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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's 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...)

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During the Khrushchev era, from 1956 through 1962, the Soviet Union attempted to implement major wage reforms intended to move Soviet industrial workers away from the mindset of overfulfilling quotas that had characterised the Soviet economy during the preceding Stalinist period and toward a more efficient financial incentive.

Throughout the Stalinist period, most Soviet workers had been paid for their work based on a piece-rate system. Thus their individual wages were directly tied to the amount of work they produced. This policy was intended to encourage workers to toil and therefore increase production as much as possible. The piece-rate system led to the growth of bureaucracy and contributed to significant inefficiencies in Soviet industry. In addition, factory managers frequently manipulated the personal production quotas given to workers to prevent workers' wages from falling too low.

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Ford Motor car assembly line: the classical example of a manufacturing production system.

Photo credit: Genghiskhanviet

Operations management is an area of management concerned with overseeing, designing, and controlling the process of production and redesigning business operations in the production of goods or services. It involves the responsibility of ensuring that business operations are efficient in terms of using as few resources as needed, and effective in terms of meeting customer requirements. It is concerned with managing the process that converts inputs (in the forms of raw materials, labor, and energy) into outputs (in the form of goods and/or services). The relationship of operations management to senior management in commercial contexts can be compared to the relationship of line officers to highest-level senior officers in military science. The highest-level officers shape the strategy and revise it over time, while the line officers make tactical decisions in support of carrying out the strategy. In business as in military affairs, the boundaries between levels are not always distinct; tactical information dynamically informs strategy, and individual people often move between roles over time.

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Moscow, the financial center of Russia

The economy of Russia has gradually transformed from a planned economy into a mixed market-oriented economy. It has enormous natural resources, particularly oil and natural gas. In 2023, it was the world's 11th-largest economy by nominal GDP, 6th-largest by purchasing power parity (PPP) according to IMF, and 5th-largest according to World Bank. Due to a volatile currency exchange rate, Russia's GDP as measured in dollars fluctuates sharply. Russia was the last major economy to join the WTO, becoming a member in 2012.

Russia's vast geography is an important determinant of its economic activity, with the country holding a large share of the world's natural resources. It has been widely described as an energy superpower; as it has the world's largest natural gas reserves, 2nd-largest coal reserves, 8th-largest oil reserves, and the largest oil shale reserves in Europe. It is the world's leading natural gas exporter, the 2nd-largest natural gas producer, the 2nd-largest oil exporter and producer and third largest coal exporter. Russia's foreign exchange reserves are the world's 4th-largest. It has a labour force of roughly 70 million people, which is the world's 7th-largest. Russia is the world's 3rd-largest exporter of arms. The oil and gas sector accounted up to roughly 34% of Russia's federal budget revenues, and up to 54% of its exports in 2021. Russia has the world's 5th-largest number of billionaires. Russia's inequality of household income and wealth remains comparatively high, with a Gini coefficient of 36 in 2020 as compared to 39.8 in the US in 2021. (Full article...)

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The majority of these men beheve that the fundamental interests of employees and employers are necessarily antagonistic. Scientific management, on the contrary, has for its very foundation the firm conviction that the true interests of the two are one and the same; that prosperity for the employer cannot exist through a long term of years unless it is accompanied by prosperity for the employe, and vice versa; and that it is possible to give the workman what he most wants — high wages — and the employer what he wants — a low labor cost — for his manufactures.

It is hoped that some at least of those who do not sympathize with each of these objects may be led to modify their views; that some employers, whose attitude toward their workmen has been that of trying to get the largest amount of work out of them for the smallest possible wages, may be led to see that a more liberal policy toward their men will pay them better; and that some of those workmen who begrudge a fair and even a large profit to their employers, and who feel that all of the fruits of their labor should belong to them, and that those for whom they work and the capital invested in the business are entitled to little or nothing, may be led to modify these views.

No one can be found who will deny that in the case of any single individual the greatest prosperity can exist only when that individual has reached his highest state of efficiency; that is, when he is turning out his largest daily output.

—Frederick Winslow Taylor, The principles of scientific management, 1911

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... that Gerald Willis, after working as a bus driver at age 15, started a business that earned $2 million per year and built a replica of the Hermitage after watching The President's Lady?
... that according to Jimmy Carter, "more of [Georgia's] business was probably conducted in the Henry Grady than in the state capitol"?
... that topics on Recess Therapy have included the economy, climate change, and peeing your pants?
... that the Chicago Community Bond Fund sought to put itself out of business by eliminating cash bail?
... that the 2017 acquisition of Katz Broadcasting by the E. W. Scripps Company was seen as a validation of the business of diginets?
... that one of Beverly Robertson's biggest accomplishments as CEO of the Greater Memphis Chamber was attracting the Ford Motor Company's US$5.6 billion Blue Oval City complex to Memphis, Tennessee?

On this day in business history

April 25:

1874 - Guglielmo Marconi, an Italian businessman and inventor, developer of Marconi's law and The Wireless Telegraph & Signal Company, was born on this day.

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General images

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

Image 1Lindley 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 2Time required to start a business in 2017 (from Business)
Image 3Chart 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 41/8 share of the Stora Kopparberg mine, dated June 16, 1288 (from Corporation)
Image 5Student organizers from the Green Club at Newcomb College Institute formed a social entrepreneurship organization in 2010. (from Entrepreneurship)
Image 6McDonald's Corporation is one of the most recognizable corporations in the world. (from Corporation)
Image 7Mexican Stock Exchange in Paseo de la Reforma, Mexico City (from Business)
Image 8Dell Women's Entrepreneur Network event in New York City (from Entrepreneurship)
Image 9Offices in the Los Angeles Downtown Financial District (from Business)
Image 10"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 11Emil Jellinek-Mercedes (1853–1918), here at the steering wheel of his Phoenix Double-Phaeton (from Entrepreneurship)
Image 12In 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)

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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.