Business practice

“ INTRODUCTION. The production of manufactures for the requirements of the world’s population is conducted in a comparatively small section of its land surface. Just as the manager of a great estate devotes one section of his estate to the production of certain articles, and other sections to certain other articles, so the great business instinct which rules the business of the world carries on in its various sections the varied industries best suited to the physical, ethnological and financial conditions of its various sections. ”

“ The employer and the employe are mutually interested in the successful conduct of industry; the profits of the one and the wages of the other obviously are contingent upon it, as both profits and wages must be paid from the earnings of the enterprise in which the capital of the one and the labor of the other are jointly invested. This being true, the workman and the employer are equally concerned in the character of the product which is manufactured and sold by them, just as they are interested equally in good markets and regularity of employment. ”

“ Specialties facilitate commerce, and promote efficiency in the professions, but are often narrowing to individuals. The spirit of the age tends to doom the lawyer to a narrow life of practice, the business man to a mere money-making career. ”

“ It is apparent that the corporation within the limits prescribed by statute has most of the attributes and powers of a person—it can sue and be sued, can hold and pass title to property, real and personal, can carry on business in its own name, is responsible to the extent of its entire property for the payment of its debts, etc.
Growth of the Corporate Form of Organization.—The corporate form of organization is being increasingly utilized for the conduct of business of almost every kind. ”

“ In recent years there is evident in the decisions of our higher courts and of our many excellent governmental commissions and bureaus a real appreciation of some of the technical points involved in profits determination. It is believed that a body of authoritative decisions will in time and perhaps soon reflect the best opinion of the business men of the country. ”

“ The point of view taken throughout is that of an organizer or financial manager of an enterprise. While the book deals primarily with business conditions and financial practice in the United States, it includes many references also to the experience and practice of other countries which may yield suggestions of value to American business men.” (Preface) The book is made up of five parts: Finance and business; Capital; Securing capital; Internal financial management; Financial abuses and involvements. The author is president of the Business training corporation, New York city. ”

“ You will see those engaged in these companies associate together, confer with each other, lay their plans before each other, investigate them, scan every branch, and every part and particle of their business. ”

“ The common run of business concerns are occupied with industrial enterprise of some kind, and with transactions in credit, -- with a running sequence of bargains from which the gains of the concern are to accrue, -- and it is upon these gains that attention and effort centers, and to which the management of the concern constantly looks. ”

“ Of course, with the development of the market the complexity of office management increased. In modern times the business man concerns himself not only with the duties of the merchant and exchanger, but also with the organization of industry and economical procedure. ”

“ There are a million or two of business firms in the country, and five or ten times as many clerks; and consider the handling and rehandling, the accounting and reaccounting, the planning and worrying, the balancing of petty profit and loss. ”

“ The better way for the farmer, the merchant, or the manufacturer, when he feels the years pressing heavily and that he can no longer attend properly to the old demands on him, is to shift by a properly drawn contract the business management of the enterprise to his children, or to those whom he wishes to place in charge. ”

“ As one of many illustrative cases, the Rubber Goods Manufacturing Company may be taken as a typical instance of a corporation organized in a conservative but up-to-date manner for permanent success and stable value. ”

“ Nothing but a cold, emotionless, methodical, business-like precision, a well-considered series of commercial transactions, conducted by men specially acquainted with the articles required and regularly trained to office routine. ”

“ THE principal object of management should be to secure the maximum prosperity for the employer, coupled with the maximum prosperity for each employé.
The words "maximum prosperity" are used, in their broad sense, to mean not only large dividends for the company or owner, but the development of every branch of the business to its highest state of excellence, so that the prosperity may be permanent. ”

“ To gather and compile information concerning, and to investigate from time to time the organization, business, conduct, practices, and management of any corporation engaged in commerce, excepting banks and common carriers subject to the Act to regulate commerce, and its relation to other corporations and to individuals, associations, and partnerships. ”

“ So with the engineer, the surveyor, the accountant, or the technician generally, who has to maintain standards of service and of efficiency against the bias of profit-making. So with the manager, the secretary, or the officer of a corporation — for here business as- sumes most nearly the aspect of a profession — who has to reconcile the trust imposed on him by his employers with the duty he owes to himself and to those whose service he in turn controls. ”

“ Today intellectuals, as cooperators, are active in many of the following professions or lines of business and the demand for such experts is increasing: Accountancy, publicity, law, research, teaching, organization work, architecture, store management and merchandising, bakery management, restaurant management, laundry management, banking, insurance, dairying, contracting and building, coal distribution. ”

“ As the business grew, and markets were obtained at home and abroad, more persons and capital were added to the business, and new corporate agencies were obtained or organized, the object being always the same, to extend our business by furnishing the best and cheapest products. ”

“ There are many items of great volume and consequence that do not fall within the immediate score of these business principles. The housewife's work, e.g., as well as some appreciable portion of the work on farms and in some handicrafts, can scarcely be classed as business enterprise. ”

