscribe to a combination of ideas from two or more of these theories.

Greed and oppression

Many political philosophies that are opposed to the existence of a government (such as Anarchism, and to a lesser extent Marxism), as well as others, emphasize the historical roots of governments - the fact that governments, along with private property, originated from the authority of warlords and petty despots who took, by force, certain patches of land as their own (and began exercising authority over the people living on that land). Thus, it is argued that governments exist to enforce the will of the strong and oppress the weak.

Order and tradition

The various forms of conservatism, by contrast, generally see the government as a positive force that brings order out of chaos, establishes laws to end the "war of all against all", encourages moral virtue while punishing vice, and respects tradition. Sometimes, in this view, the government is seen as something ordained by a higher power, as in the divine right of kings, which human beings have a duty to obey.

Natural rights

Natural rights are the basis for the theory of government shared by most branches of liberalism (including libertarianism). In this view, human beings are born with certain natural rights, and governments are established strictly for the purpose of protecting those rights. What the natural rights actually are is a matter of dispute among liberals; indeed, each branch of liberalism has its own set of rights that it considers to be natural, and these rights are sometimes mutually exclusive with the rights supported by other liberals.

Social contract

One of the most influential theories of government in the past two hundred years has been the social contract, on which modern democracy and most forms of socialism are founded. The social contract theory holds that governments are created by the people in order to provide for collective needs (such as safety from crime) that cannot be properly satisfied using purely individual means. Governments thus exist for the purpose of serving the needs and wishes of the people, and their relationship with the people is clearly stipulated in a "social contract" (a constitution and a set of laws) which both the government and the people must abide by. If a majority is unhappy, it may change the social contract. If a minority is unhappy, it may persuade the majority to change the contract, or it may opt out of it by emigration or secession.

Operations

Governments concern themselves with regulating and administering many areas of human activity, such as trade, education, medicine, entertainment, and war.

Enforcement of power

Governments use a variety of methods to maintain the established order, such as police and military forces, (particularly under despotism, see also police state), making agreements with other states, and maintaining support within the state. Typical methods of maintaining support and legitimacy include providing the infrastructure for administration, justice, transport, communication, social welfare etc., claiming support from deities, providing benefits to elites, holding elections for important posts within the state, limiting the power of the state through laws and constitutions (see also Bill of Rights) and appealing to nationalism. Different political ideologies hold different ideas on what the government should or should not do.

Territory

The modern standard unit of territory is a country. In addition to the meaning used above, the word state can refer either to a government or to its territory. Within a territory, subnational entities may have local governments which do not have the full power of a national government (for example, they will generally lack the authority to declare war or carry out diplomatic negotiations).

Scale of government

Main articles: government ownership, government spending The scale to which government should exist and operate in the world is a matter of debate. Government spending in developed countries varies considerably but generally makes up between about 30% and 70% of their GDP.

Financial return

Return on capital, also known as Return On Invested Capital (ROIC) is defined as NOPLAT / Invested Capital usually expressed as a percentage. NOPLAT = Net Operating Profit Less Adjusted Tax - used to normalise effects of company's capital structure. It's the net profit with a few costs backed out, cost of interest and depreciation (accrual accounting of capital expenditures). When the ROIC is greater than the cost of capital (usually measured as weighted average cost of capital), the company is creating value. When it is less than the cost of capital, value is destroyed. The cost of capital is just one of many costs in a company, so a company that has a profit on its income statement must by definition be "creating value".

Time

Attempting to understand Time has long been a prime occupation for philosophers, scientists and artists. There are widely divergent views about its meaning, hence it is difficult to provide an uncontroversial and clear definition of time. The Oxford English Dictionary defines it as "the indefinite continued progress of existence and events in the past, present, and future, regarded as a whole". Another standard dictionary definition is "a non-spatial linear continuum wherein events occur in an apparently irreversible order." This article looks at some of the main philosophical and scientific issues relating to time. The measurement of time has also occupied scientists and technologists, and was a prime motivation in astronomy. Time is also a matter of significant social importance, having economic value ("time is money") as well as personal value due to an awareness of the limited time in each day and in our lives. Units of time have been agreed upon to quantify the duration of events and the intervals between them. Regularly recurring events and objects with apparently periodic motion have long served as standards for units of time - such as the apparent motion of the sun across the sky, the phases of the moon, the swing of a pendulum.

