In the past. In contrast, double-loop learning goes a step further and questions existing

assumptions in order to create new insights.

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Skimming Pricing Strategy: If you desire quick cash and have minimal desires for significant

market penetration and control, then you set your prices very high (this is sometimes called

“skimming”).

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Soft Metrics: Soft metrics seek to measure perceptions and may include use of Outcome or

Effectiveness metrics.

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Soft Sell: The technique of using low-pressure appeals in sales.

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Sole Proprietorship: An enterprise that is owned by a single individual.

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Stakeholder: Those individuals, groups, and parties that either affect or who are affected by the

organization. Stakeholders as a general rule, include all internal and external customers.

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Standard & Poor’s 500 (S&P 500): A stock-market thermometer of sorts. Helps gauges the

health of the overall market by measuring the performance of 500 popular common stocks.

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Storytelling: The use of stories in organizations as a way of sharing knowledge and helping

learning.

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Stock Option: Popular form of employee compensation, most often given to executives. The

options allow executives to buy stock for a number of years at or below the share price when the

option was granted. This is an added incentive for executives to maximize company profit and

increase share prices.

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Stock Split: Corporations do this to make shares more affordable. They multiply the number of

shares, while keeping the aggregate value of stock even. In a 2-for-1 split of shares worth $50, an

investor would have twice as many shares as he had, but each would be worth $25.

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Strategic Management: The process by which an organization determines its long-run direction

and performance by ensuring that careful formulation, effective & efficient implementation, and

continuous evaluation of strategy and performance takes place.

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Subsidiary: A company owned by a parent company, a subsidiary is a separate legal entity listed

as a corporation or LLC that is required to file its own taxes.

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Tacit Knowledge (or Implicit Knowledge): The knowledge or know-how that people carry in

their heads. Compared with explicit knowledge, tacit knowledge is more difficult to articulate or

write down and so it tends to be shared between people through discussion, stories and personal

interactions. It includes skills, experiences, insight, intuition and judgement.

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Target Market: A specified audience or demographic group that an ad, product or service is

intended to reach.

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Tariff: A federal tax on imports or exports. Japan's import tariffs drive U.S. trade negotiators nuts.

The tariffs protect Japan’s domestic industries by raising foreign producers’ expenses–and

usually the price of their goods.

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Telemarketing: Using the telephone to sell, promote or solicit products and services.

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Top-Down Planning: An ineffective planning methodology, describing the approach taken when

senior management alone conducts planning activities with little or no input from the rest of the

organization. This approach typically is lacking in internal environmental information and analysis.

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Top-Down / Bottom-Up Planning: A “best practice” approach to organizational planning that

draws upon the skills, strengths and knowledge of the entire organization. This approach

maximizes planning effectiveness through the successful integration of both internal and external

environmental information and analysis.

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Trade Deficit: What the U.S. has with Japan. Imports exceed exports–or we buy more than we

sell.

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Trade Surplus: Exports exceed imports–or you sell more than you buy.

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Transformational Change: One of three types of organizational change. The hierarchically

highest of the three types of organizational change. Involves implementation of an evolutionary

new state, which requires major and often on-going shifts in organizational strategy. Examples

include reengineering, major restructuring, downsizing, consolidation, and major shifts in

business focus.

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Unsought Goods: Products that are usually purchased due to adversity rather than desire. For

example coffins, life insurance and medicine are all unsought goods.

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Upsell: A technique to increase the value or quantity of a sale by suggesting additional options or

upgrades. For example, a fast-food restaurant may upsell by suggesting that a customer buy a

larger drink or an order of French fries.

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Value Added: The amount added to sales value through production. It’s considered good for an

economy to produce lots of value-added goods, which adds jobs, rather than shipping raw

materials elsewhere to be processed.

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VAR (Value Added Reseller): A company that modifies or improves a system in some way and

then resells it. A VAR might, for example, integrate a software application with its clients´ other

systems or it might buy hardware components and build complete systems.

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Value Chain: A framework for examining the strengths and weaknesses of an organization, and

for using the results of this analysis to improve performance.

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Venture Capital: Money used to support new or unusual commercial undertakings; equity, risk or

speculative capital.

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Vertical Hierarchical Structure: Traditional hierarchical pyramid structure, vertically oriented

and using traditional concepts such as division of labor, standardization of parts and products,

mass production and control as basic or primary function of management.

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Vertical Integration: The potential within an enterprise to incorporate all aspects of

management, production, sales and distribution into their business operations. In theory, the

greater the vertical integration, the less vulnerable an enterprise is to outside forces.

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World Bank: This international bank focuses its lending on helping developing countries develop.

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Working Capital: The difference between current assets and current liabilities. Working capital

finances the cash conversion cycle of a business – the time it takes to convert raw materials to

finished products to sell and receive cash.

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