Business
Historically, the term business referred to activities or interests. By extension the word became (as recently as the 18th century) synonymous with "an individual commercial enterprise". It has also taken on the more general meaning of "a nexus of commercial activities".
Businesses are established to perform economic activities. With rare exceptions (such as cooperatives, corporate bodies, non-profit organizations and institutions of government), they are for-profit ventures. That is, one of the main objectives of the owners and operators of the business is to receive a financial return for their time and effort.
There are many ways to classify types of businesses. Service businesses offer intangible products and typically have different, usually smaller, capital requirements than manufacturers. Distributors will have different inventory control needs than a retailer or manufacturer.
In most legal jurisdictions, the forms that a business can take are specified and a body of commercial law has been developed for each type. The most common types are partnerships, corporations, and sole proprietorships.
An industry is a group of related businesses, such as the entertainment industry or the dairy industry. This resembles the more general meaning of business, and the terms business and industry are sometimes interchangeable. Thus a fisherman might say either that he is in the "fishing business" or that he works in the "fishing industry".
Business topics
There are over 1000 business and economics articles on Wikipedia, so they can not all be listed here. This lists some of the main branches of business. For more specific topics, look at the various sublists.
Referenced By
ASOEE | Academic department | Academic discipline | Academic field | Alfred University | Argosy University/Seattle | Athens University of Economics and Business | Athens University of Economics and Business Administration | Barter | Bellarmine University | Borland Delphi | Buying | Canterbury College | Category:list | Civilian award | Clemson University | Commerce | Commercial | Communications channel | Corporate corruption | Corporation | Delphi programming language | Emergent organisation | Emergent organisations | Emergent organization | Farm | Ferris State University | Florida State University | GmbH | History of trade | HomePage | HomePage. | Iliya Pavlov | International System of Units | Job Corps | Jubilee Campus | Life-style choice | Lifestyle | List of Refernce Tables | List of United Kingdom-related topics | List of United Kingdom topics | List of academic disciplines | List of articles by category | List of awards | List of initialisms | List of intellectual/social/spiritual/artistic reference tables | List of list of pages | List of lists | List of lists of lists | List of medals | List of prizes | List of prizes, medals, and awards | List of reference tables | List of standards topics | List of topic lists | List of topics lists | Lists | Lists of articles by category | MainPage | Main Page | Main Page/Archive 1 | Main Page/Archive 2 | Main Page/Test | Main Path | Market research | Marketing research | Mary Washington College | Metric system | Metric unit | Michigan State University | Mississippi State University | Métrique Système International | Nevada Southern University | News release | Northwest College | Northwest College of the Assemblies of God | Northwest University | PCCW | Pacific Century Cyber Works | Pacific Century Cyberworks | Press release | SI Unit | SI units | Saint John's University | Science policy | September 2003 | Seton Hall | Seton Hall University | Startsida | Sydney Grammar School | Systeme International | Systeme International d'Unites | Systeme international unit | Système International | Système International d'Unités | The Revolutions of 1848 in France | Trade | Tulane | Tulane University | UBC Thunderbirds ...
|
