Why Do Business Exist Review free essay sample

â€Å"Why does business exist? â€Å" is a question that people may easily miss, because business has been so engaged in social life. However, it is still an issue that needs everyone, especially business people to deeply explore. From my point of view, business organizations exist in order to meet the needs of our daily life. Business organizations have been everywhere in our lives. When people need food, they go to supermarkets to choose what they would like to eat. This is the business activity between people and business organizations for the fulfillment of physiological needs. When people have the need of employment, they may choose to get participated into the business organizations and be a participant of business activities. Thus they can even have the opportunity to make a business plan and carry out the business idea. This is the business activities held by people in order to meet their safety needs. We will write a custom essay sample on Why Do Business Exist? Review or any similar topic specifically for you Do Not WasteYour Time HIRE WRITER Only 13.90 / page People surrounded by business build social networks among others and gradually form deep friendship with someone that has similar interests or ideas. This is the business organizations’ generating the communication environment and it allows people to satisfy the third layer of human needs—love and belonging. As fulfilling the three lower layers of human needs, people can more easily meet the needs of esteem and self-actualization. When it comes to Maslow’s hierarchy of needs, business organizations form the environment where people can better satisfy their needs and expectations. When I mentioned this â€Å"Why do business exist† question to Tim Bushnell, my principal manager in the University of Minnesota-Duluth Dining Center, he answered, â€Å"A business gets started when somebody decides that they can earn a profit by making a good or providing a service, and then selling it to people who are willing to pay for it. A business objective is anything that a company wants to achieve. The most important objective to the business is to make a profit in order to survive. If a business does not make a profit, it may have to close down. Floyd Zimmerman, who was one my supervisor during my internship, answered my same question with similar but distinct ideas. He indicated that in a free market society like our current one, business existed to serve the needs and wants of people. Sometimes, it would be an improvement upon something we had used for a long time. Take Coke as an example. Coke has evolved from plain Coke to new Coke, to Diet Coke, and to caffeine free Coke, from small bottle or 2 liter bottle, and fro glass to plastic bottles. Business organizations have adapted previous goods as the needs or appetite of people change. Innovative, enterprising inventors and businesses brought these products to market to advance our lives, and how we go about our jobs. These two â€Å"wise counselors† provide very interesting ideas, which is similar with mine. We all point out that one major reason for the existence of business is to serve people’s needs and wants in several different hierarchies. However, Mr. Bushnell mentioned making profits, which is broadly regarded as another significant purpose of business. In the article â€Å"Build Your Company’s Vision†, written by James Collins and Jerry Porras, it is stated that core value of a company helps build a thorough insight into your own company. Core values of an organization are those values we hold which form the foundation on which we perform work and conduct ourselves. There may be an entire universe of values, but some of them are so primary, so important to us that through out the changes in society, government, politics, and technology they are still the core values we will abide by. The similarities among the thoughts of mine and my two counselors are somewhat core values since we are in three different fields and we can still hold the same value. The essay â€Å"The Purpose and Objectives of a Business† analyzes the topic in several aspects. Authors are against the answer â€Å"An organization to make a profit† at the beginning to the topic. Business has two basic functions: marketing and innovation. Marketing concentrates on customers. The aim of marketing is to make selling superfluous. Innovation, a term of economics rather than of technology, pays more attention on lower prices, new products, new uses for old products and so on. It also refers to social responsibility objects which could be easily missed. I have the same view that making profit is not the final purpose of business. I do agree that though it not a final aim, making profit is a necessary process and motivate to maintain the business and allow the business to run. Joanne H. Gavin and Richard O. Mason wrote the essay â€Å"The Virtuous Organization: The Value of Happiness in the Workplace. † These two authors have placed their emphasis on positive psychology to create and maintain healthier, happier and more productive workplace. In the first section, they present the importance of happiness at work by showing the situation of working in America, study on productivity in the workplace and existed stress on the job. Later, they give two practical examples of two companies where happiness counts—the Container Store and ID Industries. I agree that positive psychology such as happiness is important, but it is more of supplementary element than key factor. Keeping a happy emotion at work may help work go smoothly, but I doubt its effect and efficacy on major productivity. Larue Tone Hosmer, in his article â€Å"Strategic planning as if ethics mattered†, makes comments about strategic planning and ethics. The basic argument of this article is that the trust, commitment and efforts on the part of all of the stakeholders of a firm are as essential to the success of that firm as are the competitive advantages and strategic positions of its planning process. Hosmer indicates that the strategic decisions of any large scale economic enterprise in a competitive global environment result in both benefits and harms. It is regarded, by Hosmer, as the senior executives’ responsibility to distribute those benefits and allocate those harms among the stakeholders of the company. If it is done thoughtfully, then the ethical principles offer the only form of analysis that is relevant for the distribution of benefits and the allocation of harms. This is because they provide the only means of recognizing the interests and rights of the stakeholders and comparing those interests and rights through the use of known principles. This aspect of business planning is the one that I have merely thought about, and neither do my two â€Å"counselors†. I would like to interpret that one possible purpose of the existence of business in the ethical fields is to transfer major harms to the minority of businessmen in the company and distribute the benefits to the public. Solomon tries to seek help from Aristotle’s ideas in defining principles in terms of the ethics of leadership. Solomon translated Aristotle into modern terms, and figured out a set of questions about the extent to which the organization provides an environment that is conductive to human growth and fulfillment. It is also mentioned that the distribution of rewards in organizations based on the ethical principle of rewarding people proportionate to their contributions. Aristotle’s idea that the goal of people is â€Å"happiness,† or â€Å"flourishing,† or â€Å"doing well† has influences on Solomon’s view. This topic is completely new. It integrates philosophy with business operation and forms a brand new idea on applying idealism to business. In conclusion, business exists for multiple reasons. Some are necessary, like fulfilling people’s needs and wants. Some are important processes and motivates for the purposes of maintaining a business. Others may be supplementary in creating a better business environment, like happiness at work, as well as Aristotle’s ideas.