Understanding Business Organisations: An Essay on Types and Functions

This essay provides an understanding of business organizations and their environment. It discusses different types of businesses, including sole proprietorship, partnership, and limited companies, highlighting their advantages and disadvantages with examples like Wizz Air, Alaska Airlines, and Virgin Atlantic. The essay also explores organizational structures, comparing flat and tall structures and their impacts on communication and decision-making. Furthermore, it examines key business functions such as human resource management, production, and operations within Virgin Atlantic, emphasizing their contributions to organizational goals. The essay concludes by underscoring the importance of a positive organizational culture in achieving business objectives, using Virgin Atlantic as an example of a company with a highly reputable working environment. Desklib offers a variety of study tools including similar essays and solved assignments.

Understanding of business
organisations and its
environment

Contents
INTRODUCTION...........................................................................................................................1
MAIN BODY ..................................................................................................................................1
Types of business.........................................................................................................................1
Structure of an organisation.........................................................................................................2
Business functions.......................................................................................................................3
Organisational culture..................................................................................................................3
REFERENCES................................................................................................................................5

INTRODUCTION
Business organisation refers to an enterprise formed for completing the aim of holding on
to the commercial entities (Arfi, Hikkerova and Sahut, 2018). Its main objective is to give
opportunity to the group of people for enhancing their leadership skills, reduce subordinates
turnover, increase satisfaction, strengthen the customer services and many more. There are
several types of organisations such as partnership, sole proprietorship and limited company.
Companies related to tourism generally work for the customers to provide them with the best
experience with them. They give them with a full package of different places which is affordable
for the customers and connect large number of people with them. The aim of the essay is to gain
knowledge of the environment of business in which the business operates.
The essay highlights the demonstration of reliable knowledge as well as understanding of
different types of business and its functions. It also covers the impacts on the culture and
structure of the organisation on their overall performance.
MAIN BODY
Types of business
It is very essential for a person to decide the industry, and the form of business to
establish which gives maximum profits (Buchanan and Huczynski, 2019). There are various
types of businesses which involves sole proprietorship, partnership and limited corporation. The
very first type is the sole proprietorship which is taken into consideration, it is the least
expensive and easy to open business in the market. For instance, Wizz Air is a company which
comes in sole proprietorship business, have a goal to achieve maximum profit in the future. They
are the only people responsible for their profits or losses as they are the owners of the company,
all the decisions are taken alone without any permission or mutual consent with anyone (Torres,
Sidorova and Jones, 2018). Sole proprietorship business managers have advantages like they are
the boss, no need to share profits, maximum privacy and also it is simple to establish (Hamilton
and Webster, 2018). On the other hand, it contains disadvantages as well such as unlimited
liability for debts, limited capacity to raise capital, responsible for all the day to day business
decisions and attainment of high calibre subordinates are difficult. The second type of business
includes partnership business, it is the connection between two or more people to perform trade
or business. Contribution of property, money, skill, shares in both profit or losses of the company
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(Uhl-Bien and Arena, 2018). For example, Alaska Airlines is a partnership entity which is simple
for them to introduce in the marketplace without any formal registration of the company. It
benefits the Alaska Airlines partners in gaining and understanding more new skills, knowledge,
experience as members share their views which makes them learn some or the other thing.
Partnership businesses has its disadvantages as well which involves the liability of both the
partners for the debts of the company is unlimited (Stein, 2021). The third type of business is the
limited company which is general form of legal structure as well as incorporation that limits the
shareholder's liability of the organisation through investments. The managers of Virgin Atlantic
are responsible for the loss of the company so they have minimum personal liability. It is helpful
for them as it is a separate legal entity, has the owing property, dual relationship, limited liability
and many more (Hampden-Turner, Trompenaars and Hampden-Turner, 2020). It has
disadvantages as well like the registration process, division of ownership, personal liability,
formalities of compliances and winding up of the companies (Schaltegger, Hörisch and Freeman,
2019).
Structure of an organisation
Organisational structure refers to the technique through which the flow of work is done in
the organisation (Henry, 2021). A flat structure contains few level of supervision in a given
organisation size, whereas, tall organisation structure has many levels of supervisions. For
instance, Virgin Atlantic us the tall structure in the organisation which provide the angers with
more opportunities for future growth as well as in their promotions. It benefits the staffs to gain
high support from the line managers, it also has high degree of supervision as the line managers
are responsible for limited people only. On the other hand, it has some disadvantages as well
such as communications becomes difficult because of multiple layers, decision making may take
more time, less agile and more expensive (Pettinger, 2020). In contrary, managers of Wizz Air,
use the flat structure in the organisation as it elevates the responsibility of each subordinate in the
company and also for better communication it removes excess management layers. It benefits the
managers as it contains less layers which results in better communication between the people of
