About the AuthorKAREN COLLINSDr. Karen Collins is associate professor of accounting at Lehigh University in Bethlehem, Pennsylvania. She has a Ph.D. in accounting from Virginia Tech. Dr. Collins coordinates the college's freshman-level Introduction to Business course. Exploring Business has evolved based on Dr. Collins innovative and successful approach to Lehighs Introduction to Business course. She was recently honored with an Innovation in Teaching Award for the course from the Middle Atlantic Association of Colleges and Business Administration (AACSB). Dr. Collinss research interests include upward mobility of women in accounting, quality of life issues, stress, and ethnic diversity in the accounting profession. She has published articles in journals such as Accounting, Organizations and Society, Accounting Horizons, Journal of Accountancy, Journal of Vocational Behavior, and Journal of Occupational Health Psychology. Dr. Collins has won numerous teaching awards while at Lehigh, including the Deming Lewis Faculty Award (for the faculty member who had the strongest inuence on the ten-year graduating class), in 2003; the Faculty Recognition Award (from the Dean of Students Oce), also in 2003; and the Andersen Consulting Faculty Fellowship for Excellence in Teaching, 199899 and 19992000.

AcknowledgmentsThe author would like to thank the following colleagues who have reviewed the text and provided comprehensive feedback and suggestions for improving the material:Tim Allwine Vondra Armstrong April Bailey Michael Baran Ruby Barker Murray Brunton Laura Bulas Leon Chickering Glenn Doolittle Amy Epplin Andrea Foster Joseph Fox Leatrice Freer George Generas David Gilliss Alfredo Gomez Madeline Grant Gail Jacobs Francis Krcmarik Elaine Madden Timothy March Marian Matthews Gina McConoughey Tom McFarland Bill McPherson Diane Minger Jennifer Morton John Olivo Lauren Paisley Anthony Racka Nancy Ray-Mitchell Martin St. John John Striebich Frank Titlow Bob Urell Dean Williamson Lower Columbia College Pulaski Technical College Shippensburg University of Pennsylvania South Puget Sound Community College Tarleton State University Central Ohio Technical College Central Community College South Puget Sound Community College Santa Ana College Rend Lake College John Tyler Community College Asheville-Buncombe Technical Community College Pitt Community College University of Hartford San Jose State University Broward College Santa Ana College LA College International Mott Community College Anne Arundel Community College Kaskaskia College Central NM Community College Illinois Central College Mt. San Antonio College Indiana University of Pennsylvania Cedar Valley College Ivy Tech Community College of Indiana Bloomsburg University of Pennsylvania Genesee Community College Oakland Community College McLennan Community College Westmoreland County Community College Monroe Community College St. Petersburg College Irvine Valley College Brewton-Parker College #2004

Douglas Antola Crowe Bradley University

In addition, a select group of instructors assisted the development of this material by actually using it in their classrooms. Their input, along with their students feedback, has provided us critical conrmation that the material is eective and impactful in the classroom:

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

3

Nikolaos Adamou April Bailey Michael Davis Andrea Foster Frank Markham Diane Minger Tony Racka P. Gerard Shaw Dean Williamson David Woolgar

Borough of Manhattan CC Shippensburg University of Pennsylvania Yavaipai College John Taylor Community College Mesa State Cedar Valley College Oakland Community College Dean College Brewton-Parker College Santa Ana College

Donn Miller-Kermani Florida Institute of Technology

The authors also appreciate the eorts of a ne group of instructors who have assisted the project with their work on supplementary materials: David Murphy, Madisonville Community College, P. Gerard Shaw, Dean College, and Diane Minger, Cedar Valley College, collaborated on the Test Item Files and Student Quizzes. Chuck Bowles, Pikes Peak Community College, developed the PowerPoint Presentation Slides. Kim Richmond, St. Josephs University, developed the Video Learning Segments. I am sincerely grateful to a great team of individuals at Flat World Knowledge who made working on this project an enjoyable experience. Special thanks to Je Shelstad and Eric Frank for their condence in me and in the project and to Sharon Koch for her enthusiasm. Thanks to Joanne Butler and Sharon Hughes for their dedication to quality and their positive attitudes. Thanks also to several very special friends who made substantial contributions to the textbook project: Ron Librach, Joseph Manzo, Judy Minot, and Eleanore Stinner. Thanks to the members of the Introduction to Business faculty team at Lehigh University who are a constant source of ideas and advice. Their excitement about the course and dedication to our students create a positive and supportive teaching environment. I enjoy the hours we spend in the bullpen sharing teaching tips, brainstorming ways to improve the course, and just having fun. Finally, I thank my husband, Bill, my sons, Don and Mark, and their wives, Courtney and Tara, for their support and encouragement during this project. Theyre the best of my world.

DedicationThis book is dedicated to Jayden and Jack

PrefaceMy desire in writing this text was to provide faculty with a fully developed teaching package that allows them to enhance student learning and introduce students to business in an exciting way. Exploring Business is designed to be a powerful but simple-to-use teaching tool. Ive devised a broad range of features that allow instructors to introduce students to business in an exciting way, but also worked to fashion material thats straightforward, current, relevant, and easy to teach from. The text is purposely brief and covers business essentials without burdening students or faculty with unnecessary detail. Ive tried to build a textbook package thats as supportive as possible to both students and faculty The textbook package supports learning through interactive and multimedia content designed to help students not only master topics but assess their learning. The sixteen chapters are written using a modular format with self-contained sections which can be reorganized, deleted, added to and even edited at the sentence level. Each module ends with a detailed summary to assist students as they learn from the text. Using our build-a-book platform, you can easily customize your book to suit your needs and those of your students. An extensive author-prepared instructors manual and excellent set of PowerPoint slides provide teaching support to instructors. A test item le developed using assessment techniques supports faculty in evaluating student performance. As in other Introduction to Business books, this text uses a wide variety of company-specic examples. However, I improve on the traditional approach by adding an optional case study of a dynamic organization that can easily be integrated into the text. The company chosen for this purpose is Nike. In the future, other case-study companies will be added. I have designed this textbook package to be exible and meet the needs of three groups of instructorsthose who want to