Organization vs Firm

Organization and Firm are two words that are often confused in terms of their connotations. They appear to have similar functions, but strictly speaking they differ in their connotation and functions. The manner in which an organization and a firm are structured is the basis of difference between them. A firm is said to have more than one partner that go in agreement between them. On the other hand an organization is a social arrangement characterized by collective goals and it looks upon its own performance. There are varieties of firms such as law firm and business firm. On the other hand there are several types of organizations as well including non-governmental organizations, international organizations, not-for-profit corporations, cooperatives, partnerships, corporations and the like. The basic difference between organization and firm is that organization focuses on the achievement of the goals of a company. Organization lies in creating value for stockholders, customers, employees, suppliers and community. Partners work together bound by some kind of agreement between them in a firm. They work together characterized by organizational behavior in order to bring about results and goals of their company. Firm and organization differ in terms of their leadership too. The leader in a firm is different from the leader in an organization in the sense that a leader in an organization is appointed to a managerial position and has the right to command, enforce obedience and behavior by force of the authority of his position. On the other hand a leader in a firm is the sole partner or the partners singly. If the number of partners is more than one then it is true that they all share the position in enforcing obedience and behavior. This is one of the main differences between a firm and an organization. Read more: http://www.differencebetween.com/difference-between-organization-and-vsfirm/#ixzz1UbD1RNFw

Rethinking the firm: organizational approaches

Abstract How does social science based organization theory describe the business firm? Sociology, political science, social psychology and ethnology have inspired two almost classical perspectives. One theorizes the firm as an arena for strategic behavior. The other underlines the way social pressure mechanisms structure a moral community dimension. Two additional approaches exist, less explored. The firm can be defined as a collective actor, the agenda for knowledge being to explain how far collective choice is possible. Or the firm may be studied from a cognitive perspective, as an organization which interprets and thinks. The article argues that organization theory offers a unitary if not limited view of the business firm. Social sciences basically debate around two alternative views which differentiate according to four characteristics: the action arena or the context of behavior; the teleological property of the

unit; the payoff matrix or the sources of preferences with which members enter collective choice contexts; and the sources of managerial influence. Keywords: organizational theory, collective action, cognitions, strategic behavior, Gemeinschaft, social function of the firm ********** Rationally constructed organizations pervade modern industrial societies. The bonds of tradition, manifest in kinship, tribe and community, have been supplanted by individuals' membership in purposefully designed and administered organizations. These corporate actors are a fundamental unit of social integration and a major source of social stratification (Coleman 1990). A prototype of these organizations is the modern business firm. Business firms produce wealth for individuals and societies, develop and exploit technologies which have led industrial revolutions, and influence, among other things, gender, race, ethnic, and class structures. What is a business firm? One view describes business firms as political coalitions. Firms, in this view, are collections of subunits pursuing separate goals. The role of management is to structure inducements so that the individual subunits identify their interests with those of the firm and, thereby, contribute to its mission. Another view of the business firm describes it as a nexus for contracts between actors free to sell their skills and labor on the open market. The management role in this view is to define efficiently the content of contracts, monitor the term structure of the portfolio of contracts, and insure compliance with contractual obligations. Common to both of these formulations is the net-classical precept that business firms are arenas through which self-interested, self-seeking behavior is mobilized to accomplish collective instrumental aims. It is no surprise that firms serve the utility-maximizing preferences of the individuals and groups who join and serve in these organizations. The strategic behavior of members, managed through an economy of incentives, is a persuasive ontology of firms. Yet, even casual observation suggests limitations to this dominant view. People work overtime without reward, facilitate projects for others with little or no recognition, make heroic efforts to help firms survive, rally around efforts to improve the common good, and seek to advance social policy agendas. Individuals and groups bear costs that utilitymaximizing approaches would not predict. Contributions can, and often do, exceed inducements. Why do contributions-to-inducements ratios vary from utility-maximizing predictions? In a pioneering contribution, Chester Barnard (1938) argued that people are, at times, indifferent to costs and payoffs. People, in this view, engage in activities in which personal utilities are simply not evaluated. The 'zone of indifference' extends around each individual to a greater or lesser degree. The indifference argument is persuasive, if only partially so. Few individuals have the capacity, let alone the patience, to evaluate the personal consequences of every encounter, request, and the like. However, while indifference is a useful explanation for why people do not calculate costs and benefits, it is insufficient to explain why people might bear for some time unnecessary costs when they are aware of them. Moreover, and more interestingly, the indifference argument does not explain why individual payoff matrices vary or what facilitates their change. The time is right for a view of firms that explains the great diversity of motives, structures, and processes through which human action is mobilized and goals are achieved in these organizations.

