Corporations

A corporation is a business unit that is legally separate from its owners. A business corporation is an institution established for the purpose of making profit. It is operated by individuals. The ownership being represented by shares of stock in the corporation, the owners do not directly control the operations of the corporations. Instead they elect a board of directors who run the corporation for the benefit of the stockholders. Their shares of ownership are represented by stock certificates. A person who owns a stock certificate is called a stock-holder. In exchange for a restricted involvement in the corporation’s actual operations, stockholders enjoy limited liability. That is their risk of loss is limited to the amount paid for their shares. If they wish stockholders can sell their shares to other people without affecting corporate operations. Because of this limited liability, stockholders are often willing to invest in riskier, but potentially profitable activities. Also, because ownership can be transferred without dissolving the corporation, the life of the corporation is unlimited and not subject to the whims or health of a proprietor or partner.

There are several advantages of the corporate form of ownership. The first is the ability to attract financial resources. The next advantage is the corporation attracts a large amount of capital it can invest it in plants, equipment and research. And the third advantage is that a corporation can often higher salaries and thus attract talented managers and specialists.

The privately owned business corporation is one type of corporation. There are some other types too. Educational, religious, charitable institutions can also incorporate. Usually such corporation does not issue stock and is nonprofit. If there is a profit it is reinvested in the institution rather than distributed to private stockholders.

In some western countries, cities, states, federal government and special agencies can establish governmental corporations. A few examples of these governmental corporations are state universities, state hospitals and city owned utilities. Governmental corporations are non-profit as a rule and usually they do not issue stock certificates.

Companies and Organizations Background information about the organization.

What sort of company is it?

Charity	an organization to relieve poverty, advance religion or education, etc; benefits from some financial concessions.
Company (UK)	an organization operating to make a profit corporation (US)
Cooperative	a democratic firm owned by its workers.
Enterprise	a new commercial activity [for example How's your new enterprise? Also in some company names; for example, Smiths Enterprises (enterprise = firm)
Government agency	an organization which is part of the state administration.
Holding company	a firm, usually without commercial activity, created to be parent to other companies.
Limited company	a firm where shareholders' liability is limited.
Minority interest	company in which another firm has less than a 50 % interest.
Multinational	an organization operating in several countries.
Nationalized company	company owned by the state.
Offshore company	a firm based in a tax haven to avoid higher taxation.
Operation	a general word for a company, usually a small one, part of a large group. It also means-activity; for example, our commercial operation.
Parent company	a company which owns another.
Partnership	two or more partners working together for profit, without limited liability.
Private company	a company whose shares are not publicly available.
Public company	a company whose shares are publicly available.
Society	a friendly association of people; for example, a sports society (society = firm).
Subsidiary (affiliate)	firm owned by a parent company.