Business

A business, also known as an enterprise, agency or a firm, is an entity involved in the provision of goods and/or services to consumers. Businesses are prevalent in capitalist economies, where most of them are privately owned and provide goods and services to customers in exchange for other goods, services, or money. Businesses may also be social not-for-profit enterprises or state-owned public enterprises targeted for specific social and economic objectives. A business owned by multiple individuals may be formed as an incorporated company or jointly organised as a partnership. Countries have different laws that may ascribe different rights to the various business entities.

Business can refer to a particular organization or to an entire market sector, e.g. "the music business". Compound forms such as agribusiness represent subsets of the word's broader meaning, which encompasses all activity by suppliers of goods and services. The goal is for sales to be more than expenditures resulting in a profit.

Oakland, California

Oakland /ˈoʊklənd/ is a major West Coast port city in the U.S. state of California. Oakland is the third largest city in the San Francisco Bay Area, the eighth-largest city in California, and the 45th-largest city in the U.S. with a population of 413,775 as of 2014. It serves as a trade center for the San Francisco Bay Area; its Port of Oakland is the busiest port for San Francisco Bay, all of Northern California, and fifth busiest in the United States. Incorporated in 1852, Oakland is the county seat of Alameda County. It is also the principal city of the Bay Area Region known as the East Bay. The city is situated directly across the bay, six miles (9.7 km) east of San Francisco.

Oakland's territory covers what was once a mosaic of coastal terrace prairie, oak woodland, and north coastal scrub. Its land served as a rich resource when its hillside oak and redwood timber were logged to build San Francisco, and Oakland's fertile flatland soils helped it become a prolific agricultural region. In the late 1860s, Oakland was selected as the western terminal of the Transcontinental Railroad. Following the 1906 San Francisco earthquake, many San Franciscans relocated to Oakland, enlarging the city's population, increasing its housing stock and improving its infrastructure. It continued to grow in the 20th century with its busy port, shipyards, and a thriving automobile manufacturing industry.

Small business

Small businesses are normally privately owned corporations, partnerships, or sole proprietorships. What businesses are defined as "small" in terms of government support and tax policy varies depending on the country and industry. Small businesses range from 15 employees under the Australian Fair Work Act 2009, 50 employees according to the definition used by the European Union, and fewer than 500 employees to qualify for many U.S. Small Business Administration programs. Small businesses can also be classified according to other methods such as sales, assets, or net profits.

Small businesses are common in many countries, depending on the economic system in operation. Typical examples include: convenience stores, other small shops (such as a bakery or delicatessen), hairdressers, tradesmen, lawyers, accountants, restaurants, guest houses, photographers, small-scale manufacturing, and online businesses, such as web design and programming, etc.

Characteristics

Researchers and analysts of small or owner-managed businesses generally behave as if nominal organizational forms (e.g., partnership, sole-trader or corporation) and the consequent legal and accounting boundaries of owner-managed firms are consistently meaningful. However, owner-managers often do not delineate their behaviour to accord with the implied separation between their personal and business interests. Lenders also often contract around organizational (corporate) boundaries by seeking personal guarantees or accepting privately held assets as collateral. Because of this behaviour, researchers and analysts should reject the relevance of the organizational types and implied boundaries in many contexts relating to owner-managed firms. These include analyses that use traditional accounting disclosures, and studies that view the firm as defined by some formal organizational structure.