Factor (business)

“ What is business? Professor James Mark Baldwin, in his volume “The Individual and Society,” says that “business has to do with the production and distribution of valuable things; money, utensils, anything for which there is a demand in society, or on which society or some individuals of it set value”; and again, “to produce such things in response to the demand and to distribute them to those from whom the demand comes, is the undertaking of business.” Here is set forth very clearly the idea that the distribution of things is business just as much as is the production of them. ”

“ Moreover, the facts which economic theory seeks to describe are primarily economic facts, facts, that is to say, which emerge in, and are concerned with, the ordinary business world; and it is, therefore, mainly upon such facts that the theory must be based. ”

“ We have, from a thorough study of economics, decided to enter upon this business. It has many merits, chief among which may be noted that we can indulge in large and lucrative operations without capital. ”

“ 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. ”

“ Honest Business, inclusive of all serviceable activities—service for service, to adopt a phrase in definition of Business—would be identical with Economics. Either, like the other, may be described superficially as the process of the science of making money.
Quite consistently with the foregoing survey, Economics has been described as the science of “mankind making a living.” This definition, too, excludes the solitary life by limiting Economic science to cooperative mankind—in other words, to Economic association. ”

“ True enterprise is constantly on the alert to discover some new want of society, some fertile source of profit or honor, some unexplored field of business, and is ready to supply the one or to take advantage of the other. ”

“ It is for the service of all, though it may be under the direction of one.
Profits belong in three places: they belong to the business—to keep it steady, progressive, and sound. They belong to the men who helped produce them. And they belong also, in part, to the public. ”

“ These are only some of the many influences which might become operative, but they serve to show the necessity for careful consideration of all the factors at work if a true conception of the condition and tendencies of business is to be formed. ”

“ 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. ”

“ The Entrepreneur's Proper Function not Labor of Management.—In some theoretical discussions the management of a business figures as the principal function of the entrepreneur, and all or nearly all of the reward that comes to him is represented as coming in the shape of a reward for a responsible kind of labor that calls great abilities into requisition. ”

“ Nothing is to be gained, either from a scientific or a business point of view, by estimating indiscriminately, profit sharing, gain sharing, indeterminate bonus, labor insurance, stock holding by employés, percentage on sales, product sharing and similar forms. ”

“ 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. ”

“ Five per cent is all the owner of the money is entitled to, while if the business returns more than that amount, it will be due to my management. I, and those associated with me, are entitled to all that is made above five per cent. ”

“ There is one branch of production in regard to which the confusions of thought which arise from the habit of estimating capital in money are least likely to occur, inasmuch as its product is the general material and standard of money. And it so happens that this business furnishes us, almost side by side, with illustrations of production passing from the simplest to most complex forms. ”

“ 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 standards of measure of each one of the men and the standards of measure of conducting the business are set forth in other chapters. At this time it is sufficient to say that getting the capital is the easiest part of the job. The real work is the preliminary work of acquiring experience and devising plans. ”

“ I find that at the foundation, the machinery of business is simple, but whether it is plain or complicated, all who would succeed must make every effort to comprehend it thoroughly. All I care to emphasize at present is the great truth that knowledge, established and classified, is the basis of all business success. ”

“ Yet strictly, where an employee or a group works for a share of the product, or is paid so muchin addition to ordinary wages in proportion as the product exceeds a certain quantity, or the quality exceeds a certain standard, in neither of these cases have we profit-sharing, for the net result of the business may be a large profit or a small one or a loss, and the employee’s claim is unaffected. ”

“ However useful in business accountings, which concern only the private interests of business proprietors, they are intolerable in the science of Economics, which concerns not only a proprietor, nor every proprietor, but all mankind. ”

“ I need scarcely remind you that ability is a term susceptible of many applications, but of course the ability we are concerned with is business or commercial ability, an article representing a money value to its owner. ”

“ The difference between the form and value of productive effort becomes, in the study of business organization, a most essential question. The significance of leadership and control of industry is found in this fact that economic goods may be united to produce results having either a less or a greater value than the materials that are used. ”

“ What do we say, in fact?
To determine value,—in other words, to organize within itself the production and distribution of wealth,—society proceeds exactly as the mind does in the generation of concepts. ”

“ Before there can be any development of business there must be promise of a profit. If the business is more risky than the average there must be promise of a profit higher than the average. Take away this incentive and business stagnates. ”