Philosophy of time

Main article: Philosophy of space and time; Ontology In ancient thought, Zeno's paradoxes challenged the conception of infinite divisibility, and eventually led to the development of calculus. Parmenides (of whom Zeno was a follower) believed that time, motion, and change were illusions, basing this on a rather interesting argument. More recently, McTaggart held a similar belief. Newton believed time and space form a container for events, which is as real as the objects it contains. In contrast, Leibniz believed that time and space are a conceptual apparatus describing the interrelations between events. Leibniz and others thought of time as a fundamental part of an abstract conceptual framework, together with space and number, within which we sequence events, quantify their duration, and compare the motions of objects. In this view, time does not refer to any kind of entity that "flows", that objects "move through", or that is a "container" for events. The bucket argument proved problematic for Leibniz, and his account fell into disfavour, at least amongst scientists, until the development of Mach's principle. Modern physics views the curvature of spacetime around an object as much a feature of that object as are its mass and volume. Immanuel Kant, in the Critique of Pure Reason, described time as an a priori notion that allows us (together with other a priori notions such as space) to comprehend sense experience. With Kant, neither space nor time are conceived as substances, but rather both are elements of a systematic framework necessarily structuring the experiences of any rational agent. Spatial measurements are used to quantify how far apart objects are, and temporal measurements are used to quantify how far apart events occur. Nietzsche, inspired by the concept of eternal return in his book Thus Spoke Zarathustra, argued that time possesses a circular characteristic. Postulating an infinite past, "all things" must have come to pass therein; the same for an infinite future. In Existentialism, time is considered fundamental to the question of being, in particular by the philosopher Martin Heidegger.

Contemporary theses in the philosophy of time

In contempoary philosophy there has been a very active debate over the nature of time, especially in light of the big changes in physics since the 1920s. Contributors include Ned Markosian, Ted Sider, Quentin Smith, and L. Nathan Oaklander. Two major theses have been developed, along with some hybrids. There is no real consensus among philosophers about which, if any, is correct. The two major theories can be summed up as follows: 1. A-theory of time: Presentism: Oaklander writes: "[A] version of the pure A-theory, known as "", purports to avoid… the problem of change... According to presentism, only the present exists. Thus, it is not the case that, say, O is green and [then] O is red [if, for example, O is a tomato]." (Oaklander, L. Nathan. In Smith, Quentin, and Oaklander, L. Nathan. 1995. Time, Change, and Freedom. New York: Routledge. 2004, 27.) 2. B-theory of time: Eternalism: the following passage from L. Nathan Oaklander sums this up

…[T]ime [involves] events strung out along a series united to one another by the relations of earlier than, later and simultaneity… The events in the temporal series are fixed in that they never change their position relative to each other… It has become customary to call the entire series of events spread out along the time-line from earlier to later, the “B-series.” When viewed solely in terms of the B-series, time is thought of as static or unchanging for there is nothing about temporal relations between events that changes... Time not only has a static aspect, it also has a transitory aspect. In addition to conceiving of time in terms of events standing in temporal relations, we also conceive of time and the events in time as moving or passing from the far future to the near future, from the hear future to the present, and then from present they recede into the more and more distant past… When events are ordered in terms of the notions of past, present, or future they form what is called an “A-series.” It should be noted, of course, that the A- and B-series are not really “two” different series of events, but the same series ordered in two different ways. (Oaklander 2004,Page 69)

Time in physics

never change Main article: Time in physics Time is currently one of the few fundamental quantities (quantities which cannot be defined via other quantities because there is nothing more fundamental known at present). Thus, similar to definition of other fundamental quantities (like space and mass), time is defined via measurement. Currently, the standard time interval (called conventional second, or simply second) is defined as 9 192 631 770 oscillations of a hyperfine transition in the ¹³³Cs atom. Prior to Albert Einstein's relativistic physics, time and space had been treated as distinct dimensions; Einstein linked time and space into spacetime. Einstein showed that people traveling at different speeds will measure different times for events and different distances between objects, though these differences are minute unless one is traveling at a speed close to that of light. Many subatomic particles exist for only a fixed fraction of a second in a lab relatively at rest, but some that travel close to the speed of light can be measured to travel further and survive longer than expected. According to the special theory of relativity, in the high-speed particle's frame of reference, it exists for the same amount of time as usual, and the distance it travels in that time is what would be expected for that velocity. Relative to a frame of reference at rest, time seems to "slow down" for the particle. Relative to the high-speed particle, distances seems to shorten. Even in Newtonian terms time may be considered the fourth dimension of motion; but Einstein showed how both temporal and spatial dimensions can be altered (or "warped") by high-speed motion. Einstein (The Meaning Of Relativity - 1968): "Two events taking place at the points A and B of a system K are simultaneous if they appear at the same instant when observed from the middle point, M, of the interval AB. Time is then defined as the ensemble of the indications of similar clocks, at rest relatively to K, which register the same simultaneously."

