Fundamentals of Business, third edition

Please note that a 4th edition of the open textbook, Fundamentals of Business, was released in 2023: https://doi.org/10.21061/fundamentalsofbusiness4e.

Fundamentals of Business, third edition (2020) is an 370-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, and personal finances. 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 Non-Commercial ShareAlike 4.0 license.

An online, interactive, accessible version of this book is available at: https://pressbooks.lib.vt.edu/fundamentalsofbusiness3e

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Permanent handle: http://hdl.handle.net/10919/99283 (PDF, epub, and other versions)
DOI: https://doi.org/10.21061/fundamentals-of-business3e (eBook-Pressbooks)
DOI: https://doi.org/10.21061/fundamentals-of-business3e-vtechworks (PDF, epub, and other versions)

ISBNs
ISBN (print - color): 9781949373356
ISBN (print - B&W): 9781949373349
ISBN (PDF): 9781949373882
ISBN (Pressbooks): 9781949373875
ISBN (epub): 9781949373363

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This work is published by Pamplin College of Business in association with Virginia Tech Publishing.

Accessibility notice
Screen reader accessible versions of this text currently include ePub and Pressbooks versions. PDFs of the text do not currently have all available accessibility features enabled.

What’s new?
The third edition improves upon the 2016 and 2018 editions.
Improvements include:

• Data updates
• Updated figures (graphics and images) modernized to new color palette and to include more representative images of people;
• Updated content, especially to reflect changes in technology, law, and economics;
• Updated examples to include companies more familiar to today’s students.

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.

Editable files are available in HTML, Open Document, PressBooks XML, ePub, MOBI, and PDF.

Selected graphics produced by Kindred Grey are available under a CC BY SA 4.0 license via WikimediaCommons.

Table of contents
Chapter 1: Teamwork in Business vChapter 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: Starting a Business
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

Suggested citation
Skripak, Stephen J. and Poff, Ron (2020). Fundamentals of Business, 3rd Edition, Blacksburg, VA: VT Publishing. http://hdl.handle.net/10919/99283. Licensed with CC BY-NC-SA 4.0 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-sa/4.0.

About the author
About the previous author
Fundamentals of Business, 3rd edition is adapted from a work produced and distributed under a Creative Commons license (CC BY-NC-SA 3.0) by a publisher who has requested that they and the original author not receive attribution. We wish to extend our gratitude to the original author for portions of their book which were remixed and adapted to form portions of Chapters 1-15 and 17-18 of Fundamentals of Business. If the publisher and author are both willing to allow us to provide attribution to the author while retaining use of the Creative Commons license and continuing to provide free public access, we will gladly and publicly thank the original author here.

Stephen Skripak
Stephen J. Skripak is Professor of Practice in Management at Pamplin College of Business, Virginia Tech and former Associate Dean for Graduate Programs (2006-2014). He is a senior executive with 25 years of business leadership experience, including positions as General Manager and Chief Financial Officer with divisions of Fortune 500 companies. His background includes financial services, consumer packaged goods, apparel, and industrial companies, with emphasis in turnaround situations.

Ron Poff
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.

Contributors
Lead contributor: Ron Poff
Managing editor: Anita Walz
Reviewers/contributors: Lisa R. Fournier, Kindred Grey, Lauren Holt, Katie Manning, Sarah Mease, Michael Stamper, and Blake Warner
Past reviewers/contributors: Anastasia Cortes, Jonathan De Pena, Nina Lindsay, Richard Parsons, Sachi Soni, and Gary Walton
Digital and print production: Robert Browder
Cover design, figure design, and alternative text: Kindred Grey