Portal:Business

Portal topics: Activities; Culture; Geography; Health; History; Mathematics; Nature; People; Philosophy; Religion; Society; Technology; Random portal

The Business and Economics Portal

Business is the practice of making one's living or making money by producing or buying and selling products (such as goods and services). It is also "any activity or enterprise entered into for profit."

A business entity is not necessarily separate from the owner and the creditors can hold the owner liable for debts the business has acquired. The taxation system for businesses is different from that of the corporates. A business structure does not allow for corporate tax rates. The proprietor is personally taxed on all income from the business.

A distinction is made in law and public offices between the term business and a company such as a corporation or cooperative. Colloquially, the terms are used interchangeably. (Full article...)

Economics (/ˌɛkəˈnɒmɪks, ˌiːkə-/) is a social science that studies the production, distribution, and consumption of goods and services.

Economics focuses on the behaviour and interactions of economic agents and how economies work. Microeconomics analyses what is viewed as basic elements in the economy, including individual agents and markets, their interactions, and the outcomes of interactions. Individual agents may include, for example, households, firms, buyers, and sellers. Macroeconomics analyses the economy as a system where production, distribution, consumption, savings, and investment expenditure interact, and factors affecting it: factors of production, such as labour, capital, land, and enterprise, inflation, economic growth, and public policies that have impact on these elements. (Full article...)

Refresh with new selections below (purge)

Selected article

Microsoft Corporation, or often just MS, is an American multinational computer technology corporation with 79,000 employees in 102 countries and global annual revenue of US $51.12 billion as of 2007. It develops, manufactures, licenses and supports a wide range of software products for computing devices. Headquartered in Redmond, Washington, USA, its best selling products are the Microsoft Windows operating system and the Microsoft Office suite of productivity software. These products have prominent positions in the desktop computer market, with market share estimates as high as 90% or more as of 2003 for Microsoft Office and 2006 for Microsoft Windows, in line with Bill Gates's vision "to get a workstation running our software onto every desk and eventually in every home".

Founded to develop and sell BASIC interpreters for the Altair 8800, Microsoft rose to dominate the home computer operating system market with MS-DOS in the mid-1980s. The company released an initial public offering (IPO) in the stock market, which, due to the ensuing rise of the stock price, has made four billionaires and an estimated 12,000 millionaires from Microsoft employees. Throughout its history the company has been the target of criticism for various reasons, including monopolistic business practices—both the U.S. Justice Department and the European Commission, among others, brought Microsoft to court for antitrust violations and software bundling.

Microsoft has footholds in other markets besides operating systems and office suites, with assets such as the MSNBC cable television network, the MSN Internet portal, and the Microsoft Encarta multimedia encyclopedia. The company also markets both computer hardware products such as the Microsoft mouse and home entertainment products such as the Xbox, Xbox 360, Zune and MSN TV. Known for what is generally described as a developer-centric business culture, Microsoft has historically given customer support over Usenet newsgroups and the World Wide Web, and awards Microsoft MVP status to volunteers who are deemed helpful in assisting the company's customers.

More selected articles...

Read more...

Selected image

An auctioneer and her assistants scan the crowd for bidders.

Photo credit: Indianhilbilly

An auction is a process of buying and selling goods or services by offering them up for bid, taking bids, and then selling the item to the highest bidder. In economic theory, an auction may refer to any mechanism or set of trading rules for exchange.

More selected pictures...

Read more...

Selected economy

Sydney's central business district is Australia's largest financial and business services hub.

Australia is a highly developed country with a mixed economy. As of 2023, Australia was the 13th-largest national economy by nominal GDP (gross domestic product), the 19th-largest by PPP-adjusted GDP, and was the 21st-largest goods exporter and 24th-largest goods importer. Australia took the record for the longest run of uninterrupted GDP growth in the developed world with the March 2017 financial quarter. It was the 103rd quarter and the 26th year since the country had a technical recession (two consecutive quarters of negative growth). As of June 2021, the country's GDP was estimated at $1.98 trillion.

The Australian economy is dominated by its service sector, which in 2017 comprised 62.7% of the GDP and employed 78.8% of the labour force. At the height of the mining boom in 2009–10, the total value-added of the mining industry was 8.4% of GDP. Despite the recent decline in the mining sector, the Australian economy has remained resilient and stable and did not experience a recession from 1991 until 2020. Among OECD members, Australia has a highly efficient and strong social security system, which comprises roughly 25% of GDP. (Full article...)

More selected economies

Selected quote

"Condit's successors once again emphasized civil aviation. The 777 is a success, and the Dreamliner appears a better vehicle for the future than the huge Airbus 380. By 2008, Boeing had regained from Airbus its leading position in commercial aviation and the share price its earlier value. At Boeing, as at ICI, shareholder value was most effectively created when sought obliquely.

