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Social Franchising
Social franchising is the application of commercial franchising concepts to achieve socially beneficial ends, rather than profit. Overview Social franchising is the application of the principles of commercial franchising to promote social benefit rather than private profit. In the first sense, it refers to a contractual relationship wherein an independent coordinating organization (usually a non-governmental organization, but occasionally a governmental body or private company) offers individual independent operators the ability to join into a franchise network for the provision of selected services over a specified area in accordance with an overall blueprint devised by the franchisor. Once joining the network, operators are given the right to employ previously tested incentives including: professional training, use of brands or brand advertisements, subsidized or proprietary supplies and equipment, support services, and access to professional advice. Members also gain benefic ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Franchising
Franchising is based on a marketing concept which can be adopted by an organization as a strategy for business expansion. Where implemented, a franchisor licenses some or all of its know-how, procedures, intellectual property, use of its business model, brand, and rights to sell its branded products and services to a franchisee. In return, the franchisee pays certain fees and agrees to comply with certain obligations, typically set out in a franchise agreement. The word ''franchise'' is of Anglo-French derivation—from , meaning 'free'—and is used both as a noun and as a (transitive) verb. For the franchisor, use of a franchise system is an alternative business growth strategy, compared to expansion through corporate owned outlets or "chain stores". Adopting a franchise system business growth strategy for the sale and distribution of goods and services minimizes the franchisor's capital investment and liability risk. Franchising is rarely an equal partnership, especially in ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Equity (economics)
Equity, or economic equality, is the concept or idea of fairness in economics, particularly in regard to taxation or welfare economics. More specifically, it may refer to a movement that strives to provide equal life chances regardless of identity, to provide all citizens with a basic and equal minimum of income, goods, and services or to increase funds and commitment for redistribution. Overview According to Peter Corning, there are three distinct categories of substantive fairness (equality, equity, and reciprocity) that must be combined and balanced in order to achieve a truly fair society. Inequality and inequities have significantly increased in recent decades. Equity is based on the idea of moral equality. Equity looks at the distribution of capital, goods, and access to services throughout an economy and is often measured using tools such as the Gini index. Equity may be distinguished from economic efficiency in overall evaluation of social welfare. Although 'equity' ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Social Marketing
Social marketing is a marketing approach which focuses on influencing behavior with the primary goal of achieving "common good." It utilizes the elements of commercial marketing and applies them to social concepts. However, to see social marketing as only the use of standard commercial marketing practices to achieve non-commercial goals is an oversimplified view. Social marketing has existed for some time, but has only started becoming a common term in recent decades. It was originally done using newspapers and billboards and has adapted to the modern world in many of the same ways commercial marketing has. The most common use of social marketing in today's society is through social media. Traditional commercial marketing aims are primarily financial, though they can have positive social effects as well. In the context of public health, social marketing would promote general health, raise awareness and induce changes in behavior. Social marketing is described as having "two ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Best Practice
A best practice is a method or technique that has been generally accepted as superior to other known alternatives because it often produces results that are superior to those achieved by other means or because it has become a standard way of doing things, e.g., a standard way of complying with legal or ethical requirements. Best practices are used to maintain quality as an alternative to mandatory legislated standards and can be based on self-assessment or benchmarking. Best practice is a feature of accredited management standards such as ISO 9000 and ISO 14001. Some consulting firms specialize in the area of best practice and offer ready-made templates to standardize business process documentation. Sometimes a best practice is not applicable or is inappropriate for a particular organization's needs. A key strategic talent required when applying best practice to organizations is the ability to balance the unique qualities of an organization with the practices that it has in common ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Collective Bargaining
Collective bargaining is a process of negotiation between employers and a group of employees aimed at agreements to regulate working salaries, working conditions, benefits, and other aspects of workers' compensation and rights for workers. The interests of the employees are commonly presented by representatives of a trade union to which the employees belong. The collective agreements reached by these negotiations usually set out wage scales, working hours, training, health and safety, overtime, grievance mechanisms, and rights to participate in workplace or company affairs. The union may negotiate with a single employer (who is typically representing a company's shareholders) or may negotiate with a group of businesses, depending on the country, to reach an industry-wide agreement. A collective agreement functions as a labour contract between an employer and one or more unions. Collective bargaining consists of the process of negotiation between representatives of a union and em ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Scalability
