Final answer:
The correct answer is 'a. Downsizing; terminations,' where downsizing involves reducing the workforce for various strategic reasons while terminations refer to individual involuntary separations from a company.
Step-by-step explanation:
Downsizing is a strategic organizational decision to reduce the workforce, typically in response to economic pressures, technological changes, mergers, or acquisitions. It can involve eliminating positions that are no longer necessary or that the company can no longer afford to maintain. Downsizing affects multiple employees and is aimed at improving the financial stability of the company or to adapt to a new organizational structure.
In contrast, terminations are individual separations from employment due to various reasons such as poor performance, misconduct, or business strategy changes that make certain positions redundant. Unlike downsizing, which is a broad reduction strategy, terminations are specific to certain employees and not necessarily indicative of a wider organizational restructuring.