Hollowing out the middle chapter summaries

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ISBN: 978-0-13-358955-9

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Chapter 1 – Exploring Canadian Business: A Critical Approach

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CHAPTER 1

EXPLORING CANADIAN BUSINESS:

A CRITICAL APPROACH

CHAPTER SYNOPSIS

This chapter introduces students to the broad-based categories of the challenges and

opportunities of businesses and other organizations. Students are introduced to the external

environmental forces of political, economic, technological, societal, competitive and global, as

well as the internal forces that drive the business: labour, leadership, structure and strategy.

LEARNING OBJECTIVES

1. Identify the key internal forces that shape any business.

2. Identify the forces that compose the specific and general environments of organizations.

3. Discuss the nature of the external forces confronting organizations.

4. Explain the importance of each of the external forces within the Canadian business context.

CHAPTER OUTLINE

CHAPTER 1

 Exploring Canadian Business: A Critical Approach: What Are the Major Challenges Facing Business? 1

 Learning Objectives 1  The Business World: Can Canadian Tire Flourish In a Rapidly Changing Business

Context? 2

THE INTERNAL CONTEXT OF BUSINESS 4

 The Employment Relationship: Responsibilities Toward Labour 5  Leadership and Effectively Managing People 5  Developing a Suitable Organizational  Organizational Structure 6  Generating a Winning Business Strategy 7

THE EXTERNAL CONTEXT OF BUSINESS 7

 Specific or Task Environment 7  General Environment 8

a. Economic forces 8

b. Competitive forces 8

Chapter 1 – Exploring Canadian Business: A Critical Approach

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c. Technological forces 9

d. Global forces 9

e. Political forces 10

f. Societal forces 10

 Sustainability 11  The Challenge of Change 12

THE CANADIAN CONTEXT: HOW’S BUSINESS IN CANADA, EH? 12  Economic Forces in Canada 13  Competitive Forces in Canada 16  Technological Forces in Canada 18  Global Forces in Canada 22  Political Forces in Canada 25  Societal Forces in Canada 28

CHAPTER SUMMARY 29

CHAPTER LEARNING TOOLS 35

 Key Terms 35  Multiple-Choice Questions 35  Discussion Questions 36  Concept Application: Facebook: When Your Friends Are Worth a Billion! 36

BUSINESS WORLD EXERCISE

1. Refer to the Business World article “Can Canadian Tire Flourish in A Rapidly Changing Business Context (page 2).” In recent years, how have the six external forces (eg. political, economic, technological, societal, competitive and global) impacted Canadian

Tire’s business and operations? State any assumptions you may have.

Teaching Note:

In the textbook, students can use Exhibit 1.7 The External Forces Framework:

Considerations for Analysis (page 30) Here in the Instructor’s resources, please see Appendix A.

Depending upon how current and in-depth you want students to answer the question, you

can either stick to the case/article facts or get students to use the company’s web site. The suggested answers typically will be limited to the case facts; however, sometimes

reasonable assumptions or inferences can be made when the case does not specifically

mention a particular fact. For instance, this case does not really discuss the political

force. You could make an inference Canadian Tire must comply to laws and regulations

for the industries that it operates in, such as automotive and of course, employment laws

because the company has employees.

Chapter 1 – Exploring Canadian Business: A Critical Approach

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Political – Canadian Tire must comply to laws and regulations for the industries that it operates in, such as automotive, hardware, sports etc and of course, employment laws

because the company hires employees.

Economic – The state of the economy is not mentioned in the case. We can assume that if there was a recession, sales may go down; however, Canadian Tire sells many items that

people need every day, so it may not be impacted in the same way as a company, for

example, selling luxury goods, which people don’t need every day.