A brief “no-nonsense ” approach to the fundamentals of business that spans the range of all functional areas of business.

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Product Description

This best-selling book continues to present a brief “no-nonsense ” approach to the fundamentals of business that spans the range of all functional areas— management, marketing, operations, accounting, information systems, finance, and legal studies. Topics comprehensively covered include: the contemporary business environment; the business of managing; principles of marketing; managing information; people in organizations; and financial issues. An excellent reference resource for business managers and executives; also appropriate for entrepreneurs and others involved in business relations.

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Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #145736 in Books
• Published on: 2003-12-31
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Paperback
• 592 pages

From the Back Cover
This best-selling book presents a brief “no-nonsense” approach to the fundamentals of business which spans the range of all functional areas—management, marketing, operations, accounting, information systems, finance, and legal studies. A six-part organization introduces readers to the basics of the business system in the U.S.; addresses the management side of business; looks at human resources, marketing, and the way business manage information for both internal users and for reporting to external constituents; and finally, presents the financial elements of business. For anyone preparing for a business career in the third millennium.

About the Author

Ronald J. Ebert is Emeritus Professor at the University of Missouri-Columbia where he lectures in the Management Department and serves as advisor to students and student organizations. Dr. Ebert draws upon more than 30 years of teaching experience at such schools as Sinclair College, University of Washington, University of Missouri, Lucian Blaga University of Sibiu (Romania), and Consortium International University (Italy). His consulting alliances include such firms as Mobay Corporation, j Kraft Foods, Oscar Mayer, Atlas Powder, and John Deere. He has designed and conducted management development programs for such diverse clients as the American Public Power Association, the United States Savings and Loan League, and the Central Missouri Manufacturing Training Consortium.

His experience as a practitioner has fostered an advocacy for integrating concepts f with best business practices in business education. The five business books he has written include translations in Spanish, Chinese, Malaysian, and Romanian languages. Dr. Ebert has served as the editor of the Journal of Operations Management. He is a past-president and fellow of the Decision Sciences Institute. He has served as consultant and external evaluator for Quantitative Reasoning for Business Studies an introduction-to-business project sponsored by the National Science Foundation.

Ricky W. Griffin is Distinguished Professor of Management and holds the Blocker Chair in Business in the Mays School of Business at Texas A&M University. He also currently serves as executive associate dean. He previously served as Head of the Department of Management and as director of the Center for Human Resource Management at Texas A&M. His research interests include workplace aggression and violence, executive skills and decision making, and workplace culture. Dr. Griffin's research has been published in such journals as Academy of Management Review, Academy of Management Journal, Administrative Science Quarterly, and Journal of Management. He has also served as editor of Journal of Management. Dr. Griffin has consulted with such organizations as Texas Instruments, Tenneco, Amoco, Compaq Computer, and Continental Airlines.

Dr. Griffin has served the Academy of Management as chair of the organizational behavior division. He has also served as president of the southwest division of the Academy of Management and on the Board of Directors of the Southern Management Association. He is a fellow of both the Academy of Management and the Southern Management Association. He is also the author of several successful textbooks, each of which is a market leader. In addition, they are widely used in dozens of countries and have been translated into numerous foreign languages, including Spanish, Polish, Malaysian, and Russian.

Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.

As we gathered our thoughts for preparing this revision, we were impressed by the vast flow of new developments taking place alongside traditional, long-established business practices. In assessing the landscape of current practices, we often found ourselves returning to the question, "What's really new in business, and what's not?" New investment strategies, for example, are seriously challenging the traditional principle of investing for long-term results in today's fast-paced markets. Commenting on long-term investing in the stock market, Peter L. Bernstein recently remarked, "We've reached a funny position where long run doesn't work . . . . the long-run evidence doesn't fit circumstances as they are today. Forget investing for the long haul. The long run, right now, is irrelevant."