“ The ability and integrity of the men who control the policy of the company and the efficiency of the operating officials are the principal factors [71] in the success of an industrial undertaking. Vacillating policies, weakly executed, will ruin the most promising enterprise. This is particularly true in the case of small companies. Every man of business experience will understand the importance of this factor and be guided by it in the selection of industrial securities. ”

“ The modern business man, entrepreneur or manager, and all those assisting him in the discharge of his duties, perform functions in two directions: first, in the direction of the market in the establishment of price, in the selling of his goods, and in attending to all matters which flow therefrom, and secondly toward the production plant itself ”

“ In current economic theory the business man is spoken of under the name of "entrepreneur" or "undertaker," and his function is held to be the coordinating of industrial processes with a view to economics of production and heightened serviceability. ”

“ Under the caption 'Commerce and Industry' may be grouped studies in the principles of commerce and the geography, materials, customs and usages of commerce and also detailed examination into the structure and processes of the extractive and manufacturing industries. Attention should be called to the at present very meagerly developed study of industrial organization, which has to do with the administrative relations existing within an individual business, especially if it be of large size, and with the methods of utilizing the resources of investors in financing new undertakings. ”

“ In dealing, therefore, with many of the men who have used the methods condemned by the statute for the purpose of maintaining a profitable business, we may well facilitate a change by them in the method of doing business. ”

“ The first step in the organization or systematizing of a business is to determine its natural divisions. What is the nature of the business, and what are its distinguishing characteristics? Be it a manufacturing, jobbing, wholesale, retail, or professional concern, there is some one head on whom rests the final responsibility for the success or failure of the business. He must be surrounded with subordinates, each having certain duties to perform, who will be responsible for the performance of those duties, thereby coöperating to carry out the purposes of the enterprise. ”

“ A corporation which derived its profits from public franchises, or from a business transacted in many different states, found the purchase of a local or state machine well within its means and well according to its interests. ”

“ Assess how businesses currently fulfil their corporate social responsibility in this area, through the full range of existing measures, and identify whether any changes need to be made to these measures,The Review will need to work with consumers, regulatory bodies and business representatives in identifying any possible changes. ”

“ As soon, however, as we approach business from the standpoint of accounting, sales management, employment, executive control, and when we find that lessons in statistics, advertising, moving materials, or executive management, learned in connection with a factory, can be carried over with but slight adaptation to the management of a store, we at once get a manageable body of material on which to work. ”

“ Such a policy represents one of the finer products of the process of systematically developing all the factors in modern business—the stamping of a strong individuality upon all of the correspondence of a large organization. ”

“ It is organized, common sense coming into contact with fact, and carefully sifting the evidence derived from fact. Business men employ it in importing or manufacturing their wares, in estimating the demands of markets, and ascertaining the standing of their employés and customers. ”

“ It can and should require for itself and for the use of all persons interested in the corporation, the fullest and most detailed information, consistent with practical business methods, as to the details of its organization, the powers and restrictions imposed upon its stockholders and as to the property against which stock is to be or has been issued. ”

“ The "productive-goods industries" show the modern industrial and business traits in an accentuated form and force, and they are, by consequence, in a strategically primary position in the business situation. ”

“ My friend the business man tells me that for success in business one requires four things: a large capital, industry, insight, and caution—and then it's a toss-up. I am fain to believe this whole system of modern commerce was devised to please the amateurs of the aleatory. ”

“ This conception has not yet become universal, but when it does—and it undoubtedly will—there will result a general demand for successful business men in the administration of the People’s Corporation. ”

“ Concomitantly, of course, the rest, who may, for lack of means or of pecuniary aptitude, have been less well fitted for pecuniary pursuits, have been relieved of the cares of business and have with increasing specialization given their attention to the mechanical processes involved in this production for a market. ”

“ What I purpose doing is to carry out my business schemes by such methods as will enable those who work with me and for me to earn their own betterments in life, and then to enlighten and guide them in the spending and investment of their earnings. ”

“ While industry and business stand in a relation of mutual cause and effect, in this as in other cases, the initiative in such a movement belongs with the business traffic rather than with the industrial processes. ”

“ There still remains against such a system the objections, that losses are not shared as truly as profits, and that employés are liable to require too intimate an acquaintance with the condition of their employer's business to foster the success of the enterprise. Its successful application is so far confined to lines of business easily comprehended and direct in their methods. ”

“ We can therefore define business education as education which directly prepares people to discharge the business function: namely, the economical organization of men and materials in production and the most advantageous distribution and exchange of the commodities or service for consumption. ”

“ Let us consider, briefly, the evolution of our present-day economic or business life, and then take note of the necessary place that particular classes of business men must hold in the structure of our society. ”

“ The individual lawyer or carpenter perishes, but the profession or the trade survives, like a Platonic idea. In a stationary economic condition of a people, we might suppose that every trade and profession is an immortal, unchanging corporation. ”

“ Management, instead of being regarded as the servant of Capital exclusively, ought to be in a position to regard itself, as in fact it is, one of the necessary parties to industry, and as such entitled to a voice in matters which pertain to its administrative functions ”