Measurement

Present day standards

The standard unit for time is the SI second, from which larger units are defined like the minute, hour, and day. Because they do not use the decimal system, and because of the occasional need for a leap-second, the minute, hour, and day are "non-SI" units, but are officially accepted for use with the International System. There are no fixed ratios between seconds (or days) on the one hand and months and years on the other hand -- months and years having significant variations in length. Despite its great social importance, the week is not mentioned even as a "non-SI" unit. ([http://www1.bipm.org/utils/en/pdf/si-brochure.pdf See external pdf file: The International System of Units].) The measurement of time is so critical to the functioning of our modern societies that it is coordinated at an international level. The basis for scientific time is a continuous count of seconds based on atomic clocks around the world, known as International Atomic Time (TAI). This is the yardstick for other time scales including Coordinated Universal Time (UTC) which is the basis for civil time. The 60 base used for seconds, minutes and hours is all the remains of the ancient Phoenician counting base, using 60 as the equivalent of 10, or 100 in modern times. A 60 base is known as sexagesimal.

Chronology

Another form of time measurement consists of studying the past. Events in the past can be ordered in a sequence (creating a chronology), and be put into chronological groups (periodization). One of the most important systems of periodization is Geologic time, which is a system of periodizing the events that shaped the Earth and its life. Chronology, periodization, and interpretation of the past are together known as the study of history.

Psychology

Different people may judge identical lengths of time quite differently. Time can "fly"; that is, a long period of time can seem to go by very quickly. Likewise, time can seem to "drag," as in when one performs a boring task. The psychologist Jean Piaget called this form of time perception "lived time". Time appears to go fast when sleeping, or, to put it differently, time seems not to have passed while asleep. Time also appears to pass more quickly as one gets older. For example, a day for a child seems to last longer than a day for an adult. One possible reason for this is that with increasing age, each segment of time is an increasingly smaller percentage of the person's total experience. Altered states of consciousness are sometimes characterised by a different estimation of time. Some psychoactive substances--such as entheogens--may also dramatically alter a person's temporal judgement. In explaining his theory of relativity, Albert Einstein is often quoted as saying that although sitting next to a pretty girl for an hour feels like a minute, placing one's hand on a hot stove for a minute feels like an hour. This is intended to introduce the listener to the concept of the interval between two events being perceived differently by different observers.

Use of time

The use of time is an important issue in understanding human behaviour, education, and travel behaviour. The question concerns how time is allocated across a number of activities (such as time spent at home, at work, shopping, etc.). Time use changes with technology, as the television or the Internet created new opportunities to use time in different ways. However, some aspects of time use are relatively stable over long periods of time, such as the amount of time spent traveling to work, which despite major changes in transport, has been observed to be about 20-30 minutes one-way for a large number of cities over a long period of time. This has led to the disputed time budget hypothesis. Time management is the organization of tasks or events by first estimating how much time a task will take to be completed, when it must be completed, and then adjusting events that would interfere with its completion so that completion is reached in the appropriate amount of time. Calendars and day planners are common examples of time management tools. Arlie Russell Hochschild and Norbert Elias have written on the use of time from a sociological perspective.

