Understanding Business Organisations and Environments - MGBBT0UBN

This essay provides a comprehensive overview of business organizations, focusing on different business structures such as sole proprietorships, partnerships, and limited liability corporations, detailing their advantages and disadvantages. It explores the differences between tall and flat organizational structures and examines various business functions performed by Unilever, a UK-based multinational company. The essay also defines organizational culture and emphasizes the impact of a positive culture on a company's success, highlighting how it motivates employees, improves productivity, and reduces employee turnover. The analysis concludes that understanding business organizations is crucial for developing effective business strategies and fostering a positive work environment.

Understanding
Business
Organisations

Table of Contents
INTRODUCTION...........................................................................................................................1
MAIN BODY...................................................................................................................................1
Explanation of Various types of business structures..............................................................1
Difference between tall and flat organisational structure.......................................................2
Various business functions performed at the primary organisation.......................................3
Define organisational culture and impact of positive culture upon the success of the
organisation............................................................................................................................3
CONCLUSION................................................................................................................................4
REFERENCES................................................................................................................................5

INTRODUCTION
Business environment is being developed with two prominent terms including Business and
the Environment. For this, business is referred to the economic activity which is being performed
with the overall intention for earning profits. Meanwhile, environment is also including the
surroundings for the business that has major impact for the operations of businesses. It is also
essential to have detailed analysis and understanding of business (Barnes and et. al., 2020). Also,
the report leads to cover the business concepts in which the considered company is Unilever
which is situated in UK multinational company that deals in consumer products and goods. The
report leads to cover details about different types of business structures, organisational structure,
different business units and impact of organisational culture over the success of company.
MAIN BODY
Explanation of Various types of business structures
Business refers to an economic activity that is performed by the people with the intention
of earning money. The activity of business is concerned with the selling and buying of products
and services through which one end sells the service and product and the other end gets their
requirement fulfilled. Business structure can be of various types such as sole proprietorship,
limited liability corporation and partnership. Further the different types of business structures are
discussed below:
Sole proprietorship: This refer to the type in which the business organisation is managed
and operated by a sole owner or single authority. In this type of business, the risks and profits are
handled by a single person. Every type of business structure has its own pros and cons, the major
advantage of the sole proprietorship is that the profit is enjoyed by a single person and the major
disadvantage is that the single person is entitled to all the losses that are reported in the business
(Alkatheeri and et. al., 2020). Sole proprietor business is easy to manage as only one person’s
opinion are considered in this business and the major decisions are made by a single person
therefore there are no conflicts of thoughts. Due to the single person exposure, the organisation is
exposed to less experiences and expertise.
Partnership business: This business structure is formed when an organisation is owned by
two people and the major decisions are made by these two people in the organisation. Both of
them comes under a contract in which the partnership deed is signed. In this type of firm, the
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risks and the profits are distributed between two people based on their investment in the business
(Shad and et. al., 2019). The major disadvantage of a partnership business is that there are
several conflicts in the business as the ideas of two people are different. Another disadvantage
that is there in the business is regarding unlimited liability of the partners.
Limited liability corporations: In this business structure the business is considered as a
separate legal entity where the business is considered apart and different from the owner. This
structure also has various types of advantages and disadvantages, the major advantage of this
type of corporation is that this is considered as a separate entity where the legal obligations are
charged under the company’s name (Nwaiwu, 2018). The organisation is also capable of easily
raising funds under the name of entity from different types of sources. This organisation can
have several members on board and in the decision making process. The major disadvantage of
limited liability corporation is that the fees and taxes are associated with the business structure
and there is a lot of public disclosure of the organisation. The profits in the organisation are
subjected to social security and Medicare taxes as the owners sometimes have to pay more taxes
than the owners of corporates and single owner entity firms.
Difference between tall and flat organisational structure
The structure of company depicts the process which determine the overall directions to
perform suitable activities in terms of achieving the objectives and goals of company. There are
two different types of organisational structures that include tall and fall organisational structure
discussed as:
Tall organisational structure is followed by large corporations whereas the flat
organisational structure is being opted by the companies which are small in size. The tall
organisational structure includes different levels of hierarchy in businesses meanwhile the flat
organisational structure has less hierarchical level. Tall organisational structure leads to offer a