Scalability is the property of a system to handle a growing amount of work by adding resources to the system. In an economic context, a scalable business model implies that a company can increase sales given increased resources. For example, a package delivery system is scalable because more packages can be delivered by adding more delivery vehicles. However, if all packages had to first pass through a single warehouse for sorting, the system would not be as scalable, because one warehouse can handle only a limited number of packages. In computing, scalability is a characteristic of computers, networks, algorithms, networking protocols, programs and applications. An example is a search engine, which must support increasing numbers of users, and the number of topics it indexes. Webscale is a computer architectural approach that brings the capabilities of large-scale cloud computing companies into enterprise data centers. In mathematics, scalability mostly refers to closure u ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Advertising
Advertising is the practice and techniques employed to bring attention to a product or service. Advertising aims to put a product or service in the spotlight in hopes of drawing it attention from consumers. It is typically used to promote a specific good or service, but there are wide range of uses, the most common being the commercial advertisement. Commercial advertisements often seek to generate increased consumption of their products or services through "branding", which associates a product name or image with certain qualities in the minds of consumers. On the other hand, ads that intend to elicit an immediate sale are known as direct-response advertising. Non-commercial entities that advertise more than consumer products or services include political parties, interest groups, religious organizations and governmental agencies. Non-profit organizations may use free modes of persuasion, such as a public service announcement. Advertising may also help to reassure employees ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Supply Chains
In commerce, a supply chain is a network of facilities that procure raw materials, transform them into intermediate goods and then final products to customers through a distribution system. It refers to the network of organizations, people, activities, information, and resources involved in delivering a product or service to a consumer. Supply chain activities involve the transformation of natural resources, raw materials, and components into a finished product and delivering the same to the end customer. In sophisticated supply chain systems, used products may re-enter the supply chain at any point where residual value is recyclable. Supply chains link value chains. Suppliers in a supply chain are often ranked by "tier", with first-tier suppliers supplying directly to the client, second-tier suppliers supplying to the first tier, and so on. Overview A typical supply chain begins with the ecological, biological, and political regulation of natural resources, followed by the huma ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Physical Capital
Physical capital represents in economics one of the three primary factors of production. Physical capital is the apparatus used to produce a good and services. Physical capital represents the tangible man-made goods that help and support the production. Inventory, cash, equipment or real estate are all examples of physical capital. Definition N.G. Mankiw definition from the book Economics: '' Capital is the equipment and structures used to produce goods and services. Physical capital consists of man-made goods (or input into the process of production) that assist in the production process. Cash, real estate, equipment, and inventory are examples of physical capital.'' Capital goods represents one of the key factors of corporation function. Generally, capital allows a company to preserve liquidity while growing operations, it refers to physical assets in business and the way a company have reached their physical capital. While referring how companies have obtained their capital ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Returns To Scale
In economics, returns to scale describe what happens to long-run returns as the scale of production increases, when all input levels including physical capital usage are variable (able to be set by the firm). The concept of returns to scale arises in the context of a firm's production function. It explains the long-run linkage of the rate of increase in output (production) relative to associated increases in the inputs (factors of production). In the long run, all factors of production are variable and subject to change in response to a given increase in production scale. While economies of scale show the effect of an increased output level on unit costs, returns to scale focus only on the relation between input and output quantities. There are three possible types of returns to scale: increasing returns to scale, constant returns to scale, and diminishing (or decreasing) returns to scale. If output increases by the same proportional change as all inputs change then there are cons ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
USAID
The United States Agency for International Development (USAID) is an independent agency of the U.S. federal government that is primarily responsible for administering civilian foreign aid and development assistance. With a budget of over $27 billion, USAID is one of the largest official aid agencies in the world and accounts for more than half of all U.S. foreign assistance—the highest in the world in absolute dollar terms. Congress passed the Foreign Assistance Act on September 4, 1961, which reorganized U.S. foreign assistance programs and mandated the creation of an agency to administer economic aid. USAID was subsequently established by the executive order of President John F. Kennedy, who sought to unite several existing foreign assistance organizations and programs under one agency. USAID became the first U.S. foreign assistance organization whose primary focus was long-term socioeconomic development. USAID's programs are authorized by Congress in the Foreign Assistanc ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