References

- Oxford English Dictionary - [http://www.askoxford.com/concise_oed/time?view=uk]

External links

Perception of time

- [http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/time-experience/ The Experience and Perception of Time]
- [http://cogprints.ecs.soton.ac.uk/archive/00003125/ Subjective Perception of Time and a Progressive Present Moment: The Neurobiological Key to Unlocking Consciousness]
- [http://www.primitivism.com/time.htm Time and Its Discontents]
- [http://www.ericdigests.org/2003-5/time.htm Time and Learning]
- [http://mixingmemory.blogspot.com/2004/12/by-request-time-perception-i.html Time Perception I] and [http://mixingmemory.blogspot.com/2004/12/time-perception-ii-cognitive-factors.html II]
- [http://theorderoftime.org/ The Order of Time: Platform for an Alternative Time Consciousness]
- [http://www.chabad.org/article.asp?AID=74335 What is Time?] An elucidation of the Lubavitcher Rebbe's comments on the topic.

Physics

- [http://physics.nist.gov/GenInt/Time/world.html A walk through Time]
- [http://pages.britishlibrary.net/lobster/tmx Time Travel and Multi-Dimensionality]
- [http://arxiv.org/abs/physics/0310055 Time and classical and quantum mechanics: Indeterminacy vs. discontinuity]
- [http://www.sankey.ws/time.html Time as a universal consequence of quanta]

Timekeeping

- [http://tycho.usno.navy.mil/systime.html Different systems of measuring time]
- [http://physics.nist.gov/cuu/Units/outside.html non-SI units]
- [http://www1.bipm.org/en/scientific/tai/time_server.html UTC/TAI Timeserver]
- [http://tycho.usno.navy.mil/leapsec.html Leapsecond]
- [http://www.intuitor.com/hex/hexclock.html Hex Time]
- [http://www.florencetime.net Florencetime.net]
- [http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/3486160.stm BBC article on shortest time ever measured]
- [http://www.awi-net.org American Watchmakers-Clockmakers Institute]
- [http://www.timeanddate.com/worldclock/ The World Clock - Time Zones]

Miscellaneous

- [http://www.boost.org/doc/html/date_time.html Boost Date-Time Library -- Powerful C++ Library for date-time manipulation]
- [http://www.cyclesresearchinstitute.org/ Cycles Research Institute]
- [http://www.timeticker.com/ TimeTicker and the time tickers...]
- [http://www.welt-zeit-uhr.de/worldtime.php World Time and Zones]
- [http://www.timetools.co.uk Time Servers] NTP Time Servers provide accurate timing for computers and computer networks.

Capital

:This article concerns places that serve as centers of government and politics. For alternative meanings see capital (disambiguation) In politics, a capital (also called capital city or political capital — although the latter phrase has an alternative meaning based on an alternative meaning of "capital") is the principal city or town associated with its government. It is almost always the city which physically encompasses the offices and meeting places of the seat of government and fixed by law. The word capital is derived from the Latin caput meaning "head," and the related term capitol refers to the building where government-business is chiefly conducted. Seats of government in major substate jurisdictions are usually called "capitals", but at lower administrative subdivisions, terms such as county town, county seat, or borough seat are also used. As the focal point of power for the country or region, the capital naturally attracts the politically motivated and those whose skills are needed for efficient administration of government such as lawyers, journalists, and public policy researchers. Older capitals have often developed into prime economic, cultural, or intellectual centers as well. Such is certainly the case with Paris and Buenos Aires among national capitals, and Irkutsk or Salt Lake City in their respective state or province. Such concentration may be controversial. The siting of Brasília in Brazil's heartland was done in order to bring progress to the interior of the country, since the old capital, Rio de Janeiro, along with entire Southeastern Brazil was already crowded. The government of South Korea announced in 2004 it would move its capital from Seoul to Yeongi-Gongju — even though the word Seoul itself means "capital" in the Korean language. The convergence of political and economic or cultural power is by no means universal. Traditional capitals may be economically eclipsed by provincial rivals, as occurred with Thebes by Alexandria, Nanjing by Shanghai, or Edinburgh by Glasgow. The decline of a dynasty or culture could mean the extinction of its capital city as well, as occurred with Babylon and Cahokia. And many modern capital cities, such as Abuja and Ottawa, were deliberately fixed outside existing economic areas, and may not have established themselves as new commercial or industrial hubs since.

