Business Enterprise
A business enterprise refers to an organization or venture engaged in commercial, industrial, or professional activities with the primary goal of generating profit. It involves the combination of resources, such as capital, labor, and technology, to produce goods or services for the market. Business enterprises can take various forms, including sole proprietorships, partnerships, corporations, and cooperatives.
5 Key excerpts on "Business Enterprise"
eBook - ePubStart-Up
A Practice Based Guide For New Venture Creation
- Inge Hill(Author)
- 2015(Publication Date)
- Bloomsbury Academic(Publisher)
...If you know that already, you might still want to consider quickly reading over it to catch up on the latest statistics and see how various business sectors compare in terms of employment and turnover (see Section 1.6). I highly recommend learning about social enterprise and how it differs from for-profit enterprise – this type of enterprise is increasing in numbers and making a big difference to our lives – did you know that most universities are social enterprises? And that Jamie Oliver is running one? Find out more in Section 1.7 below. If you follow the franchise start-up route, the journey and its processes are very different. Section 3.1.4 briefly outlines starting the first business using a franchise. There are pros and cons that need consideration, in particular the initial investment cost, money you have to pay out – 1000s of dollars or pounds – to buy a franchise. These processes are briefly addressed in Chapter Three, section 3.1.4. You can also buy an existing business; this way of a personal start-up is not addressed in this book. 1.4 Describing and defining “business” 1.4.1 What defines a business? A business is an entity, run by one or more individuals, that engages in commercial activity, including providing services. Commercial activity here means selling tangible goods or services in exchange for money. Figure 1.3 Most basic business activities The most basic business activities, as illustrated in Figure 1.3, include: Buying or creating a good/service; Transforming and adding value to an existing good/service; Selling a good/service. The concept of creating, purchasing or selling of goods/services is relatively straightforward to understand. The process of transformation or adding value deserves a little more consideration...
eBook - ePub- Thorstein Veblen(Author)
- 2017(Publication Date)
- Routledge(Publisher)
...CHAPTER III Business Enterprise T HE motive of business is pecuniary gain, the method is essentially purchase and sale. The aim and usual outcome is an accumulation of wealth. 1 Men whose aim is not increase of possessions do not go into business, particularly not on an independent footing. How these motives and methods of business work out in the traffic of commercial enterprise proper — in mercantile and banking business — does not concern the present inquiry, except so far as these branches of business affect the course of industrial business in the stricter sense of the term. Nor is it necessary here to describe the details of business routine, whether in the mercantile pursuits or in the conduct of an industrial concern. The point of the inquiry is that characteristically modern business that is coextensive with the machine process described above and is occupied with the large mechanical industry. The aim is a theory of such Business Enterprise in outline sufficiently full to show in what manner business methods and business principles, in conjunction with the mechanical industry, influence the modern cultural situation. To save space and tedium, therefore, features of business traffic that are not of a broad character and not peculiar to this modern situation are left on one side, as being already sufficiently familiar for the purpose in hand. In early modern times, before the régime of the machine industry set in, Business Enterprise on any appreciable scale commonly took the form of commercial business — some form of merchandising or banking. Shipping was the only considerable line of business which involved an investment in or management of extensive mechanical appliances and processes, comparable with the facts of the modern mechanical industry. 1 And shipping was commonly combined with merchandising...
eBook - ePub- Jenny van Sten-van't Hoff(Author)
- 2019(Publication Date)
- Routledge(Publisher)
...1 The entrepreneurial venture 1.1 The challenges of an entrepreneur 1.2 The economy and important trends 1.3 Ethical concepts 1.4 Basics of enterprise risk management 1.5 Culture 1.6 Visionplanner The chapter outlines characteristics of entrepreneurs and the importance of preparing a business plan in section 1.1. The external environment in which the firm operates is discussed in section 1.2. Nowadays corporate responsibility is set high on management agendas. Section 1.3 focuses on ethical concepts. Section 1.4 gives an introduction to enterprise risk management and section 1.5 discusses the influence of culture on a firm’s strategy. The last section (1.6) outlines how to use Visionplanner. 1.1 The challenges of an entrepreneur Entrepreneur An entrepreneur is a person who creates a new business in the face of risk and uncertainty with the purpose of achieving profit and growth by identifying opportunities and possible competitive advantages in doing something better than the competition. Once an opportunity has been identified, the entrepreneur can start researching the company’s feasibility and then plan for its launch. Opportunity Owning a business gives entrepreneurs independence and the opportunity to achieve what is important to them. They reap the intrinsic reward of knowing they are the driving force behind their business. Owning a business challenges the owner’s skills, abilities and determination. The only barriers to success are those which the owner imposes on him- or herself. Small-business owners are often among the most respected and trusted members of society. Business deals based on mutual trust and respect are the hallmark of many established small companies. The most important benefit of owning a business may be the fact that entrepreneurs have made their hobbies their work and enjoy what they do. Drawbacks However, there are drawbacks to owning a business. There is no guarantee that the owner will earn enough to survive...
