Year 10 Commerce Textbook Pdf

0 views

Skip to first unread message

Heinz Francis

unread,

Aug 3, 2024, 3:22:22 PM8/3/24

to loyforfrearsa

The chapters were ordered thoughtfully and progressed in a manner which will help the students to learn the material. Content was up-to-date, and I don't feel that it will be situation where a new edition is required each year.

I was excited to find this OER book. It is well done, detailed, and thorough. I appreciated the test banks that were included. I would like to see some recommended activities for each chapter, but overall the book was excellent. I was happy to see an additional chapter on hospitality as well. I look forward to adopting this for my Foundations of Business class.

I must first state that I am a Doctor of Physical Therapy educator who holds a PhD in Business which is not a common combination of degree paths. I was intrigued by the possibility of adding more business theory to my health service administration courses, but the cost has been historically prohibitive to the students in my experience. We utilize a niche health care admin textbook which misses some of the greater foundational business skills. When this opportunity presented to review materials that I could add to my course without adding cost, I was very pleased. I find Skripak to be comprehensive with the added bonus of my favorite chapter #18 Personal Finances which for Physical Therapy students who typically leave school with great debt to be invaluable!

As this is the second edition with a 2018 publish date it was very current, however, I noticed after I began reading the 2nds edition that a 3rd edition (2020) has been released which updates figures, graphs, and some of the recent law changes. Having the book turn over that quickly makes it even a greater value to me as the instructor and to the student. I appreciate the relevance of being able to submit suggestions or corrections to the author and that they are making a test bank available in support of this material! Doesn't get much better than that!

From what I can tell, it is very consistent. I did not observe any changes in tone or terminology, but again, I am reading this through the eyes of someone who has earned a PhD in Business, so it is all very familiar to me.

When you go to the website, you can easily download each chapter in bits [ ]. I first started reviewing the full .pdf of the 2nd edition and found that it didn't have bookmarks for each chapter so the scrolling was a bit annoying. I would add that piece to the full .pdf if possible and it appears they did that in the 3rd ed. However, the module approach online eliminates the need for a full book .pdf download.

Starts with teamwork which is perhaps one of the most important concepts in modern business. So I really appreciate that. The 18 chapters of the 2nd (and 3rd) edition cover all of the major elements of modern business. Certainly, each chapter could be expanded into it's own book. For example, Chapter 14 is Marketing, and there are full marketing textbooks, however, that is not the function of this book. The purpose is to take you through all of the major components of business as opposed to deep dives into each topic.

I look forward to integrating this open textbook into my Physical Therapy health service admin course as I can now get a glimpse of business fundamentals to supplement the health care niche that my students receive! Thank you for this opportunity. I do have some ideas for writing open textbooks and would be open to doing so. Steven G. Lesh

This book covers the overall landscape of contemporary businesses pretty well. While nothing significant is 'lacking', I would love to have the authors provide a chapter that quickly takes students through the history of business and another...read more

The contents are presented in a generalized manner - meaning, the book could stand the test of time for a significant duration. The dynamism of the contemporary businesses could have been captured better, however. The digital transformation of businesses and societies has made the life cycle of knowledge shorter. More stress on e-businesses and digital models would have made the book more relevant.

Ideas are organized systematically. Every chapter opens with a set of learning objectives and this gives direction to the learners. The students are asked to reflect upon certain key questions, from time to time. Answers to these question are then made available in the content discussed. At the end of each chapter, certain key takeaways are listed. This facilitates a natural form of learning.

No culturally insensitive use of language or images noted. However, in the forthcoming iterations, the authors are requested to bring in more dimensions of global businesses. Examples of business practices in other countries and cultures would add value.

One chapter (Chapter 15: Hospitality and Tourism) does not make a lot of sense. One might wonder why the authors devoted a full chapter for one industry! Why not similar chapters for other industries? It almost sounds like one of the authors had a chapter written for some other purpose, which needed to be inserted in this book. There are several other examples and case studies related to tourism in this book, too. Thinking of it positively, this book thus has an added advantages for students majoring in Hospitality and Tourism.

The OER does well on covering topics in an introductory level business course. It adds a section that is not in typical business fundamental material of hospitality which compliments our new program that we started at our college.read more

The book is clear in the writing that can be easily read. Business terms are well represented and explained thoroughly. The material is written well for a student's first time learning business and how to apply it to what is happening around them.

The chapters are seamless with transition from topic to topic. It could easily be broken up into sections of reading during certain points in the course. This text seems to be set up well for student team work to learn on each important topic of business basics.

Chapters are organized in a good way to learn all material and have it related to each former chapter. Personally I will be teaching the chapters in a different order to complement a business plan being created by students.

The book could use a few more visuals for students to relate to the material. Some of the visuals could use improvement, but as for the written material, it is clear and written well for beginners understanding business.

With a 2016 publication date, it is up-to-date and should have a shelf life of several years. The biggest challenge will be updating the stories/vignettes as new information becomes available on the firms mentioned and technology inevitably impacts the content.

The material is easily accessible to the Introduction to Business student. Well written and the material flows well. Terms/jargon are thoroughly explained in the chapter and at the end of each chapter.

I might organize the material a bit differently as the Global and Ethics items are early in the text and I might bump them to later in the term after additional terminology is learned and can be applied to that material. That said, overall the text is laid out logically and "like" content is connected in successive chapters, e.g. MGMT then OB/OD, etc.

This text does a good job of introducing key functions of an organization (Marketing, HR, Accounting/Finance) as well as core principles such as ethics, legal issues, and economics. The material is appropriate for an introductory course to serve as the foundation for general business or to move on to a concentration in any of these business disciplines. There are two chapters that do not quite seem to fit in with the rest of the text: chapter 12 discusses Union/Management Issues, which makes sense in the flow of the book that it follows chapter 11 on HR, but for an introductory course the chapter 12 topic gets into a lot of HR detail not generally covered in an introductory course. Chapter 15 focuses on the hospitality and tourism industry. This is a very specific chapter embedded within the book about an industry while the rest of the book is mostly general information that could be applied to any number or types of organizations. Still, out of 17 chapters there are 15 solid chapters that provide great content and overview of the subject matter.

The book is written in an easy to read format with no noticeable grammatical errors or formatting issues. It is easy to find topics within chapters based on the layout, fonts, etc. The information itself is rooted in fundamental concepts of each chapter's topic or subject matter within the business discipline and there are no overt attempts to lead the reader in a particular manner to form bias or opinions, other than to establish critical thinking of topics.

While there are some examples that may seem somewhat dated, they are explained in a manner that is easy to understand and they are relevant (or "fit") within the context of the chapters and course concepts being discussed. The book is quite lengthy but given the 17 chapters that is to be expected. The author could probably eliminate two chapters on ancillary material to make it a shorter text but the chapters are not unnecessarily bloated for the sake of adding more vocabulary or unnecessary graphics.