Multiple capitals

:See also: List of multiple capitals A number of cases exist where states or other entities have multiple capitals. In South Africa, for example, the administrative capital is Pretoria, the legislative capital is Cape Town, and the judicial capital is Bloemfontein, the outcome of the compromise that created the Union of South Africa in 1910. In others, the "effective" and "official" capital may differ for pragmatic reasons, resulting in a situation where a city known as "the capital" is not, in fact, host to the seat of government:
- Yamoussoukro was designated the national capital of Côte d'Ivoire in 1983, but as of 2004 most government offices and embassies were still located in Abidjan
- Sucre is still the constitutional capital of Bolivia, but most of the national government long abandoned that region for La Paz
- Amsterdam is the nominal national capital of the Netherlands even though the Dutch government and supreme court are both located in The Hague. In such cases, the city housing the administrative capital is usually understood to be the "national capital" among outsiders. For instance, Santiago is understood to be the capital of Chile even though its Congress is in Valparaiso.

Capital as symbol

With the rise of modern empires and the nation-state, the capital city has become a symbol for the state and its government, and imbued with political meaning. Unlike medieval capitals, which were declared wherever a monarch held his or her court, the selection, relocation, founding, or capture of a modern capital city is an emotional affair. For example:
- Ruined and almost uninhabited Athens was made capital of newly independent Greece with the romantic notion of reviving the glory of the ancients;
- Peter I of Russia moved his government to Saint Petersburg to give the Russian Empire a western orientation, while Kemal Atatürk did the same by ironically moving east to Ankara, away from Ottoman Istanbul;
- The selection or founding of a "neutral" city, one unencumbered by regional or political identity, represented the unity of a new state with Madrid in Spain, Washington, D.C. in the United States, and Canberra in Australia among others;
- During the American Civil War, tremendous resources were expended to defend Washington, D.C. from Confederate attack even though the small federal government could have been moved relatively easily in the era of railroads and telegraph.
- Berlin has risen from the ashes of World War II (Stunde Null) to become the new/old capital city of the third most prosperous nation in the World, Germany.

The effects of the capital

The capital city is almost always the main target in a war, as capturing it usually guarantees capture of much of the enemy government, and victory for the attacking forces. In the tradition of drama, capital cities are usually associated with high stake final battles, such as in the Lord of the Rings series where the forces of Mordor besiege the Gondorian capital of Minas Tirith; it is assumed if the city falls, Gondor falls with it. In old China, the relatively fragile dynasties could easily be toppled with the fall of their capital. In the Three Kingdoms period, both Shu and Wu fell when their respective capitals of Cheng Du and Jian Ye fell. The Ming were destroyed when the Manchus took their seat of power, and this pattern endlessly repeats itself in Chinese history. In the West, things were vastly different. The Byzantine Empire lasted for nearly 60 years after Crusaders took their capital city of Constantinople. The American revolutionaries lost their capital of Philadelphia, but survived the blow.

Largest national capital cities

Some of the largest cities in the world are not national capitals. The largest national capitals on each continent, by urban/metropolitan area population, are:
- Africa: Cairo (11,146,000)
- Asia: Tokyo (35,237,000)
- Europe: Moscow (13,600,000)
- North America: Mexico City (17,809,471)
- Oceania: Wellington (367,600)
- South America: Buenos Aires (13,349,000)

Lists of capitals

- Lists of national capitals
- by name
- by country (with also the largest city)
- by continent and country
- List of historical national capitals
- List of capitals of subnational entities
- List of multiple capitals
- List of countries that have the name of their capital included in their name
- List of countries whose capital is not their largest city Category:Capitals Category:Political geography als:Hauptstadt ko:수도 ja:首都 ms:Ibu negara simple:Capital (city) th:เมืองหลวง zh-min-nan:Siú-to·

Manufacturer

: This is a specific reference to the process of Manufacturing. For the wider business elements of Manufacturing see the definitions in the manufacturing overview. Manufacturing is the transformation, by means of a tool and/or processing medium, of raw materials into finished goods for sale, or intermediate processes involving the production or finishing of semi-manufactures. It is a large branch of industry and of secondary production. Some industries, like semiconductor and steel manufacturers use the term fabrication. Although handicraft production has been with us for many millennia, modern-style manufacturing is generally regarded as beginning around 1780 with the British Industrial Revolution, spreading thereafter to Continental Europe and North America, and subsequently around the world. Originally, the term applied to commodities or artifacts which were "made by hand". While it remains a huge part of the modern world economy—perhaps a quarter of aggregate world production of goods and services—many of the world's wealthier nations devote an ever smaller proportion of their workforce to manufacturing activity owing to relocation of enterprises to lower-wage countries and the rising proportion of economic activity devoted to service activity.