better organisational features and efficiency as the subordinates are being appointed under the
superior which are limited and also hence effective monitoring is being offered and performed
(Christ and Burritt, 2019). Flat organisational structure has shortage of overall efficiency as
monitoring is being compared because of the high number of subordinates under one superior is
being appointed. For instance, the organisation leads to follow tall organisational structure in
Marriott hotel and flat structure is being followed by Unilever.
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Various business functions performed at the primary organisation
Unilever is considered as the UK based worldwide company that leads to operate in several
parts of world to offer their services to the wide range of customers. The company leads to
perform several functions in terms of achieving their organisational objectives. For this, the
several function which are performed by Unilever are discussed as:
Marketing function is being performed by Unilever in order to make sure that the
company also conduct different surveys in terms of developing their new products which are
capable of fulfilling the needs of customers (Alkraiji, 2020). The marketing function is also
beneficial in terms of attracting several customers and also facilitate effective offerings with the
several customers queries and their preferences. The marketing function is also useful for
company to enhance their organisational performance.
Production function is another business function which is being performed by Unilever to
make sure the overall availability of needed resources in the company in terms of converting
them towards the finished commodities (Tuleja, 2021). The production function is accountable
for effective use of raw materials towards the company in terms of making sure the minimal
wastage so that the cost of product has been low. The minimal cost is useful for the company to
earn effective profit in business.
Finance function is also performed to help the company in terms of developing the
effective financial position within the company. The finance function helpful for the company to
analyse and control the financial liquidity of company by maintaining the cash inflow and
outflow of the company (Cabral and Jabbour, 2020). the financial function is also beneficial to
take further financial decisions which are important for the company and its success in market.
Define organisational culture and impact of positive culture upon the success of the organisation
The concept of organisational culture depicts he several constraints of company including
practices, values and expectations of company. These constraints will helpful for company to
inform and guide the employees so that they can perform in an effective manner to achieve the
overall objectives of company (Hossain and et. al., 2019). The culture of company can be both
positive and negative as well. The positive organisational culture is helpful for company to
promote overall growth and success meanwhile the negative organisational culture can be
harmful for company as it can destroy the image within the market. The positive work culture
tends to have positive impact on Unilever in terms of succeeding in market.
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The positive organisational culture is helpful in terms of motivating employees to work with
proper efforts to achieve their overall organisational objectives. Therefore, it can be analysed that
the positive work culture will move towards the better productivity of employees within the
unsilver. Furthermore, the positive organisational culture is useful for the employees to have
several benefits at the work as they are offered with safety and health measures (Al-Harrasi,
Shaikh and Al-Badi, 2021). It will lead towards the employee retention at Unilever. Therefore,
the positive working environment will lead to reduce the employee turnover cost of company as
their retention rates will be high. the positive culture is helpful for company to attract talent in
company by analysing the job opportunities for their potential employees in terms of developing
healthy culture of company to attract pool of talented candidates for company.
CONCLUSION
From the preceding discussion, it has been analysed that the understanding of business
organisations is important to understand the most effective business structure for developing the
business. The report also offers the detailed analysis of several business structures like sole
proprietorship, partnership and limited liability corporation while analysing the pros and cons in
detail. The study also defines the classification among two types of organisational structure and
different functions of businesses. Lastly, it shows the overall contribution of positive
organisational culture towards the success of company.
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REFERENCES
Books and Journals
Al-Harrasi, A., Shaikh, A.K. and Al-Badi, A., 2021. Towards protecting organisations’ data by
preventing data theft by malicious insiders. International Journal of Organizational
Analysis.
Alkatheeri, Y and et. al., 2020. The effect of big data on the quality of decision-making in Abu
Dhabi Government organisations. In Data management, analytics and innovation (pp.
231-248). Springer, Singapore.
Alkraiji, A.I., 2020. Weighting the challenges to the effectiveness of business intelligence
systems in organisations: an empirical study of government organisations in Saudi
Arabia. Journal of Decision Systems, 29(2), pp.102-127.
Barnes, L and et. al., 2020. What Employers in Christian-based Organisations Desire in
Graduates from a Christian Business School.
Cabral, C. and Jabbour, C.J.C., 2020. Understanding the human side of green hospitality
management. International Journal of Hospitality Management, 88, p.102389.
Christ, K.L. and Burritt, R.L., 2019. Implementation of sustainable development goals: The role
for business academics. Australian Journal of Management, 44(4), pp.571-593.
Hossain, M and et. al., 2019. Understanding communication of sustainability reporting:
Application of symbolic convergence theory (SCT). Journal of Business Ethics. 160(2).
pp.563-586.
Nwaiwu, F., 2018. Review and comparison of conceptual frameworks on digital business
transformation. Journal of Competitiveness.
Shad, M.K and et. al., 2019. Integrating sustainability reporting into enterprise risk management
and its relationship with business performance: A conceptual framework. Journal of
Cleaner production, 208, pp.415-425.
Tuleja, E.A., 2021. Intercultural Communication for Global Business: How leaders
communicate for success. Routledge.
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