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Debit Card

Groff, James R., and Weinberg, Paul N. (2002). SQL: The com- Clubs of America. Although that continues to be the
plete reference (2nd ed.). Berkeley, CA: Osborne/McGraw- legal name, the organization uses the commonly recog-
Hill. nized acronym DECA, along with the tag line, “An Asso-
Hansen, Gary W., and Hansen, James V. (1996). Database man- ciation of Marketing Students.” DECA is advised by a
agement and design (2nd ed.). Upper Saddle River, NJ: Pren- national advisory board, consisting of business represen-
tice Hall.
tatives, and a congressional advisory board, comprised of
Kroenke, David M. (2006). Database processing: Fundamentals, federal legislators.
design, and implementation (10th ed.). Upper Saddle River,
NJ: Pearson Prentice Hall. The official publications of DECA are the DECA
Advisor, Dimensions, Chi Connection, and the DECA
Post, Gerald V. (2005). Database management systems: Designing
and building business applications (3rd ed.). Boston: McGraw- Guide. Such scholarships as the Harry Applegate, Hilton,
Hill/Irwin. Marriott International, Otis Spunkmeyer, Safeway, and
Rob, Peter, and Semaan, Elie (2004). Databases: Design, develop- Sears Scholarships are available to support the academic
ment and deployment (2nd ed.). Boston: McGraw-Hill. endeavors of members. More information is available
from DECA at 1908 Association Drive, Reston, VA
20191; 703-860-5000 (phone); 703-869-4013 (fax); or,
Dorothy Maxwell http://www.deca.org.
Gary Hansen
SEE ALSO Business Professionals of America; Future Busi-
ness Leaders of America; SkillsUSA

DEBIT CARD BIBLIOGRAPHY
SEE Credit/Debit/Travel Cards Berns, Robert G. (1996). DECA: A continuing tradition of excel-
lence. Reston, VA: DECA.

Robert G. Berns
DECA Jewel E. Hairston
DECA, Inc. is a national student organization for indi-
viduals preparing for marketing, management, and entre-
preneurship careers. With over 185,000 members in
2006, DECA serves as the companion to marketing edu- DECENTRALIZATION
cation programs within secondary and postsecondary SEE Organizational Structure
schools across all fifty states of the United States, its ter-
ritories, two provinces of Canada, and Germany. As a
cocurricular organization, DECA is an integral part of
classroom instruction—a vehicle through which students DECISION MAKING
learn marketing and management and are motivated to Decision making, also referred to as problem solving, is
succeed.
the process of recognizing a problem or opportunity and
In partnership with businesses throughout the coun- finding a solution to it. Decisions are made by everyone
try, DECA offers learning experiences that contribute to involved in the business world, but managers typically
the integration of academic and career-focused instruc- face the most decisions on a daily basis. Many of these
tion, resulting in heightened student achievement and decisions are relatively simple and routine, such as order-
student recognition. For example, each year thousands of ing production supplies, choosing the discount rate for an
student members participate in a competitive events pro- order, or deciding the annual raise of an employee. These
gram, culminating in state and national secondary and routine types of decisions are known as programmed deci-
postsecondary international career development confer- sions, because the decision maker already knows what the
ences that allow members to demonstrate academic and solution and outcome will be. However, managers are also
marketing excellence. Also, a host of leadership develop- faced with decisions that can drastically affect the future
ment programs are offered. outcomes of the business. These types of decisions are
Organized in 1946, DECA meets the needs of mar- known as nonprogrammed decisions, because neither the
keting (at the time called distributive) education students appropriate solution nor the potential outcome is known.
seeking professional and personal growth. The associa- Examples of nonprogrammed decisions include merging
tion is governed by a board of directors. Until 1991, with another company, creating a new product, or
DECA was referred to as the Distributive Education expanding production facilities.

192 ENCYCLOPEDIA OF BUSINESS AND FINANCE, SECOND EDITION