Manufacturing topics

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External links

- http://www.coolstuffbeingmade.com - Watch Cool Manufacturered Products Being Made
- http://www.nam.org - The National Association of Manufacturers Web site
- http://manufacturing.stanford.edu - A site with videos showing the manufacturing process for many everyday things
- http://www.themanufacturer.com/uk - A site consisting of news and articles about the UK manufacturing industry
- http://www.themanufacturer.com/us - A site consisting of news and articles about the US manufacturing industry
- http://www.selectingsoftware.com - Manufacturing Software Directory Category:Manufacturing Category:Industry Category:Technology ja:製造業

Product (business)

__NOTOC__ In marketing, a product is anything that can be offered to a market that might satisfy a want or need. However it is much more than just a physical object. It is the complete bundle of benefits or satisfactions that buyers perceive they will obtain if they purchase the product. It is the sum of all physical, psychological, symbolic, and service attributes. A product is similar to a good. In accounting, goods are physical objects that are available in the marketplace. This differentiates them from a service, which is a non-material product. The term good is used primarily by those that wish to abstract from the details of a given product. As such it is useful in accounting and economic models. The term product is used primarily by those that wish to examine the details and richness of a specific market offering. As such it is useful to marketers, managers, and quality control specialists. A "man" can also be an "experience", which like a service is intangible. However an experience is unique to the receiving individual, based upon their history. Example: amusement parks offer rides (product), acceptance of credit cards (service), and audience participation at the dolphin show (experience). My value of the dolphin show is different from yours, and to the extent I value it more, will trade more for it (money). The word "product" is also used as a pejorative term to describe teenagers who have homogeneized themselves in the sense they have become indistinguishable due to their clothing, possessions, and brands they choose to display (at least at first glance).

Three Aspects

There are three aspects to any product or service: 1 - Core Benefit
- in-use benefits
- psychological benefits (e.g., self-image enhancement, hope, status, self worth)
- problem reduction benefits(e.g., safety, convenience) 2 - Tangible Product or Service
- product attributes and features
- quality
- styling
- packaging protection and label information
- brand name
- add another category that I desire 3 - Augmented Product or Service
- warranty
- installation
- delivery
- credit availability
- after-sale service and maintenance
- add another category that I desire

Classifying Products

Product management involves developing strategies and tactics that will increase product demand (referred to as primary demand) over the product's life cycle. One useful technique in understanding a product is the Aspinwall Classification System. It classifies and rates products based on five variables:
- 1) replacement rate - how frequently is the product repurchased
- 2) gross margin - how much profit is obtained from each product (average selling price less average unit cost)
- 3) buyer goal adjustment - how flexible are the buyers' purchasing habits in regards to this product
- 4) duration of product satisfaction - how long will the product produce benefits for the user
- 5) duration of buyer search behaviour - how long will they shop for the product

Types of Products

There are several types of products:
- consumer products - used by end users
- industrial products - used in the production of other goods
- convenience goods - purchased frequently and with minimal effort
- impulse goods - purchase stimulated by immediate sensory cues
- emergency goods - goods required immediately
- shopping goods - some comparison with other goods
- specialty goods - extensive comparisons with other goods and a lengthy information search
- unsought goods - e.g., cemetery plots, insurance
- perishable goods - goods that will deteriorate quickly even without use
- durable goods - goods that survive multiple use occasions
- non-durable/consumption/consumable goods - goods that are used up in one use occasion
- capital goods - installations, equipment, and buildings
- parts and materials - goods that go into a finished product
- supplies and services - goods that facilitate production
- commodities - undifferentiated goods (e.g., wheat, gold, sugar)
- by-products - a product that results from the manufacture of another product

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Service

:This article is about a term used in economics. For other uses, see service (disambiguation). In economics and marketing, a service is the non-material equivalent of a good. Service provision has been defined as an economic activity that does not result in ownership, and this is what differentiates it from providing physical goods. It is claimed to be a process that creates benefits by facilitating either a change in customers, a change in their physical possessions, or a change in their intangible assets. By supplying some level of skill, ingenuity, and experience, providers of a service participate in an economy without the restrictions of carrying stock (inventory) or the need to concern themselves with bulky raw materials. On the other hand, their investment in expertise does require marketing and upgrading in the face of competition which has equally few physical restrictions. Providers of services make up the Tertiary sector of industry.