We suspect that Mr. Bernstein isn't advocating that investors forget about long-term strategies altogether but, instead, that they study and understand alternative approaches, so they can adapt to new conditions and goals. The same holds true in all areas of business: Successful practitioners recognize that "new versus old" isn't the crucial issue so much as how to combine the best of both as circumstances change. History tells us that we can expect accelerating changes from dramatic events that will reshape the ways we live, work, and prepare for the future. The foremost business dilemma is how to provide some sort of stability—for employees, owners, suppliers, and consumers—while steering through new uncharted paths. The answer lies in businesses maintaining an adaptive organizational culture, one that expects change as a way of life and builds processes for change into its business strategy. More than ever before, leading businesses have learned how to anticipate new developments and how to respond quickly and creatively.

Therefore, for our introductory business students, there is great value to be gained from understanding how business, government, and citizens, together influence the ways that business is conducted in different societies. Students need to gain a fundamental working knowledge about every aspect of business and the environment in which business prospers. And make no mistake about it, we have prosperity despite occasional, sometimes even violent, disruptions. Through it all, businesses continue to adapt; the rules of the game are constantly changing throughout the business environment and across the range of business practices. Nowadays, companies come together on short notice for collaborative projects and then, just as quickly, return to their original shapes as separate (and often competing) entities. Employees and companies share new ideas about work—about how it gets done, about who determines roles and activities in the workplace. With communications technologies having shattered the barriers of physical distance, tight-knit teams with members positioned around the world share information just as effectively as groups huddled together in the same room.

In nearly every aspect of business today, from relationships with customers and suppliers to employees and stockholders, there are new ways of doing things, and a lot of them are surpassing traditional business practices, with surprising speed and often with better competitive results. Along with new ways come a host of unique ethical and legal issues to challenge the leadership, creativity and judgment of people who do business. For all of these reasons we, as authors and teachers, felt a certain urgency when it became obvious that, in revising Business Essentials for its fifth edition, we had to capture the flavor and convey the excitement of business in all of its evolving practices.

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Customer Reviews

An O-K text, with a few gems.
For your basic introductory business class, this book is good. It offers a lot of vocabulary, and I can see why a lot of people would say the book has no depth since most of the information can be drawn from simply living the real world. (Unless of course you live in a refrigerator.) So why bother grabbing the text if I can get the same exact knowledge from life?

Well, in the beginning, end and throughout each chapter, tons of real life examples are woven in to illustrate each of the "business essentials." On top of that, real quotes from millionares, successful CEOs and entrepreneurs, and trusted business executives allows the average student a valuable glance into what makes up a smart business mindset.

What's my point? To study business, you need to study the principles that real professionals swear by. Texts written by "just" business professors who don't actually participate in the business world really just don't cut the chase. They're probably broke anyway. Now textbooks with information from successful people, that's what's going to make a student of business really churn out a beautiful future.

So while the material is very, very basic. The real life examples are awesome. However, these lessons can be taught by even better books by great people like Stephen R. Covey and Dale Carnegie. But if you do need a book chock full o' business vocabulary and basics, this isn't a terrible pick. And it certainly does spell everything out.

Chances are, your boss should probably read this book
There is cutting-edge information in this book about how to start, run, maintain and protect a business, whether it is a small partnership or a bustling enterprise of many employees. Ebert and Griffin do thorough job of presenting new concepts in an easily understood format that allows anyone with a high school diploma grasp the fundamentals of entrepreneurship. Of particular importance is stressing the ideas of assessing one's own strengths and weaknesses as well as the opportunities and threats in the marketplace. It talks about the critical nature of human resource management, how to retain productive employees and keep them motivated. You learn the all-important concept of strategic tactics for developing your short, intermediate and long-term goals, mission statement, a written code of ethics and corporate culture as well as understanding the crucial significance of your Organizational Stakeholders. Even if you don't plan on starting or buying your own business or franchise, even shift supervisors will greatly benefit from understanding how to improve their effectiveness on their team if they even read Half of this book. Sometimes the stories that come at the beginning of each chapter can be distracting, but this is a minor issue with the presentation. This is a must-read for anyone looking for their careers escalate in the business world.

A Great Textbook
I fell in love with my Intro to Business course, and the book had a lot to do with it. "Business Essentials" is extremely simple to follow and has wonderful content.