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Introducing: Fundamentals of Business, 4th edition + ancillaries
The Open Education Initiative and Pamplin College of Business at Virginia Tech are pleased to announce the release of a 4th edition of Fundamentals of Business and selected new slide decks to accompany chapters.
Fundamentals of Business https://doi.org/10.21061/fundamentalsofbusiness4e , fourth edition (2023) is an 434-page open education resource intended to serve as a no-cost, faculty-customizable primary text for one-semester undergraduate introductory business courses. It covers the following topics in business: Teamwork; economics; ethics; entrepreneurship; business ownership, management, and leadership; organizational structures and operations management; human resources and motivating employees; managing in labor union contexts; marketing and pricing strategy; hospitality and tourism, accounting and finance, personal finances, and technology in business. The textbook was designed for use in Virginia Tech’s Pamplin College of Business introductory level business course, MGT1104 Foundations of Business and is shared under a Creative Commons Attribution Non-Commercial ShareAlike 4.0 license (CC BY NC-SA 4.0).
Instructors reviewing, adopting, or adapting this textbook are asked to please help us understand your use of the material by filling out this form http://bit.ly/business-interest.
What’s new?
This version of the book, the Fourth Edition, improves upon the 2016, 2018, and 2020 editions. Improvements include:
– Data updates
– Updated graphics and photos;
– Added interactive, live-data graphs to the online version for key economic indicators in Chapter 3: Economics and Business;
– Reorganized and added significant additional content to Chapter 4: Ethics and Social Responsibility;
– Renamed and substantially expanded content in Chapter 7: Entrepreneurship and Small Business Development;
– Added additional content to chapters 8, 10, 12, 13, 14, and 17;
– Addition of a completely new chapter: Chapter 19 Technology in Business;
A detailed list of changes by chapter is available in the version notes at the back of the book.
Features of the book
– Each chapter lists learning objectives at the beginning of the chapter and key takeaways at the end of the chapter.
– The Pressbooks version of this book also includes interactive self-quizzing.
– Slide decks aligned to selected book chapters are available. Additional slide decks will be added when they become available.
– An instructor-only testbank is available. Follow the three-step process to request access. (Note that the test bank is currently best aligned to prior editions of the textbook.)
Table of Contents
Chapter 1: Teamwork in Business
Chapter 2: The Foundations of Business
Chapter 3: Economics and Business
Chapter 4: Ethics and Social Responsibility
Chapter 5: Business in a Global Environment
Chapter 6: Forms of Business Ownership
Chapter 7: Entrepreneurship and Small Business Development
Chapter 8: Management and Leadership
Chapter 9: Structuring Organizations
Chapter 10: Operations Management
Chapter 11: Motivating Employees
Chapter 12: Managing Human Resources
Chapter 13: Union/Management Issues
Chapter 14: Marketing: Providing Value to Customers
Chapter 15: Pricing Strategy
Chapter 16: Hospitality and Tourism
Chapter 17: Accounting and Financial Information
Chapter 18: Personal Finances
Chapter 19: Technology in Business
How to Access the Book
Permanent handle: http://hdl.handle.net/10919/111385 (PDF, epub, and other versions)
URL: https://pressbooks.lib.vt.edu/fundamentalsofbusiness4e (HTML eBook-Pressbooks)
DOI: https://doi.org/10.21061/fundamentalsofbusiness4e (PDF, epub, and other versions)
ISBN 978-1-957213-24-8 (print-color) Order here
ISBN 978-1-957213-25-5 (print-black & white) Order here
ISBN 978-1-957213-21-7 (ebook-PDF)
ISBN 978-1-957213-23-1 (HTML eBook-Pressbooks)
ISBN 978-1-957213-22-4 (epub)
The book is also listed in the Open Textbook Library, OER Commons, VIVA Open, and Merlot.
Contributors to this Edition
Lead contributor: Ron Poff
Contributors to the Fourth Edition: Howard Haines, John Andy Travers
Managing editor: Anita Walz
Cover design and selected graphics: Kindred Grey
Previously adapted by: Stephen Skripak
About the Lead Contributor
Ron Poff is Assistant Professor of Management Practice in the Management Department at Pamplin College of Business, Virginia Tech, where he teaches management courses. He began his career as an enlisted member of the US Navy Reserves before entering his primary career in supply chain operations then sales and marketing, where he served in executive roles with large corporations for over 25 years. As an entrepreneur, he then founded his own marketing agency. His education includes a B.S. in Business Management, M.S. Marketing, and a Graduate Certificate in eMarketing. He is the project lead, chief contributor, and coordinator of contributors for the third (2020) and fourth editions (2022) of Fundamentals of Business.
Suggested citation
Ron Poff (2023). Fundamentals of Business, 4th Edition, Blacksburg: Pamplin College of Business. https://doi.org/10.21061/fundamentalsofbusiness4e. Licensed with CC BY-NC-SA 4.0 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/4.0.
Unless otherwise noted, this work is released under a Creative Commons Attribution NonCommercial-ShareAlike (CC BY NC SA) 4.0 license which allows adaptation and redistribution with attribution for uses which are not primarily commercial. See the license terms and best practices for attribution for additional information.