Key attributes

Services can be described in terms of their main attributes.
- Intangibility - They cannot be seen, handled, smelled, etc. There is no need for storage. Because services are difficult to conceptualize, marketing them requires creative visualization to effectively evoke a concrete image in the customer's mind. From the customer's point of view, this attribute makes it difficult to evaluate or compare services prior to experiencing the service.
- Perishability - Unsold service time is "lost", that is, it cannot be regained. It is a lost economic opportunity. For example a doctor that is booked for only two hours a day cannot later work those hours— she has lost her economic opportunity. Other service examples are airplane seats (once the plane departs, those empty seats cannot be sold), and theatre seats (sales end at a certain point).
- Lack of transportability - Services must be consumed at the point of "production".
- Lack of homogeneity - Services are typically modified for each client or each new situation (customised). Mass production of services is very difficult. This can be seen as a problem of inconsistent quality. Both inputs and outputs to the processes involved providing services are highly variable, as are the relationships between these processes, making it difficult to maintain consistent quality.
- Labour intensity - Services usually involve considerable human activity, rather than precisely determined process. Human resource management is important. The human factor is often the key success factor in service industries. It is difficult to achieve economies of scale or gain dominant market share.
- Demand fluctuations - It is very difficult to estimate demand. Demand can vary by season, time of day, business cycle, etc.
- Buyer involvement - Most service provision requires a high degree of interaction between client and service provider.

Service delivery

The delivery of a service typically involves five factors:
- The service providers (e.g. the people)
- Equipment used to provide the service (e.g. vehicles, cash registers)
- The physical facilities (e.g. buildings, parking, waiting rooms)
- The client
- Other customers at the service delivery location The service encounter is defined as all activities involved in the service delivery process. Some service managers use the term "moment of truth" to indicate that defining point in a specific service encounter where interactions are most intense. Many business theorists view service provision as a performance or act (sometimes humorously referred to as dramalurgy, perhaps in reference to dramaturgy). The location of the service delivery is referred to as the stage and the objects that facilitate the service process are called props. A script is a sequence of behaviours followed by all those involved, including the client(s). Some service dramas are tightly scripted, others are more ad lib. Role congruence occurs when each actor follows a script that harmonizes with the roles played by the other actors. In some service industries, especially health care, dispute resolution, and social services, a popular concept is the idea of the caseload, which refers to the total number of patients, clients, litigants, or claimants that a given employee is presently responsible for. On a daily basis, in all those fields, employees must balance the needs of any individual case against the needs of all other current cases as well as their own personal needs.

alt text
Service-Goods continuum

The service-goods continuum

The dichotomy between physical goods and intangible services should not be given too much credence. These are not discrete categories. Most business theorists see a continuum with pure service on one terminal point and pure commodity good on the other terminal point. Most products fall between these two extremes. For example, a restaurant provides a physical good (the food), but also provides services in the form of ambience, the setting and clearing of the table, etc. And although some utilities actually deliver physical goods — like water utilities which actually deliver water — utilities are usually treated as services. In a narrower sense, service refers to quality of customer service: the measured appropriateness of assistance and support provided to a customer. This particular usage occurs frequently in retailing.

List of economic services

The following is an incomplete list of service industries, grouped into rough sectors. Parenthetical notations indicate how specific occupations and organizations can be regarded as service industries to the extent they provide an intangible service, as opposed to a tangible good.
- business functions (that apply to all organizations in general)
- consulting
- customer service
- human resources administrators (providing services like ensuring that employees are paid accurately)
- child care
- cleaning, repair and maintenance services
- janitors (who provide cleaning services)
- gardeners
- mechanics
- construction
- carpentry
- electricians (offering the service of making wiring work properly)
- plumbing
- death care
- coroners (who provide the service of identifying corpses and determining time and cause of death)
- funeral homes (who prepare corpses for public display, cremation or burial)
- dispute resolution and prevention services
- arbitration
- courts of law (who perform the service of dispute resolution backed by the power of the state)
- diplomacy
- incarceration (provides the service of keeping criminals out of society)
- law enforcement (provides the service of identifying and apprehending criminals)
- lawyers (who perform the services of advocacy and decisionmaking in many dispute resolution and prevention processes)
- mediation
- military (performs the service of protecting states in disputes with other states)
- negotiation (not really a service unless someone is negotiating on behalf of another)
- education (institutions offering the services of teaching and access to information)
- library
- museum
- school
- entertainment (when provided live or within a highly specialized facility)
- gambling
- movie theatres (providing the service of showing a movie on a big screen)
- performing arts productions
- sexual services (where legal)
- sports
- television
- fabric care
- dry cleaning
- laundromat (offering the service of automated fabric cleaning)
- financial services
- accounting
- banks and building societies (offering lending services and safekeeping of money and valuables)
- real estate
- stock brokerages
- tax return preparation
- foodservice industry
- hairdressing
- health care (all health care professions provide services)
- information services
- data processing
- database services
- language interpretation
- language translation
- risk management
- insurance
- security
- social services
- social work
- transport
- utilities
- electric power
- natural gas
- telecommunications
- waste management
- water industry