Firms play a more important and complex role in society than current theory would lead one to expect. Utility maximization is only one function that business firms do, in fact, achieve. Additional functions include individuals' identification and integration into the local community and the wider world, and the maintenance and, at times, reconstruction of the social fabric. A view of firms which acknowledges the importance of instrumental, expressive and institutional aspects usefully expands contemporary debates about business to include issues of organizational purpose, identification (Kogut and Zander 1996), ideology, and normative order. Current theory is not 'wrong' in any fundamental sense--it highlights single important aspects of business organizations. But current theory ignores many of the latent and unintended social functions that firms play. The Firm as an Arena for Strategic Behavior The firm may be managed through an economy of incentives. Incentives are the rewards and sanctions imposed by management. Well-designed incentives align individual goals and collectively produce managerially desired action. Designed poorly, incentives may produce subunit conflict, apathy, and poor firm performance. The agency and management literature has been concerned with ways of optimally and effectively designing incentive contracts. Implicit in this view of the organization is the assumption that organizational actors, either persons or subunits such as departments, committees, and so on, possess preferences and influence resources. Preferences are understood as the optimal outcomes organizational actors desire as decision outcomes. They also are exogenous to the firm. Disproportionately high resource allocation in favor of an organizational subunit is a prototype of this preference. Sales and marketing departments, for example, may compete to have their respective projects funded from scarce company resources. Influence processes, domination mechanisms and power games are employed to drive policymaking in directions consistent with desired outcomes. Examples of influence and politics include position or office, functional or professional expertise, side payments, information biases, and the like. The relative salience of influence bases may be viewed as the 'weights' that should be attached to predictions of the effects of influence attempts. The Firm as a Moral Community Another view of the firm relaxes the assumption of strong preferences (Selznick 1993). This view still assumes that organizational actors hold resources that may drive decision-making and the taking of action. It differs from the first view, however, by assuming that unitary or strong preferences for specific decision-making outcomes are not a necessary and permanent condition for cooperation. By treating preferences as endogenous, this view defines the role of management, not as activities aimed at building and administering an incentive economy, but as actions designed to help structure and change more or less plastic preferences. Mechanisms which structure preferences include leadership (especially charismatic leadership), ideology building, socialization processes, face-to-face group dynamics, recruitment techniques, and environmental constituencies to which individuals have personal or professional loyalty. As in any society, a center exists in the firm which functions as a central value system, its existence resting on the fact that human beings have a need for personal communion, for incorporation into something which transcends their single existence (Shils 1975). Common to all of these social pressure mechanisms is the attempt to foster commitments, identifications, and loyalties. The literature on missionary, professional, and community organizations has documented the role of management in structuring preferences. Management operates by seducing when not by preaching.

Market
Business Definition for: organizational market Dictionary of Marketing Terms organizational market all the individuals and companies who purchase goods and services for some use other than personal consumption. Organizational markets usually have fewer buyers but purchase in far greater amounts than consumer markets , and are more geographically concentrated. Organizational markets are divided into four components: industrial market, which includes individuals and companies that buy goods and services in order to produce other goods and services; reseller market, which consists of individuals or companies that purchase goods and services produced by others for resale to consumers; government market, which consists of government agencies at all levels that purchase goods and services for carrying out the functions of government; institutional market, which consists of individuals and companies such as schools or hospitals that purchase goods and services for the benefit or use of persons cared for by the institution. Referring Terms: government market institutional market

