Forms
of business ownership vary by jurisdiction, but several common forms exist:
Sole
proprietorship: A sole proprietorship, also known as a sole trader, is owned by
one person and operates for their benefit. The owner may operate the business
alone or with other people. A sole proprietor has unlimited liability for all
obligations incurred by the business, whether fromoperating costs or judgements
against the business. All assets of the business belong to a sole proprietor,
including, for example, computer infrastructure, any inventory, manufacturing
equipment and/or retail fixtures, as well as any real property owned by the
business.
Partnership:
A partnership is a business owned by two or more people. In most forms of
partnerships, each partner has unlimited liability for the debts incurred by
the business. The three most prevalent types of for-profit partnerships are
general partnerships, limited partnerships, and limited liability partnerships.
Corporation:
The owners of a corporation have limited liability and the business has a
separate legal personality from its owners. Corporations can be either
government-owned or privately owned. They can organize either for profit or
asnot-for-profit organizations.
A
privately owned, for-profit corporation is owned by its shareholders, who elect
a board of directors to direct the corporation and hire its managerial staff. A
privately owned, for-profit corporation can be eitherprivately held by a small
group of individuals, or publicly held, with publicly traded shares listed on a
stock exchange.
Cooperative:
Often referred to as a "co-op", a cooperative is a limited liability
business that can organize for-profit or not-for-profit. A cooperative differs
from a corporation in that it has members, not shareholders, and they share
decision-making authority. Cooperatives are typically classified as either
consumer cooperatives or worker cooperatives. Cooperatives are fundamental to
the ideology of economic democracy.
B. Classifications
Agriculture
and mining businesses produce raw material, such as plants or minerals. Financial businesses
include banks and other companies that generate profits through investment and
management of the capital.
Information
businesses generate profits primarily from the sale of intellectual property
and include movie studios, publishers and internet and software companies.
Manufacturers
produce products, from raw materials or from component parts, then sell their
products at a profit. Companies that make tangible goods such as cars, clothing
or pipes are considered manufacturers.
Real
estate businesses sell, rent, and develop properties including land,
residential homes, and other buildings. Retailers and
distributors act as middlemen and get goods produced by manufacturers to the
intended consumers, and make their profits by marking up their price. Most
stores and catalog companies are distributors or retailers.
Service
businesses offer intangible goods or services and typically charge for labor or
other services provided togovernment, consumers, or other businesses. Interior
decorators, consulting firms and even entertainers are service businesses.
Transportation
businesses deliver goods and individuals to their destinations for a fee. Utilities produce
public services such as electricity or sewage treatment, usually under a
government charter.
C. Management
The
efficient and effective operation of a business, and study of this subject, is
called management. The major branches of management are financial management,
marketing management, human resource management, strategic
management,production management, operations management, service management and
information technology management.[citation needed]
Owners
may administer their businesses themselves, or employ managers to do this for
them. Whether they are owners or employees, managers administer three primary
components of the business' value: its financial resources, capital or tangible
resources, and human resources. These resources are administered in at least
five functional areas: legal contracting, manufacturing or service production,
marketing, accounting, financing, and human resources.[citation needed]
D. Restructuring
state enterprises
In
recent decades, various states modeled some of their assets and enterprises
after business enterprises. In 2003, for example, the People's Republic of
China modeled 80% of its state-owned enterprises on a company-type management
system.[2] Many state institutions and enterprises in China and Russia have
transformed into joint-stock companies, with part of their shares being listed
on public stock markets.
Business
process management (BPM) is a holistic management approach focused on aligning
all aspects of an organization with the wants and needs of clients. It promotes
business effectiveness and efficiency while striving for innovation,
flexibility, and integration with technology. BPM attempts to improve processes
continuously. It can therefore be described as a "process optimization
process." It is argued that BPM enables organizations to be more
efficient, effective and capable of change than a functionally focused, traditional
hierarchical management approach.[who?]
E. Organization
And Government Regulation
Most
legal jurisdictions specify the forms of ownership that a business can take,
creating a body of commercial law for each type.
The major
factors affecting how a business is organized are usually:
The
size and scope of the business firm and its structure, management, and
ownership, broadly analyzed in thetheory of the firm. Generally a smaller
business is more flexible, while larger businesses, or those with wider
ownership or more formal structures, will usually tend to be organized as
corporations or (less often) partnerships. In addition, a business that wishes
to raise money on a stock market or to be owned by a wide range of people will
often be required to adopt a specific legal form to do so.
The
sector and country. Private profit-making businesses are different from
government-owned bodies. In some countries, certain businesses are legally
obliged to be organized in certain ways.
Limited
Liability Companies (LLC), limited liability partnerships, and other specific
types of business organization protect their owners or shareholders from
business failure by doing business under a separate legal entity with certain
legal protections. In contrast, unincorporated businesses or persons working on
their own are usually not so protected.
Tax
advantages. Different structures are treated differently in tax law, and may
have advantages for this reason. Disclosure
and compliance requirements. Different business structures may be required to
make less or more information public (or report it to relevant authorities),
and may be bound to comply with different rules and regulations.
Many
businesses are operated through a separate entity such as a corporation or a
partnership (either formed with or without limited liability). Most legal
jurisdictions allow people to organize such an entity by filing certain charter
documents with the relevant Secretary of State or equivalent and complying with
certain other ongoing obligations.
The
relationships and legal rights of shareholders, limited partners, or members
are governed partly by the charter documents and partly by the law of the
jurisdiction where the entity is organized.
