15.   The recent interest in physical fitness has forced producers of food, clothing, and other products to reconsider their marketing strategies. Which of the following does this trend illustrate?

a)    economic and technological environment.
Things like business cycles, rate of unemployment, inflation, interest rates, etc. are part of the economic environment. The technological environment has more to do with major trends in new technologies in the industry or related to consumers' habits.

b)    cultural and social environment.
This is the right answer; the cultural environment includes things like new trends, attitudes and beliefs held by the population at large. The social environment contains elements like demographic trends, etc.

c)    existing business situation.
The question directly refers to an outside element, so it has nothing to do with the existing business situation.

d)    political and legal environment.
The political environment deals with all aspects of how a country is organized politically, specific events that can have a major impact on business (e.g. NAFTA). The legal environment refers to laws and bills that have an effect - directly or indirectly on the business.

e)    resources and objectives of the firm.
Same as c): it is an external factor.

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