government market consumer group composed of federal, state, and local government units. The government market in total accounts for the greatest volume of purchases of any consumer group in the United States, spending hundreds of billions of dollars on goods and services each year. Although government purchases comprise a wide range of products such as food, military equipment, office supplies, buildings, clothing, and vehicles, selling to this market typically involves a great deal of paperwork, financial constraints, bureaucratic barriers, and awareness of specific political sensitivities. See also organizational market Related Terms: organizational market all the individuals and companies who purchase goods and services for some use other than personal consumption. Organizational markets usually have fewer buyers but purchase in far greater amounts than consumer markets, and are more geographically concentrated. Organizational markets are divided into four components: industrial market, which includes individuals and companies that buy goods and services in order to produce other goods and services; reseller market, which consists of individuals or companies that purchase goods and services produced by others for resale to consumers; government market, which consists of government agencies at all levels that purchase goods and services for carrying out the functions of government; institutional market, which consists of individuals and companies such as schools or hospitals that purchase goods and services for the benefit or use of persons cared for by the institution.

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Business Definition for: institutional market Dictionary of Marketing Terms institutional market
institutions such as houses of worship, museums, hospitals, prisons, libraries, and schools that purchase goods and services for people or things in their care. Members of the institutional market are generally not profit motivated, and their marketing objectives are usually different from those of traditional business organizations.

See also organizational market Related Terms: organizational market

all the individuals and companies who purchase goods and services for some use other than personal consumption. Organizational markets usually have fewer buyers but purchase in far greater amounts than consumer markets, and are more geographically concentrated. Organizational markets are divided into four components: industrial market, which includes

individuals and companies that buy goods and services in order to produce other goods and services; reseller market, which consists of individuals or companies that purchase goods and services produced by others for resale to consumers; government market, which consists of government agencies at all levels that purchase goods and services for carrying out the functions of government; institutional market, which consists of individuals and companies such as schools or hospitals that purchase goods and services for the benefit or use of persons cared for by the institution.

Industrial Market
Consumer group composed of companies or organizations that purchase goods and services for use in the production of other goods and services that are sold, rented, or supplied to others. For example, the clothing manufacturing industry purchases fabric that is used in the production of dresses and other apparel. Fabric manufacturers are also members of the industrial market because they purchase other raw materials for use in the production of the fabric. The industrial market is the largest and most diverse organizational market, consisting of more than 13 million organizations that buy more than $3 trillion worth of products each year. Some of the major industries represented in the industrial market are construction, agriculture, mining, manufacturing, communication, public utilities, transportation, and finance. Read more: http://www.answers.com/topic/industrial-market#ixzz1UbGMxn9M

What is market to market?

Answer: The meaning and/or use of a "market to market" analysis is to attempt to provide customers, stockholders, CEO's and everyone else under the sun, a way to accurately measure the value of an asset compared to the market in which the asset will be sold in. This market to market valuing of an asset attempts to gain an understanding of what an individual will profit or lose based on the difference between the "book-vale" of an asset, and the "market value" of an asset. Read more: http://wiki.answers.com/Q/What_is_market_to_market#ixzz1UbGeKDNg

What is traditional market and digital market?

Answer: Traditional marketing refers to considering Product, Price, Promotion and Placement before launching a product or offering a service. It is a product-based and company-focused approach to increase branding. Digital marketing involves promoting a product or service through the internet, mobile applications or email campaigns. In regard to internet marketing, this strategies could include

videos, blogs, social networks, banners, online classified & PPC ads, online business listings, affiliate programs, ebooks & articles, RSS, internet radio shows, and other options. Read more: http://wiki.answers.com/Q/What_is_traditional_market_and_digital_market#ixzz1UbGtETLz

Flowering Plant Organization After completing this tutorial you should be able to:
Identify the reproductive structures of the flower. Distinguish the characteristics of the Monocots versus the Dicots. Identify the morphological and anatomical features of Monocot versus Dicot seeds.

