Big Five

The oligopoly responsible for most of the retail music sold within the USA; comprised of the following companies:

• Universal
• BMG
• Sony
• EMI
• Warner

A term referring to the Africa's five most famous wild animals. The phrase was originally used exclusively by hunters, but now is a common phrase to be heard and used by tourists in game parks.

The Big Five are:

Lion
Leopard
Elephant
Cape Buffalo
Rhino

The collection of large accounting and professional consulting firms, used by most corporations to audit their books, as well as providing other services. The Big Five are:

• Ernst & Young
• PriceWaterhouse Coopers
• KPMG
• Deloitte & Touch
• Arthur Andersen

With the collapse of Enron, it seems possible that the Big Five will shrink to the Big Four; these companies are primarily selling trust, and Andersen's trust has been tarnished by this escapade.

The Big Five refers in psychology to the fundamental set of personality traits. Although sometimes given different names, these include Extraversion, Neuroticism, Conscientiousness, Agreeableness, and Openness to Experience. Sometimes Intelligence is added to this list to form 6 factors.

These personality traits have consistently emerged when performing factor analysis on people’s ratings of other people. The model is generally understood hierarchically with each global personality trait having multiple sub-traits that are correlated with the global trait.