Gordon Growth Model or Constant Growth Model of Common Stock Valuation

Common stock represents ownership of the corporation. So the common stockholders are the owners of the firm. They elect the firm’s board of directors, who in turn appoint the firm’s top management team. The firm’s management team then carries out the day-to-day management of the firm. A share of common stock is more difficult to value in practice than a bond, for at least three reasons. First, with common stock, not even the promised cash flows are known in a advance. Second, the life of the investment is essentially forever, since common stock has no maturity. Third, there is no way to easily observe the rate of return that the market requires. Nonetheless, as we will see, there are cases in which we can come up with the present value of the future cash flows for a share of stock and thus determine its value. Stock valuation is the process Continue reading

Factors Affecting Organizational Change

Change is inevitable in the life of an organization. In today’s business world, most of the organizations are facing a dynamic and changing business environment. They should either change or die, there is no third alternative. Organizations that learn and cope with change will thrive and flourish and others who fail to do so will be wiped out. The major forces which make the changes not only desirable but inevitable are technological, economic, political, social, legal, international and labor market environments. In very simple words, we can say that change means the alteration of status quo or making things different. “The term change refers to any alterations which occurs in the overall work environment of an organization. When an organizational system is disturbed by some internal or external force, change frequently occurs. Change, as a process, is simply modification of the structure or process of a system. It may be Continue reading

Social Loafing in Organizations

Social loafing is antithesis of synergy in team-work which suggests that people working together on a common task may actually decrease their individual efforts; team-work does not necessarily spurt group efforts. A simple phenomenon of social loafing may be observed in a group assignment to students during their study. In such an assignment, students find that one or two students do not put their weight for the completion of the project. These students may be called loafers (not attaching the same connotation which is attached with the term loafer in our social phenomenon) who frequently miss the project group’s meetings, fail to perform their assigned tasks, and so on. They rely on the fact the more reliable members will complete the project without their help, and still expect to share the credit and obtain the same marks from the professor since he will be concerned with determining who worked and Continue reading

Brand Equity – Meaning, Definition and Components

What is Brand Equity? There is no universally accepted definition of brand equity. The term means different things for different companies and products. However, there are several common characteristics of the many definitions that are used today. From the following examples it is clear that brand equity is multi-dimensional. There are several stakeholders concerned with brand equity, including the firm, the consumer, the channel, and some would even argue the financial markets. But ultimately, it is the consumer that is the most critical component in defining brand equity. Some researchers in the field of marketing have defined brand equity as follows: Lance Leuthesser (1995) writes that “… brand equity represents the value (to a consumer) of a product, above that which would result for an otherwise identical product without the brand’s name. In other words, brand equity represents the degree to which a brand’s name alone contributes value to the Continue reading

Prescriptive and Descriptive Schools of Strategy – Similarities and Differences

Strategy is a direction and scope of an organization over the long term, which achieves advantage in changing environment through its configuration of resources and competences with the aim of fulfilling stakeholder expectations. Having strategy in an organization is very important because it helps on how to meet the goals in consideration with the organization’s situation. An organization strategy answers all questions about fundamental business whether to concentrate in single business or build a group of several businesses, either to go for a broad range of customers or to concentrate on a market niche, either to focus on a wide or narrow product line, whether to base on competitive advantage with low cost or product differentiation. An organization has to know deeply everything concerned strategic management, strategic levels, and has to reach to the level of achievement of the strategic goals. Organizations also use strategy as the most important tool Continue reading

Leadership and Management – Differences

A manager may be a leader, a manager may not be a leader, but a leader may emerge who is not a manager. This saying shows that roles of manager and leader not to be connected at all. However, for a business to be effective, managers must learn how to become leaders by developing effective leadership skills. A leader means a person that holds a dominant or superior position within its field, and is able to exercise a high degree of control or influence over others. A leader is one who has followers. Followers follow leaders because they are influenced by the leader’s personality and share belief in the leader’s visions, goals and values. Leaders gain personal power through credibility. They can communicate their beliefs to team members, who understand that these beliefs will not alter or vary because of circumstances and will become the rock on which their working Continue reading