Organizations 1

Business and businesses

Business is the activity of producing, buying and selling goods and services. A business, company, firm or more formally, a concern, sells goods or services. Large companies considered together are referred to as big business. A company may be called an enterprise, especially to emphasize its risk-taking nature. Businesses vary in size, from the self-employed person working alone, through the small or medium enterprise (SME) to the large multinational with activities in several countries. A large company, especially in the US, is a corporation. The adjective, corporate, is often used in these combinations:

• corporate culture
• corporate headquarters
• corporate image
• corporate ladder
• corperate logo
• corperate profits

Words

concern /kənˈsɜːn $ -ɜːrn/ ★★★ S3 W1 n.

[countable] a business or company

The restaurant is a family concern.

self-employed adj.

working for yourself and not employed by a company

pension plans for the self-employed

SME

SME stands for small or medium enterprise

MNC

MNC stands for multinational corperation

corperation /ˌkɔːpəˈreɪʃən $ ˌkɔːr-/ ★☆☆ n.

[countable] a big company, or a group of companies acting together as a single organization

He worksfor a large blockchain corporation.

corperate /ˈkɔːpərət $ ˈkɔːr-/ ★★☆ adj.

[only before noun] belonging to a relating to a corporation

The company is moving its corportate headquarters from New York to Houston.

Commerce

Commerce is used to refer to business:

• in relation to other fields: ‘literature, politics, commerce’
• in relation to government departments that deal with business: the US Department of Commerce.
• in the names of organizations which help business: chambers of commerce.
• on the Internet : electronic commerce or e-commerce. The adjective **commercial describes money-making business activities:
• commercial airline
• commercial artist
• commercial television
• commercial disaster
• commercial land

! You can’t say a commerce

Words

commerce /ˈkɒmɜːs $ ˈkɑːmɜːrs/ ★★☆ n. SYN trade.

[uncountable] the buying and selling of goods and services

chamber of commerce n.

a group of business people ina particular town or area, working together to improve trade.

Enterprise

In 1970s Britain, there were state-owned or government-owned companies inmany different industries such as car manufacturing and air travel. Some industries had been nationalized and were entirely state-owned, such as coal, electiricity and telephone services. In the 1980s, the government believed that nationalized companies were bureaucratic and inefficient, and many of them were privatized and sold to investors. Enterprise is used in a positive way to talk about business, emphasizing the use of money to take risks.

Words

enterprise /ˈentəpraɪz $ -tər-/ ★★☆ W3 n.

[countable] a company, organization, or business

commercial enterprises such as banks and food manufacturers.

state-owned adj. SYN government-owned, publicily-woned

a state-owned industry or company is owned by the government

the Fraench state-owned airline, Air France.

nationalize /ˈnæʃənəlaɪz / vt. OPP privatize

if a government nationalizes a very large industry such as water, gas, or the railways, it buys it or takes control of it

The British government nationalized the railways in 1948.

privatize /ˈpraɪvətaɪz/ vt.

if a government privatizes anorganization, industry, or sevice that it owns or contorls, it sells it

Employees of the Strathtay bus company, which has been privatized, are concerned that drivers are about to be made redundant.

bureaucratic /ˌbjʊərəˈkrætɪk◂ $ ˌbjʊr-/ ★☆☆ adj.

involving a lot of complicated officail rules and processes

The procedure for getting funding approval is so bureaucratic!

Word combinations with ‘enterprise’

| Word combinations with ‘enterprise| | | | ———————– | —————–|————————————————————– | | free
private | enterprise | business activity owned by individuals, rather than the state | | | | | | | culture | an atmosphere which encourages people to make money through their own activities and not rely on the government | | enterprise | economy | an economy where there is an enterprise culture | | | zone | part of a country where business is encouraged because there are fewer laws, lower taxes, etc. |

Words

rely /rɪˈlaɪ/ ★★★ S3 W2 v.

rely on/upon somebody/something

She needn’t rely any more on Rico - or her brothers, she could be entirely independent.

It is the end of this time : )