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Consumers

:This article is about consumers in economics. For the article about consumers in biology, see Heterotroph. Consumers are individuals or households that consume goods and services generated within the economy. Since this includes just about everyone, the term is a political term as much as an economic term when it is used in everyday speech. Typically when businesspeople and economists talk of consumers they are talking about person as consumer, an aggregated commodity item with little individuality other than that expressed in the buy not buy decision. However there is a trend in marketing to individualize the concept. Instead of generating broad demographic profile and psychographic profiles of market segments, marketers are engaging in personalized marketing, permission marketing, and mass customization. A consumer is assumed to have a budget which can be spent on a range of goods and services available on the market. Under the assumption of rationality, the budget allocation is chosen according to the preference of the consumer, i.e. to maximize his or her utility function. In 'time series' models of consumer behaviour, the consumer may also invest a proportion of their budget in order to gain a greater budget in future periods. This investment choice may include either fixed rate interest or risk-bearing securities. In the context of mental health, consumer is also a term applied to describe a person living with mental illness. Concern over the best interests of consumers has spawned much activism, as well as incorporation of consumer education into the school curriculum. There are many non-profit publications available to assist in consumer education such as Consumer Reports or Choice Magazine. Within many selling companies consumer has come to be a derogatory term which means a purchaser of products who is not very intelligent. This is in contrast to the meaning of customer, which is defined as an intelligent purchaser who has power in the purchasing relationship between buyer and seller. Consumer could also be seen as an offensive term, implying that a person's only function is to buy a product (consume). Category: Economics Category: Marketing ja:消費者

Retail

Retailing services consist of the sale of goods/merchandise for personal or household consumption either from a fixed location such as a department store or kiosk, or away from a fixed location and related subordinated services [http://docsonline.wto.org/imrd/directdoc.asp?DDFDocuments/t/WT/min01/3A2.doc (Definition of the WTO (last page)]. In commerce, a retailer buys goods or products in large quantities from manufacturers or importers, either directly or through a wholesaler, and then sells individual items or small quantities to the general public or end user customers, usually in a shop, also called store. Retailers are at the end of the supply chain. Marketers see retailing as part of their overall distribution strategy. Shops may be on residential streets, or in shopping streets with little or no houses, or in a shopping center or shopping mall. Shopping streets may or may not be for pedestrians only. Sometimes a shopping street has a partial or full roof to protect customers from precipitation. Shopping is buying things, sometimes as a recreational activity. Cheap versions of the latter are window shopping (just looking, not buying) and browsing.

Kinds of retailers

There are three major types of retailing. The first is counter service, now rare except in the case of controlled items (e.g. medicine). The second, and more widely used method of retail, is self service. Quickly increasing in importance are online shops, the third type, where products and services can be ordered for physical delivery, downloading or virtual delivery. Even though most retailing is done through self service, many shops offer counter service items. Controlled items like medicine, liquor and other commodities may require assistance to the customer. A large shop is called a superstore or megastore. A shop with many different kinds of articles is called a department store. Local shops can be known as brick and mortar stores in the United States. Many shops are part of a chain: a number of similar shops with the same name selling the same products in different locations. The shops may be owned by one company, or there may be a

Business

Types of Businesses

Business departments

Business and Government

Business and Management

See also

External links

Non-profit organization

Structure

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Status

Goals

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Laws on non-profit organizations

United Kingdom

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Government

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Time

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Capital

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