Types, Purpose, and Structure of Organizations: A Comparative Analysis

Running head: BUSINESS AND BUSINESS ENVIRONMENT
Business and Business Environment
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1BUSINESS AND BUSINESS ENVIRONMENT
Executive summary
Organisations are of various types and have different purposes. There are public, private and
voluntary organisations, and at the same time, there are for profit and for non-profit
organisations. This report gives an overview of the different type, size, scope, purpose and legal
structure of organisations, with the explanations of three real organisations in UK, namely, the
National Health Services, JLP Group and the National Trust. This report also illustrates and
compares various aspects of the relationship between their organisational function, objectives
and their structures.

2BUSINESS AND BUSINESS ENVIRONMENT
Introduction
Organisation refers to a group of people working together for achieving a particular
common goal or purpose, such as, governmental activities or business or community work (Pittz
et al. 2017). Organisations are of various types and they all have different purposes. The
structures of the organisations are also different with distinct functionalities. This report will
highlight different aspects of three types of organisations with real examples and will explain the
relationship of the organisational functions with its objectives and structure. It will also present a
critical analysis of the complexities of the relationship.
Discussion
There are three major classifications of organisations, namely, public, private and
voluntary. These organisations also operate with different types of motives such as for profit and
for non-profit. As the names suggest, public organisations are dedicated for public services and
those are mostly government organisations. The private organisations are under private
ownership and they follow mostly profit motive and the voluntary organisations are mostly
charities, which can be non-governmental organisations working for non-profit (Manuel 2015).
Thus, these organisations also have different type of legal structure as per their operation type
and objectives.
Types and purpose of organisations: Public, private and voluntary
The purpose of public organisations is to serve the public of the nation than to increase
sales and profits. Thus, the public sector organisations mostly focus on providing good service
for the betterment of the entire community than to target some sections of the society and make

3BUSINESS AND BUSINESS ENVIRONMENT
profits (Nikolova 2015). For example, National Health Service (NHS) in the UK is a public
sector organisation. It is a publicly funded healthcare organisation that was established in 1948 to
provide the highest quality healthcare services to the citizens of the UK and also to the visitors. It
is also the largest healthcare institution in the UK (Nhs.uk 2018). As the organisation is funded
by the government, it operates under the Department of Health and Social care. Hence, the
purpose of this organisation is not to make profit but to the serve the people of the country with
the best and affordable healthcare so that the nation gets healthier citizens.
On the other hand, the private sector organisations operate with the motive of earning
profit to survive. The private organisations provide goods and services to the clients with the aim
of earning revenue and substantial profit and hence, they compete against their competitors by
employing various means (Bolman and Deal 2017). Thus, the private organisations mostly
operate for profit. John Lewis Partnership is a Private Limited Company in the UK, operating in
the retail sector. It is owned by a trust, on behalf of the employees, who are known as Partners.
They are shareholders of the organisation and thus, receive a portion of the annual profit. The
JLP Group is one of the largest private companies in the UK by sales as of 2016 and thus, its
purpose of business is to make profit. It competes in the market quite aggressively to capture the
target market. As a private limited company, the profits of JLP Group are subject to corporation
tax of 19% to the government. This tax rate is lower than that for sole trader or proprietorship for
individuals (Johnlewispartnership.co.uk 2018). Thus, the private limited companies are legal
entities in their own rights and the assets of the company and the owner are separate. These have
protection from the personal liabilities and hence the risk of losses is reduced, and these also
have added credibility in the market. These organisations also have a constitution to guide the
shareholders and directors.