Page 66 - Introduction to Business

40 PART 1 The Nature of Contemporary Business

Your success can be measured by the personal freedom, financial well-being, and
job satisfaction that come with being an entrepreneur.
At the end of each chapter of this text, there is a brief write-up on career oppor-
tunities in the area of business (accounting, consulting, finance, information sys-
tems, international business, management, and marketing) considered in that
chapter. So, the focus of these write-ups is on institutions that offer business career
opportunities. For those of you who would enjoy working for large corporations like
GE, IBM, Ford, and so on, either domestically or internationally, the first thing you
may want to do is to identify the firm that interests you. The 500 largest U.S. corpo-
rations are called the Fortune 500 companies and the list is published by Fortune
magazine each year. If you are interested in working for any of the world’s largest
500 corporations, you may want to look into the Financial Times Global 500, which
is published by the Financial Times newspaper of London. Details of the activities
of all these companies can be found on their corporate websites, and most of them
also list career opportunities there as well. Major privately held businesses,
although few in number (e.g., Bechtel, www.bechtel.com), also have their own
websites that you can surf to identify job opportunities. Not-for-profit organiza-
tions, domestic and international, offer challenging opportunities for business
graduates as well. Organizations like the Red Cross, the United Way, and CARE offer
interesting and fulfilling business career opportunities. International institutions
like the United Nations offer absorbing career opportunities with attractive (tax-
free) salaries; however, the work environment can be quite demanding, especially
when one works overseas. Finally, federal, state, and local governments also offer
interesting and stable career opportunities. Since government agencies are not
driven by profits or competition, they generally tend not to lay off employees. How-
ever, while careers in government do offer job security, salary levels may not match
those of the private sector.
There are numerous websites that focus on business careers. One site that you
may want to visit is Careers in Business, www.careers-in-business.com, which has
a number of very useful links as well as an excellent list of “Recommended Books
on Jobs in Business,” which could prove to be a valuable tool as you seek to identify
the business career of your choice.

Summary

In this introductory chapter, the objective is to acquaint the growth of new business, and also changing the way
you with the basic concepts of business operations. business is done. Finally, firms must be ethically man-
aged if they are to survive and deliver value to investors
LEARNING OBJECTIVE 1 and customers alike, and also be successful in the long
Identify the three major factors that are impacting term. The primary role of business is to create value for
business today and discuss the roles of for-profit the customer and meet the consumer’s unmet needs in
and not-for-profit organizations in an economy. a profitable manner. If a firm is not profitable, it will not
be able to remain in business. However, not all firms
The three major issues that are significantly impacting
have a profit motive. The primary objective of not-for-
business today, which are the themes of this textbook,
profit organizations like educational institutions and
are globalization, technology, and ethics. As more coun-
charitable organizations is to serve the public. Even
tries adopt open trading systems, business is becoming
not-for-profit organizations need to cover costs, or they
increasingly global in nature. Rapid advances in infor-
will be forced to shrink or close down operations.
mation technology and the Internet are encouraging
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