eBook - ePub- Peter Drucker(Author)
- 2013(Publication Date)
- Routledge(Publisher)
...Chapter 10 What Is a Business? DOI: 10.4324/9780080938417-10 Business Created and Managed by People, Not by Forces The Fallacy of Profit Maximization Profit: An Objective Condition of Economic Activity, Not Its Rationale The Purpose of a Business: To Create a Customer The Two Entrepreneurial Functions: Marketing and Innovation The Marketing Revolution in America Marketing Not a Specialized Activity Consumerism, the “Shame of Marketing” From Selling to Marketing The Enterprise as the Organ of Economic Growth and Development Innovation as an Economic Function As a Dimension of the Total Business The Productive Utilization of All Wealth-Producing Resources What Is Productive Labor? Knowledge, Time, Product-Mix, Process-Mix, and Organization Structure as Factors in Productivity Making Knowledge Productive The Functions of Profit Profit as a Social Responsibility How Much Profit Is Required? A Business Enterprise is created and managed by people, not by forces. Economic forces set limits to what management can do. They create opportunities for management’s action. But they do not by themselves determine what a business is or what it does. Nothing could be sillier than the oft-repeated assertion that “management only adapts the business to the forces of the market.” Management not only has to find these forces, it has to create them. Another conclusion is that a business cannot be defined or explained in terms of profit. Asked what a business is, the typical business man or business woman is likely to answer, “An organization to make a profit.” The typical economist is likely to give the same answer. This answer is not only false, it is irrelevant. The prevailing economic theory of Business Enterprise and behavior, the maximization of profit – which is simply a complicated way of phrasing the old saw of buying cheap and selling dear – may adequately explain how a particular entrepreneur operates...
- Su Mi Dahlgaard-Park(Author)
- 2015(Publication Date)
- SAGE Publications, Inc(Publisher)
...Entrepreneurship Entrepreneurship 203 209 Entrepreneurship Entrepreneur derives from the French entrepreneur, which means toundertake. An entrepreneur organizes, manages, and assumes the risks ofrunning a business. From the early 1800s to over 30 years following WorldWar II, a classical industrial economy dominated Europe and the UnitedStates. In the 1980s, this classical form began to disintegrate, and newopportunities for the development of novel business forms began to appear.Classical thinking persisted in the aftermath of the Second World War inresponse to the need to rebuild economies ravaged during the struggle. Thefocus was on industrial and corporate management theories underlying thecentral role of large, multinational corporations, and it was some 30 yearsbefore the academic community began to show renewed interest inentrepreneurship theory. Numerous textbooks discuss the dominant lines of entrepreneurship theory, andmany scholars have remarked on the need for a comprehensive theoreticalframework of entrepreneurship that includes theoretical variables and therelationship between those variables. Entrepreneurship research has clearlyhad entrepreneurial processes, issues related to business opportunityconcepts and firm creation as its main focus. Researchers appear to have notyet reached a consensus on a definition of entrepreneurship. Two approachescan be used to explore this issue. The first approach considers thehistorical progression of entrepreneurship theory, while the second attemptsto categorize the theories into groups based on specific lines of thinking.This entry reviews these key theories and approaches in entrepreneurshipwith the main focus on the process approach. It also discusses, in line withthe ongoing debate, sustainability issues related to entrepreneurship...