Within the plant kingdom the angiosperms, or flowering plants, constitute the largest and most conspicuous group of plants living today. They are characterized by the presence of flowers and the production of seeds enclosed in an ovary. These plants are thought to have been most important to the development of civilization.

The angiosperms are a very diverse group of economically important plants. There are more than 250,000 known species of angiosperms, but only a small number have become the food staples of our civilizations. All angiosperms are characterized by flowers and fruits. A typical angiosperm flower consists of sepals, petals, stamens and carpels. The fruits and seeds develop from the carpels. The flowering plants are divided into two groups, the monocots and dicots. A few common dicots are roses, tomatoes, potatoes, beans, and peas. The most common monocots are the grasses, lilies, palms, and

orchids. Reproduction in these plants involves a double fertilization process. An embryonic plant is produced in the seed as well as the cotyledons or endosperm which is rich in nutrients. This material is digested and used by the developing embryonic plant. It is this material, in many of the grasses, which has provided the nutrients which were prerequisite to the development of civilization. The Division Anthophyta is divided into two classes which include the Monocotyledones and the Dicotyledones. The characteristics of the Monocotyledones include: One cotyledon per embryo. Flower parts in sets of three.

 Parallel venation in leaves. Scattered rings of vascular bundles in stems. Lack of true vascular cambium. The characteristics of the Dicotyledones include: Two cotyledons per embryo. Flower parts in sets of four or five. Netted venation in leaves. A ring of vascular bundles or a cylinder of vascular tissue in the stem. Have true vascular cambium. A flower is a cluster of specialized leaves arranged on a stem of determinate growth. A typical complete flower will demonstrate a number of reproductive and accessory parts. These flower parts include:

Peduncle: flower stalk. Receptacle: the part of the flower stalk that bears the floral organs; located at the base of the flower. Sepals: the outermost leaflike structures which protect the flower. The sepals collectively constitute the calyx.

Petals: usually inside the sepals. May be pigmented or absent. The petals constitute the corolla. Perianth: the combined calyx and corolla. Androecium: The male portion of the plant inside the petals. Consists of stamens, each of which consists of an anther. Inside the anthers are pollen grains, which produce the male gametes. Gynoecium: the female portion of the plant consists of one or more carpels; each made up of an ovary, style, and stigma= pistil. The ovary contains ovules that contain the female gametes. During pollination pollen grains are transferred to the stigma, where they germinate and grow a tube through the style to the ovary. Angiosperm Seeds

The seed may be defined as a mature fertilized ovule. A seed consists essentially of a protective coat, some form of stored food material, and an embryo. Differences in monocots and dicots are quite obvious in the seeds. Dicot seeds have two cotyledons that

are attached to the embryonic plant. These leaflike structures contain most of the nutrients from the endosperm. A dicot seed is usually enclosed in a seed coat referred to as a testa. The hilum is a scar that is produced from the separation of the seed from the ovary wall. The micropyle is a small pore through which the pollen tube enters the ovule. When the seed coat is removed two large foodstoring cotyledons may be found. The embryo, consisting of the epicotyl, hypocotyl, and the radical; is found between the cotyledons. The epicotyl develops into the upper portion(stem and plumule) of the seedling. The hypocotyl is the portion of the embryo located between the

point of attachment of the cotyledons and the radicle. The radicle is the embryonic root. Monocots have a single small cotyledon that functions to transfer nutrients from the endosperm to the embryo. One major difference in monocot seeds is that they usually have a great deal of endosperm that occupies much of of the volume of the seed. The small embryo of the monocot has only a single cotyledon called a scutellum. Other differences include the presence of a coleoptile (a protective covering surrounding the epicotyl) and the coleorhiza (a protective covering around the radicle). Because of these stored food reserves many seeds, like many fruits, are important food for humans and other animals.

A. Draw and label a typical complete flower. B. Draw and label typical monocot and dicot seeds.

(Review Questions)

Define the terms: 1. anther: 2. corolla: 3. gynoecium: 4. monocotyledon: 5. Anthophyta: 6. cotyledon: 7. testa: 8. radicle: 9. coleoptile:

10. coleorhiza: