Business is the practice of making one's living or making money by producing or buying and selling products. It is also "any activity or enterprise entered into for profit."
Human capital or human assets is a concept used by economists to designate personal attributes considered useful in the production process. It encompasses employee knowledge, skills, know-how, good health, and education. Human capital has a substantial impact on individual earnings. Research indicates that human capital investments have high economic returns throughout childhood and young adulthood.
James Wilson Rouse was an American businessman and founder of The Rouse Company. Rouse was a pioneering American real estate developer, urban planner, civic activist, and later, free enterprise-based philanthropist. He received the Presidential Medal of Freedom, the highest civilian award, for his lifetime achievements.
The Sloan School of Management at Massachusetts Institute of Technology is the business school of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, a private university in Cambridge, Massachusetts.
Robert Louis Johnson is an American entrepreneur, media magnate, executive, philanthropist, and investor. He is the co-founder of BET, which was acquired by Viacom in 2001. He also founded RLJ Companies, a holding company that invests in various business sectors. Johnson is the former majority owner of the Charlotte Bobcats. He became the first black American billionaire in 2001. Johnson's companies have counted among the most prominent black American businesses in the late twentieth and early twenty-first centuries.
Corporate social responsibility (CSR) or corporate social impact is a form of international private business self-regulation which aims to contribute to societal goals of a philanthropic, activist, or charitable nature by engaging in, with, or supporting professional service volunteering through pro bono programs, community development, administering monetary grants to non-profit organizations for the public benefit, or to conduct ethically oriented business and investment practices. While once it was possible to describe CSR as an internal organizational policy or a corporate ethic strategy similar to what is now known today as Environmental, Social, Governance (ESG); that time has passed as various companies have pledged to go beyond that or have been mandated or incentivized by governments to have a better impact on the surrounding community. In addition, national and international standards, laws, and business models have been developed to facilitate and incentivize this phenomenon. Various organizations have used their authority to push it beyond individual or industry-wide initiatives. In contrast, it has been considered a form of corporate self-regulation for some time, over the last decade or so it has moved considerably from voluntary decisions at the level of individual organizations to mandatory schemes at regional, national, and international levels. Moreover, scholars and firms are using the term "creating shared value", an extension of corporate social responsibility, to explain ways of doing business in a socially responsible way while making profits.
James E. Burke was an American corporate executive who was the CEO of Johnson & Johnson from 1976 to 1989, a company for which he worked forty years. He was the older brother of the television executive Dan Burke.
A social enterprise is an organization that applies commercial strategies to maximize improvements in financial, social and environmental well-being. This may include maximizing social impact alongside profits for co-owners.
A consulting firm or simply consultancy is a professional service firm that provides expertise and specialised labour for a fee, through the use of consultants. Consulting firms may have one employee or thousands; they may consult in a broad range of domains, for example, management, engineering, and so on.
A sustainable business, or a green business, is an enterprise that has a minimal negative impact or potentially a positive effect on the global or local environment, community, society, or economy—a business that attempts to meet the triple bottom line. They cluster under different groupings and the whole is sometimes referred to as "green capitalism". Often, sustainable businesses have progressive environmental and human rights policies. In general, a business is described as green if it matches the following four criteria:
- It incorporates principles of sustainability into each of its business decisions.
- It supplies environmentally friendly products or services that replace demand for nongreen products and/or services.
- It is greener than traditional competition.
- It has made an enduring commitment to environmental principles in its business operations.
Social entrepreneurship is an approach by individuals, groups, start-up companies or entrepreneurs, in which they develop, fund and implement solutions to social, cultural, or environmental issues. This concept may be applied to a wide range of organizations, which vary in size, aims, and beliefs. For-profit entrepreneurs typically measure performance using business metrics like profit, revenues and increases in stock prices. Social entrepreneurs, however, are either non-profits, or they blend for-profit goals with generating a positive "return to society". Therefore, they use different metrics. Social entrepreneurship typically attempts to further broad social, cultural and environmental goals often associated with the voluntary sector in areas such as poverty alleviation, health care and community development.
Social innovations are new social practices that aim to meet social needs in a better way than the existing solutions, resulting from - for example - working conditions, education, community development or health. These ideas are created with the goal of extending and strengthening civil society. Social innovation includes the social processes of innovation, such as open source methods and techniques and also the innovations which have a social purpose—like activism, crowdfunding, time-based currency, telehealth, cohousing, virtual volunteering, microcredit, or distance learning. There are many definitions of social innovation, however, they usually include the broad criteria about social objectives, social interaction between actors or actor diversity, social outputs, and innovativeness. Different definitions include different combinations and different number of these criteria. Transformative social innovation not only introduces new approaches to seemingly intractable problems, but is successful in changing the social institutions that created the problem in the first place.
Design management is a field of inquiry that uses design, strategy, project management and supply chain techniques to control a creative process, support a culture of creativity, and build a structure and organization for design. The objective of design management is to develop and maintain an efficient business environment in which an organization can achieve its strategic and mission goals through design. Design management is a comprehensive activity at all levels of business, from the discovery phase to the execution phase. "Simply put, design management is the business side of design. Design management encompasses the ongoing processes, business decisions, and strategies that enable innovation and create effectively-designed products, services, communications, environments, and brands that enhance our quality of life and provide organizational success." The discipline of design management overlaps with marketing management, operations management, and strategic management.
The Conference Board, Inc. is a 501(c)(3) non-profit business membership and research group organization. It counts over 1,000 public and private corporations and other organizations as members, encompassing 60 countries.
Jean Case is an American businesswoman, author, and philanthropist who is chair of the board of National Geographic, CEO of Case Impact Network, and CEO of the Case Foundation. She is married to AOL co-founder Steve Case.
William Drenttel was a designer, author, publisher, social entrepreneur and foundation executive. In 2012, he was the president of Winterhouse Institute, vice president of communications and design for Teach For All, co-director of the Transform Symposium at the Mayo Clinic Center for Innovation, and the recipient of Rockefeller Foundation support to develop models for design and social change. He was president emeritus of AIGA, a fellow of NYU Institute of the Humanities, a senior faculty fellow and social enterprise fellow at Yale School of Management, and the publisher and editorial director of Design Observer, a website covering design, social innovation, urbanism and visual culture. In 2010, Drenttel was elected to the Art Directors Hall of Fame and the Alliance Graphique Internationale, and was the first Henry Wolf Resident in Graphic Design at the American Academy in Rome. He lectured widely in the U.S. and abroad.
The Swedish Business Awards were established in 2006. The project aims to provide positive examples for international establishments and business development by highlighting the success of cooperation, emphasizing innovativeness, outstanding business achievements and the importance of contributions to society. This initiative promotes internationalization of business and serves as a yearly meeting point to discuss achievements, practices and aims. Culmination of the project is the ceremony which includes presentations, discussions and awards for the most successful international and local companies operating in Lithuania, Latvia and Estonia.
Doug Guthrie is an American academic administrator, sociologist, and China scholar. He is currently professor of global leadership and director of China initiatives at the Thunderbird School of Global Management at The Arizona State University. He was previously the dean of The George Washington University School of Business, and professor of management and sociology and director of executive education and NYU's Stern School of Business. He has also served as a visiting professor of management at the business schools of Columbia, Stanford, Harvard, Emory, and INSEAD and as director of the Business Institutions Initiative at the Social Science Research Council.
Christopher Marquis is the Sinyi Professor of Chinese Management at the Judge Business School, University of Cambridge, England, and a Fellow at Jesus College, Cambridge.
The Queen's Award for Enterprise: Sustainable Development is awarded each year on 21 April by Queen Elizabeth II, along with the other two Queen's Awards for Enterprise categories.