“ From the plain, practical point of view, it is the idealist in business, the shrewd, accurate, patient idealist in modern business who is the man of economic sense. The employer who can put out ideals in front of his people, who can make his people efficient with the least expense, is the employer who has the most economic sense. ”

“ 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. ”

“ Further, it may be safely said that, of the whole number of licensed manufacturers and merchants, a fourth at most realize profits, another fourth hold their own, and the rest are constantly running behind in 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. ”

“ Such mixtures may be unobjectionable in accountings of the assets of a private business for private purposes; but in general Economics they are perplexing and misleading. In this comprehensive social science every Economic detail must be classified in harmony with the three Basic Facts—Man, Natural Resources and Artificial Objects,—or confused thinking will result. To make those classifications, however, is to lay a firm foundation for correctly estimating Economic phenomena of all possible kinds and in all their relations. ”

“ Every business, in fact, and every industrial enterprise, succeeds or fails, not according to the amount of average labour involved in it, but according to the talents and energy by which this labour is directed. ”

“ Of the net profits of persons in business, a part, as before observed, may be considered as interest on capital, and of a perpetual character, and the remaining part as remuneration for the skill and labour of superintendence. ”

“ At all events, we mailed a few letters to customers explaining the matter, and a business on this basis was commenced and quickly grew to large proportions.
This fact made it dangerous, for the larger the business the greater the risk. We had to continually have an interest in the market either on one side or the other, and if the business was large our interest must be in proportion.
For some time the business was most satisfactory. My judgment of the market was correct, our customers were well pleased, and we made good profits. ”

“ As regards the mass of civilized mankind, the idiosyncrasies of the individual consumers are required to conform to the uniform gradations imposed upon consumable goods by the comprehensive mechanical processes of industry. ”

“ The Different Functions of the Same Man distinguished in Business.—This distinction between the different functions that one person may perform is not a mere refinement of theory, but is something that is recognized in business and has great practical importance. ”

“ And even in the earlier days of the doctrines, when the aim was to dispose of the undertaker's work under the theoretical head of Production, the business side of his work persistently obtruded itself for discussion in the books and chapters given to Distribution and Exchange. The course taken by the later theoretical discussion of the entrepreneur, leaves no question but that the characteristic fact about his work is that he is a business man, occupied with pecuniary affairs. ”

“ The number of individuals who are in a position to envisage a business opportunity, and to assess with some confidence the chances of success and failure is very limited. Not only must they possess special knowledge, ability, imagination, confidence in their own judgment, and the capacity to act on it; they must also have at their disposal considerable financial resources. ”

“ Not least is the business enterpriser, whose function is to direct the economic forces for production. It is vain to assign a mean place to the organizing intelligence and its social work. Its importance grows apace with the growing magnitude and complexity of industry. ”

“ Our business succeeded beyond our expectations; and in order to supply the increasing demands for our products, we found it necessary to employ additional force and capital, build new forges, and otherwise enlarge the sphere of our operations. ”

“ It is only by a euphemistic metaphor that we are accustomed to speak of the businessmen as producers of goods. Gains due to such efficiency are differential gains only. They are a differential as against other businessmen on the one hand, and as against the rest of the community on the other hand. ”

“ The business men of to-day—who are, indeed, of to-day and not a relic of yesterday and the day before yesterday—have an exact and detailed knowledge of their costs, determine prices scientifically, know definitely where are the best markets and what are the best locations for their factories, forecast with a reasonable degree of accuracy their need for materials, determine in a laboratory just which materials will best supply their needs, and in many other ways walk upon solid highways of exact information rather than upon the quaking bog of guesswork. ”

“ 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 ”

“ Taken by and large, the standardization of conduct, knowledge, and ideals Current in the eighteenth century, and consonant with the eighteenth-century economic situation, is in the last analysis reducible to terms of workmanlike efficiency rather than terms of material cause and effect. ”

“ 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. ”

“ It has customers, it is actually engaged in business, it is a going concern. The value of the structure is enhanced by the fact that it is used in, and in fact is essential to, a going concern business. We speak sometimes of a going concern value as if it is, or could be, separate and distinct from structure value—so much for structure and so much for going concern. ”

“ In large businesses, however, where the volume and complexity of the commercial activities make it impossible for the executive, on whom rest the responsibilities for the successful conduct of the business, to have an intimate personal knowledge of all phases of the business, it is very necessary that some means be employed for supplying him with this vital information. ”