Cyberspace is the electronic network of communications that includes the INTERNET and the WORLD WIDE WEB. Cyberspace is growing rapidly and creating a variety of new issues and concerns for global businesses.

A customs union is an agreement between or among countries to reduce or eliminate TRADE BARRIERS among its members and have a common set of external TARIFFs for trade outside the union. A customs union is one step beyond a FREE TRADE agreement but below a common market.

Customer relations / satisfaction involves meeting or exceeding customer needs and expectations.

Customer-relationship management (CRM) is an organization’s efforts to build and maintain relationships with the people who buy their products and services. CRM became a popular buzzword among marketers in the last decade as new technology improved the ability of firms to gather information about and communicate with their customers using a variety of methods.

Customer loyalty (or customer retention) is the degree to which a company keeps its existing customers. Customer loyalty can be measured through repeat business and customer referrals. In most marketing environments, it is significantly more expensive to find and acquire a new customer than it is to retain an existing customer.

Cultural industries are those industries considered critical to maintaining the cultural heritage of a region or country. Most often the term refer to the exclusion of certain industries from FREE TRADE agreements. (Citizens and politicians in many countries fear U.S. cultural dominance.) In addition to challenging existing cultural norms, cultural industries are a significant source of revenue.

Cross-price elasticity of demand is the responsiveness of DEMAND for one PRODUCT or service to changes in the price of another good or service. Cross-price elasticity is calculated by dividing the percentage change in demand for one product by the percentage change in the price of a related product.

Cross-cultural communication is the ability to successfully form and maintain relationships with members of a culture different from one’s own. Many factors contribute to success in communicating with a person of another culture; these include manners, social structure, and values.

Critical path method (CPM) was created in 1957 by J. E. Kelly of Remington Rand and M. R. Walker of DuPont to assist in the building and repairs of DuPont’s chemical plants. In the following year, the Special Projects Office of the U.S.

A credit union is a nonprofit cooperative financial institution that primarily provides consumer credit LOANS to its members, with funds deposited by its participants. Credit unions are mutually owned and run by their members, with a BOARD OF DIRECTORS, elected by the members, which sets policies and procedures.

Credit scoring is mathematical modeling used by CREDIT-REPORTING SERVICES to generate a number rating a customer’s credit risk. Fair Isaac and Company (FICO) is the leading provider of credit scores in the United States.

Credit-reporting services, also called credit bureaus, are firms that maintain credit-history information on consumers and businesses.

Credit cards are a convenient method for consumers to secure short-term LOANS. In today’s U.S. economy, credit cards and access to credit cards are ubiquitous; in many situations, such as hotels, it is difficult to purchase goods and services without use of a credit card. While most Americans probably cannot conceive of life without credit cards, they are a relatively recent phenomenon in U.S. business.

See DEBIT, CREDIT.

The U.S. Court of International Trade (CIT) was created under Article III of the U.S. Constitution to provide judicial review of civil actions from import transactions and certain federal statutes affecting international trade.

Country-risk analysis is the assessment of the level of political and economic risk associated with doing business in another country.

Countervailing power is the economic concept that the power of a seller (buyer) in a market will eventually be offset by an equal, opposite power among buyers (sellers). As developed by John Kenneth Galbraith, countervailing power suggests that initial market dominance will evolve into complimentary power, reducing the control and pricing power of the firm or group that originally prevailed in the market.

Countertrade is a reciprocal trading agreement between or among trading partners. In essence, countertrade is international BARTER. It is often used when there are problems with hard-currency generation and in TECHNOLOGY TRANSFER agreements. It is also often involved in the sale of aerospace and defense equipment.

Counterfeit goods are found in many markets, including the United States. Luxury brand-name articles are often counterfeited (Pierre Cardin, Louis Vuitton), but the phenomenon is by no means limited to them.

When business managers change the level of output, they do so by changing the quantity of resources, called inputs, used to produce the output. As the number of inputs change, the firm’s costs change. There are many types of costs: total costs (TC), total fixed costs (TFC), total variable costs (TVC), average total cost (ATC sometimes shown as AC), average variable cost (AVC), average fixed cost (AFC), and marginal cost (MC).

Cost-push inflation, also referred to as supply-shock or sellers’ inflation, is an increase in the general level of prices caused by a leftward shift of an economy’s aggregate supply curve.

A cost-of-living adjustment (COLA) is an increase in INCOME to compensate for INFLATION. As the general level of prices rises (inflation), the purchasing power of a fixed amount of income decreases. COLAs protect against inflation by raising incomes, or benefits.

Cost of goods sold is an expense account with a normal debit balance found in the ledger of merchandising firms that buy and resell finished goods.

Cost-benefit analysis looks at proposed transactions from an economic viewpoint, comparing the cost of the improvement to the benefits derived from the improvement. At the very least, business wants the economic benefits of the improvement to be greater than the cost of the improvement.