Generally
speaking, shareholders in a corporation, limited partners in a limited
partnership, and members in a limited liability company are shielded from
personal liability for the debts and obligations of the entity, which is
legally treated as a separate "person". This means that unless there
is misconduct, the owner's own possessions are strongly protected in law if the
business does not succeed.
Where
two or more individuals own a business together but have failed to organize a
more specialized form of vehicle, they will be treated as a general
partnership. The terms of a partnership are partly governed by a partnership
agreement if one is created, and partly by the law of the jurisdiction where
the partnership is located.
No
paperwork or filing is necessary to create a partnership, and without an
agreement, the relationships and legal rights of the partners will be entirely
governed by the law of the jurisdiction where the partnership is located. A
single person who owns and runs a business is commonly known as a sole
proprietor, whether that person owns it directly or through a formally
organized entity.
A
few relevant factors to consider in deciding how to operate a business include:
General
partners in a partnership (other than a limited liability partnership), plus
anyone who personally owns and operates a business without creating a separate
legal entity, are personally liable for the debts and obligations of the
business.
Generally,
corporations are required to pay tax just like "real" people. In some
tax systems, this can give rise to so-called double taxation, because first the
corporation pays tax on the profit, and then when the corporation distributes
its profits to its owners, individuals have to include dividends in their
income when they complete their personal tax returns, at which point a second
layer of income tax is imposed.
In
most countries, there are laws which treat small corporations differently from
large ones. They may be exempt from certain legal filing requirements or labor
laws, have simplified procedures in specialized areas, and have simplified,
advantageous, or slightly different tax treatment.
"Going
public" through a process known as an initial public offering (IPO) means
that part of the business will be owned by members of the public. This requires
organization as a distinct entity, and compliance with a tighter set of laws
and procedures.
Most
public entities are corporations that have sold shares, but increasingly there
are also public LLCs that sell units (sometimes also called shares), and other
more exotic entities as well, such as, for example, real estate investment
trusts in the USA, and unit trusts in the UK. A general partnership cannot
"go public."
F. Commercial
Law
Offices
in the Los AngelesDowntown Financial District
A
very detailed and well-established body of rules that evolved over a very long
period of time applies to commercial transactions. The need to regulate trade
and commerce and resolve business disputes helped shape the creation of law and
courts.
The
Code of Hammurabi dates back to about 1772 BC for example, and contains
provisions that relate, among other matters, to shipping costs and dealings
between merchants andbrokers.[3] The word "corporation" derives from
the Latin corpus, meaning body, and the Maurya Empire in Iron-Age India
accorded legal rights to business entities.[4]
In
many countries it is difficult to compile all the laws that can affect a
business into a single reference source. Laws can govern treatment of labour
and employee relations,worker protection and safety, discrimination on the
basis of age, gender, disability, race, and in some jurisdictions, sexual
orientation, and the minimum wage, as well asunions, worker compensation, and
working hours and leave.
Some
specialized businesses may also require licenses, either due to laws governing
entry into certain trades, occupations or professions, that require special
education, or to raise revenue for local governments.
Professions
that require special licenses include law, medicine, piloting aircraft, selling
liquor, radio broadcasting, selling investment securities, selling used cars,
and roofing. Local jurisdictions may also require special licenses and taxes
just to operate a business.
Some
businesses are subject to ongoing special regulation, for example, public
utilities, investment securities, banking, insurance, broadcasting, aviation,
and health care providers. Environmental regulations are also very complex and
can affect many businesses. Capital
may be raised through private means, by an initial public offering or IPO on a
stock exchange, or in other ways.
Major
stock exchanges include the Shanghai Stock Exchange, Singapore Exchange, Hong
Kong Stock Exchange, New York Stock Exchange and Nasdaq(USA), the London Stock
Exchange (UK), the Tokyo Stock Exchange (Japan), andBombay Stock Exchange
(India). Most countries with capital markets have at least one.
Businesses
that have gone public are subject to regulations concerning their internal
governance, such as how executive officers' compensation is determined, and
when and how information is disclosed to shareholders and to the public. In the
United States, these regulations are primarily implemented and enforced by the
United States Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC).
Other
Western nations have comparable regulatory bodies. The regulations are
implemented and enforced by the China Securities Regulation Commission (CSRC)
in China. In Singapore, the regulation authority is the Monetary Authority of
Singapore (MAS), and in Hong Kong, it is the Securities and Futures Commission
(SFC).
The
proliferation and increasing complexity of the laws governing business have
forced increasing specialization in corporate law. It is not unheard of for
certain kinds of corporate transactions to require a team of five to ten
attorneys due to sprawling regulation.
Commercial
law spans general corporate law, employment and labor law, health-care law,
securities law, mergers and acquisitions, tax law, employee benefit plans, food
and drug regulation, intellectual property law on copyrights, patents,
trademarks and such, telecommunications law, financing. Other types of capital
sourcing includes crowd sourcing on the internet, venture capital, bank loans
and debentures.
G. Intellectual
property
Businesses
often have important "intellectual property" that needs protection
from competitors for the company to stay profitable. This could require
patents, copyrights, trademarks or preservation of trade secrets. Most
businesses have names, logos and similar branding techniques that could benefit
from trademarking. Patents and copyrights in the United States are largely
governed by federal law, while trade secrets and trademarking are mostly a
matter of state law.
Because
of the nature of intellectual property, a business needs protection in every
jurisdiction in which they are concerned about competitors. Many countries are
signatories to international treaties concerning intellectual property, and
thus companies registered in these countries are subject to national laws bound
by these treaties.
In
order to protect trade secrets, companies may require employees to sign
non-compete clauses which will impose limitations on an employee's interactions
with stakeholders, and competitors.
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Bermanfaat”
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