Company structure

The lecture is aimed at company structure. Below you can see a standard company organisation.
Most companies are made up of three groups of people: the shareholers (a person or group that owns shares in a company or business), the management (the people who run and control a business) and the workforce (the people who work for a particular company, organization, etc). At the top of the company hierarchy is the Board of Directors headed by a Chairperson or President. It consists of the group of people chosen by shareholders to control a company, decide its policies and appoint a Managing Director (MD) or Chief Executive Officer (CEO), who has overall responsibility for the running of the business. Senior managers or company officers head the various departments or functions within the company, which may include follwing: Marketing, Finance, Public Relations (PR), Information Technology (IT), Human Resources/Personnel, Production, Research and Development (RD), Legal Affairs.

Exercise 1

Your assignement is to write down a description of the company you know or you worked for or you have been working for. In case you have not worked for any company yet, then you find one on the Internet, read its structure and describe it in your own words.For describing use the verbs: consist of, contain, include, to be composed of, to be made up of, to be divided into, to be in charge of, to support, to be supported by, to be accountable to, to be responsible for, to be responsible to, to assist, to be assisted, report to somebody, report on something
At first look at the examples:

Here is a short description of the organization chart illustrated.
The Chief Executive Officer reports to the President and the Board of Directors. The company is divided into five major departments; Production, Marketing, Finance, Research & Development, and Human Resources. The Marketing Department is subdivided into Market Research, Sales, and Advertising & Promotions. The Finance Department contains both Financial Management and Accounting. Sales consists of two sections, the Northern and Southern Regions, whose heads report to the Sales Manager, who is accountable to the Marketing Manager.

Literature: MacKenzie, Ian: English for Business Studies, Student´s Book, Cambridge University Press, 2002
Tullis, Graham; Trappe, Tonya:New Insights into Business, Student´s Book, Longman, 2000

Exercise 2

Compare these types of company structure (define them, and write down their advantages and disadvantages):

Sole Propietorship
Partnership
Limited Liability Company
Corporation


Exercise 3

Compare these ways of organizing companies:

hierarchical
functional
matrix
staff position