Unit 19

Q1 (a) Define the main characteristics of organisations.

managment

Introduction to Business Management 6 | P a g e CHAPTER ONE INTRODUCTION THE SCOPE OF BUSINESS When God created the earth, he gave man the permission to subdue the things in it. God provided all that man would need but not exactly in their final consumption forms except in the case of certain fruits and crops. But essentially, man has to till the soil of the earth, do some conversions before he can consume most of the resources in earth. This, in fact, marked the origin of business. NATURE OF BUSINESS According to the dictionary definition, business refers to occupation, buying and selling. From this description, it becomes clear that business has to do with activities which individuals or group of individuals perform with the objective of satisfying defined needs. This is a generalistic approach to discussing business as no distinction is drawn between activities performed for profit and non-profit making. As business students, lecturers and practitioners, our interest should be in those activities which are profit directed. Boone and Kurts (1976) and Trumpp, Endrikat, Zopf, & Guenther (2015) supported this view point when they stated business as: all profit driven economic and commercial activities which provide goods and services necessary for a nation are living standards. These commercial activities include production, distribution and offer of direct services also sees as conceptualization, and measurement of corporate environmental performance. Introduction to Business Management 7 | P a g e Business classification can be done on the basis of theory and practice. Theoretically, business can be classified into the functional areas of production, accounting/finance, management and marketing. Finance is further subdivided into economic and insurance. This classification corresponds to the treatment of business in most Business Colleges in Universities and College of Technology. In practice, however, business is classified as follows: production, commerce and direct services. Production is a conversation process in which certain items are introduced as inputs and products emerge as outputs. Production involves much more than input-output relationship. A complete production system involves the following i. Extractive subsystem which involves such activities as agriculture, fishing, forestry, mining and quarrying, ii. Manufacturing subsystem which is the process of converting inputs to outputs, and iii. Construction subsystem which involves the building of roads, bridges, houses and factories. Commerce involves all activities associated with trade and aids to trade. Trade relates to the act of purchase/buying and selling of goods. It is classified into the domestic and foreign trade. Foreign trade can be either import or export. Import trade involves the buying of goods from other countries and bringing them into the importing country. An illustration is when Nigeria businessmen buy goods from Singapore, Ghana, United States or Britain or Philippine. Export trades include the sales of goods across other countries. Nigerian businessmen would sell goods under export trade to businessmen in other countries such as Cameroon, Liberia, and France and so on. Domestic (internal) trade is classified into retail and wholesale. Retail trade is the selling of goods in smaller quantities to the ultimate consumers. Wholesale trade involves the sale of goods in large quantities and mainly from the manufacturers. Aids to trade refer to all those things that assist in the performance of the trading activities. These include banking and finance, insurance, transportation, market research, advertising etc. Direct services are those which are rendered by professionals. The services must be independent of any other goods. In other words, they must be sold on their own merit Examples include health care, hair care, barbing, laundry service etc. Central to business is the concept of specialization and division of labour. Specialisation implies the performance of one or few related jobs to which one is proficient to the exclusion of all others. For example, a medical doctor can specialize on surgery. Similarly, a factory workman may specialise on Introduction to Business Management 8 | P a g e the operation of a single machine. The need for specialisation which increases output led to the concept of division of labour. Division of labour is the division of work into parts and each part being assigned to one person who is a specialist. It is a common sense arrangement by which each person concentrates on the work he can do best. Given the operations of specialisation and division of labour, it follows that no person can provide all he wants. He has to depend on others for the provision of those other things he requires for everyday living. This interdependence introduces the need for exchange. Exchange in its earliest form involved barter. Barter is the direct exchange of one commodity for another or of goods for services performed. When Ibe gives three tubers of yams to Okoro in return for ten cups of rice, this is barter. When Ibe workds for Okoro (known as lady's finger) in his farm land in return for six cups of garri (grain), this again is barter. Barter has its disadvantages and hence the introduction of a medium of exchange (money). In the modern society, exchange implies first, an exchange of goods or services for money and second, an exchange of the money needed in the ordinary course of life (Strafford 1971, p.3), the whole of political economy, indeed most of modern science, creates a culture based upon the 'real' (Baudrillard, 2016). It is therefore; correct to say that modern business revolves around specialisation, division of labour and exchange OBJECTIVES OF BUSINESS Any business firm must have basic objectives which it hopes to achieve. Generally, business firms have the following objectives. i. To produce goods or services efficiently and effectively to suit the needs and demands of the end users. ii. To generate enough revenue and to make profit. iii. To protect the well-being of employees. To achieve this, personnel management and industrial relation will be required. iv. To exercise good community relations with plant neighbours and the citizens. v. To actualize this, business may engage on certain social responsibilities such as provision of access roads, drinking water and scholarship awards to deserving students within the country, plant neighbour or children of employees. Introduction to Business Management 9 | P a g e vi. Achieving the desired rate of growth through effective management, ploughing back profit and diversification. Thus, the availability of employment opportunities for people is linked to growth potential. THEORETICAL CLASSIFICATION OF BUSINESS As earlier mentioned, we shall examine the following areas-production, accounting/finance, management and marketing. 1. Production Every business must produce one form of product or the other. Some firms produce tangible products while others produce services. Goods or services must be produced before consumers' needs can be satisfied. Production is basically the process by which raw materials (inputs) are converted into finished goods (outputs). This definition applies equally to human services which are rendered directly. These four major steps are necessary for an effective production process (Vadim, Valery, Ivan, &

2011

ii The main objective of this study was to determine the entrepreneurial potential amongst Grade 10 learners in South Africa (Moutse East, Sekhukhune district of Limpopo Province), using the ATE test2 developed at the Kingston University in London. The ATE test2 was tested for validity and reliability; and socio-demographic impacts were tested for statistical significance. A qualitative descriptive design methodology was employed. ATE test2 questionnaires were distributed amongst learners in six public secondary schools, resulting in 836 learners participating in the completion of the questionnaires. Five constructs, namely achievement, personal control, creativity, leadership and intuition, describing the entrepreneurial attitudes of young learners were analysed during exploratory factor analysis. Statistical analysis for reliability, validity and construct correlation showed acceptable results to conclude that the ATE test2 can be used amongst rural learners. A comparison of the m...

2022

Commencement Exercises Classes XLVIII & XLIX on January 8, 2022 Bangkok International Trade & Exhibition Centre (BITEC)