That profit-seeking paradox, like the conundrum of happiness, illustrates the power of obliquity. Comparisons of the same companies over time are echoed in contrasts between different companies in the same industries. Jim Collins and Jerry Porras undertook paired comparisons between outstanding ('visionary') companies and adequate, but less remarkable firms with similar operations. Merck and Pfizer was one such comparison. Collins and Porras compared oblique philosophy of George Merck-'We try never to forget that medicine is for the people. It is not for the profits. The profits follow, and if we have remembered that, they have never failed to appear. The better we have remembered it, the larger they have been'-with the directness of John McKeen of Pfizer-'So far as humanly possible, we aim to get profit out of everything we do'."

—John Kay, Obliquity, 2010

More selected quotes

More quotes at Wikiquote

Topics

Business: Accountancy · Actuarial science · Administration · Business continuity planning · Business development · Business ethics · Business intelligence · Business model · Business process · Businesspeople · Commerce · Commercial law · Companies · Companies law · Control · Consumer behaviour · Corporate crime · Corporate social responsibility · Electronic commerce · Entrepreneurship · Family business · Fictional companies · Finance · Globalization · Industry · Information technology management · Insurance · Internal communications · International business · International trade · Logistics · Management · Market · Marketing · Market Research · Mergers and acquisitions · Operations management · Operations research · Organizational studies · Procurement · Project management · Public relations · Quality management · Retailing · Risk management · Sales · Supply Chain Management

Lists: Accounting · Business · Business law · Business management · Business theorists · Economics · Economists · Finance · Important publications · Industrial organization · Information technology management · International trade · Management · Marketing · Production · Project management · Think tanks

Related WikiProjects

WikiProjects

Did you know (auto-generated) - load new batch

... that Selling Mother's Milk is a book which discusses the 18th-century practice of some parents in France giving their children to wet nurses for a year or more?
... that Peachtree Arcade, a shopping arcade in the U.S. state of Georgia, was conceived after a local businessman visited the Cleveland Arcade?
... that businessman and activist Matthew Glover's charity challenged Pope Francis to become a vegan for Lent?
... that the economy of Reineh, now in northern Israel, was so strong in the Mamluk era that they could afford imported pottery from Syria and Italy?
... that topics on Recess Therapy have included the economy, climate change, and peeing your pants?
... that developmental economist Michael Lipton showed that poor farmers were more resource efficient than rich farmers?

On this day in business history

June 7:

1992 - Bill France, Sr., an American race car driver and businessman, co-founder of NASCAR, died on this day.

More on this day

General images

The following are images from various business-related articles on Wikipedia.

Image 1Emil Jellinek-Mercedes (1853–1918), here at the steering wheel of his Phoenix Double-Phaeton (from Entrepreneurship)
Image 2McDonald's Corporation is one of the most recognizable corporations in the world. (from Corporation)
Image 3Mexican Stock Exchange in Paseo de la Reforma, Mexico City (from Business)
Image 4Chart of the South Sea Company's stock prices. The rapid inflation of the stock value in the 1710s led to the Bubble Act 1720, which restricted the establishment of companies without a royal charter. (from Corporation)
Image 5Lindley LJ was the leading expert on partnerships and company law in the Salomon v. Salomon & Co. case. The landmark case confirmed the distinct corporate identity of the company. (from Corporation)
Image 61/8 share of the Stora Kopparberg mine, dated June 16, 1288 (from Corporation)
Image 7Dell Women's Entrepreneur Network event in New York City (from Entrepreneurship)
Image 8In 2012, Ambassador-at-Large for Global Women's Issues Melanne Verveer greets participants in an African Women's Entrepreneurship Program at the State Department in Washington, D.C. (from Entrepreneurship)
Image 9Student organizers from the Green Club at Newcomb College Institute formed a social entrepreneurship organization in 2010. (from Entrepreneurship)
Image 10Plaque in London commemorating Jewish entrepreneur Sir Jack Cohen who in 1919 founded Tesco, the largest supermarket chain in the UK. (from Entrepreneurship)
Image 11"Jack and the Giant Joint-Stock", a cartoon in Town Talk (1858) satirizing the 'monster' joint-stock economy that came into being after the Joint Stock Companies Act 1844 (from Corporation)
Image 12Offices in the Los Angeles Downtown Financial District (from Business)
Image 13Time required to start a business in 2017 (from Business)

edit

More did you know

...that former Harvard University president Lawrence Summers served as the World Bank Chief Economist from 1991 to 1993?

...that André Meyer quit school at age 16 to work as a messenger boy, and was later described as "the most creative financial genius of our time in the investment banking world" by David Rockefeller?

...that Valrhona, a company based in the small town of Tain l'Hermitage in the Rhône Valley in France, is one of the world's leading manufacturers of high-quality chocolate?

...that it is estimated that more than 85 percent of all business information exists as unstructured data, commonly appearing in e-mails, memos, reports, letters, presentations and Web pages?

... that the Automotive Electronics Council is an organisation based in the USA that sets qualification standards for the supply of components in the automotive electronics industry.

... that Hollywood accounting is the practice of distributing the profit earned by a large project to corporate entities which, though distinct from the one responsible for the project itself, are typically owned by the same people, with the net result of reducing the project's profit by a substantial margin, sometimes even eliminating it altogether.