the organisation (Liebowitz, 2019). The workforce are more autonomy and responsible for the
working in the company and they feel motivated to work which leads to more productivity. It
also has various disadvantage as well such as lack of opportunities for progression, high
workload for the mangers and workers and has more employees in the enterprise.
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Business functions
Business function refers to the practices which are carried out by any company, it
includes the day to day operations with the purpose to achieve the goals and objectives of the
business (Mehralian, Nazari and Ghasemzadeh, 2018). In Virgin Atlantic, the managers carry out
all the business activity in order to attain the targets of the company, the key business functions
includes human resource, production and operations. In human resource management, the HR
managers are responsible for the recruitment process, motivation of employees, providing
directions and also retaining people from all over the world in the company. The HR managers
of Virgin Atlantic mainly aims on the need s of the workforce in order to satisfy them while
working in the entity. It impacts the organisation in a good way as more skilled and
knowledgable people are recruited for the company which is helpful for them in achieving the
future goals. The production function used by the managers of Virgin Atlantic in order to
identify what input combinations the managers should use for producing something given the
price of capital and labour. It benefits them in showcasing the company in the marketplace to
increase brand awareness as well as brand loyalty (Melander, 2018) (Melé, 2019). It impacts the
company in a positive way as it results in strong customer base segment with more new people.
In Virgin Atlantic, managers put high amount of money in production for gaining more profit
and attaining the sustainable competitive advantage in the market. Operations is the third
function of the business in Virgin Atlantic, where raw inputs are converted into finished goods
which fulfil the needs and demands of the people so that they can easy purchase it. It impacts the
company positively as customers are continuously increasing which also leads to high market
share in the marketplace.
Organisational culture
Organisational culture refers to the practices, values and expectations collectively which
inform as well as guide the actions of all the members in the group. It is essential for a company
to have positive working environment by behaving properly with everyone, communicating,
interacting and discussing thing with everyone in the firm. It gives a positive impact on the
culture of the organisation as the employees are highly motivated and dedicated towards the
achievement of organisational goals. Organisational cultural consists of various sources of
business which include its structure, rights as well as ethics of the business for the employees
satisfaction. In the market of UK, Virgin Atlantic has a highly reputed working organisational
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cultural which benefits the managers in gaining more profits with high degree of satisfaction for
the workers and customers (Virgin Atlantic, 2022). The managers of the Virgin Atlantic are
responsible for the surroundings as they guide and directs the employees in such a way which
gives them a clear idea of vision and mission of the enterprise. Due to the positive and smooth
organisational culture of UK, people from other countries come to visit and Virgin Atlantic
provides them with the best experience of tourism and hospitality. The staffs are skilled and
educated which is impacts positively on the customer base segment of the firm (Otley and
Berry, 2019). The Virgin Atlantic plays vital role in both hospitality and tourism sector by
contributing towards the economy of UK.
CONCLUSION
From the above essay it is concluded that business organisations are the companies which
are interested in establishing new businesses in order to gain profit and brand awareness in the
marketplace. There are various types of business which is used by many companies includes sole
proprietorship, partnership and limited corporation. The essay also covers the organisational
structure which are of two types flat and tall. The following essay highlights the business
functions in the company relating to human resource management, production and operations,
also their impact on the same. A positive organisational culture is the key success of all the
business as it helps them in achieving the objectives effectively and efficiently.
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REFERENCES
Books and Journals:
Arfi, W. B., Hikkerova, L. and Sahut, J. M., 2018. External knowledge sources, green innovation
and performance. Technological Forecasting and Social Change. 129. pp.210-220.
Buchanan, D. A. and Huczynski, A. A., 2019. Organizational behaviour. Pearson UK.
Hamilton, L. and Webster, P., 2018. The international business environment. Oxford University
Press.
Hampden-Turner, C., Trompenaars, F. and Hampden-Turner, C., 2020. Riding the waves of
culture: Understanding diversity in global business. Hachette UK.
Henry, A., 2021. Understanding strategic management. Oxford University Press.
Liebowitz, J., 2019. Building organizational intelligence: A knowledge management primer.
CRC press.
Mehralian, G., Nazari, J. A. and Ghasemzadeh, P., 2018. The effects of knowledge creation
process on organizational performance using the BSC approach: the mediating role of
intellectual capital. Journal of Knowledge Management.
Melander, L., 2018. Customer and supplier collaboration in green product innovation: External
and internal capabilities. Business Strategy and the Environment. 27(6). pp.677-693.
Melé, D., 2019. Business Ethics in Action: Managing Human Excellence in Organizations.
Bloomsbury Publishing.
Otley, D. T. and Berry, A. J., 2019. Control, organisation and accounting. In Management
Control Theory (pp. 101-114). Routledge.
Pettinger, R., 2020. Introduction to management. Bloomsbury Publishing.
Schaltegger, S., Hörisch, J. and Freeman, R. E., 2019. Business cases for sustainability: A
stakeholder theory perspective. Organization & Environment. 32(3). pp.191-212.
Stein, H. F., 2021. Listening deeply: An approach to understanding and consulting in
organizational culture. Routledge.
Torres, R., Sidorova, A. and Jones, M. C., 2018. Enabling firm performance through business
intelligence and analytics: A dynamic capabilities perspective. Information &
Management. 55(7). pp.822-839.
Uhl-Bien, M. and Arena, M., 2018. Leadership for organizational adaptability: A theoretical
synthesis and integrative framework. The leadership quarterly. 29(1). pp.89-104.
Online:
Virgin Atlantic. 2022. [Online]. Available through: <https://www.virginatlantic.com/in/en?
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gIVh4NLBR1i_w1bEAAYASAAEgL1VfD_BwE&gclsrc=aw.ds>
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