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► A. Business and Businesses

Business is the activity of producing, buying and selling goods and services.  A business,

company, or firm, might manufacture, import, export, distribute or retail goods, or it might

provide a service, or a range of services.

Businesses vary in size, from the self-employed person working alone, through the small or

medium enterprise to the large multinational company with activities in several countries.

The word ‘enterprise’ is also used in a positive way to talk about business where risk-taking

is important.

A small company might be started by an entrepreneur, someone who has a solid business

idea which can be turned into a business that generates employment and profit.

Large companies may be owned by several or many different shareholders.  The shares, also

called stock, may be traded on the stock exchange. 

►  B. Corporations 

A large company, especially in the US, is a corporation. Large companies

become corporations by expanding. One way to expand is to merge with

another company. Another way is to acquire or take over a company. A

company which has been taken over generally becomes a subsidiary of thelarger, or parent company.

The adjective corporate is often used to describe the various things which

relate to a company or corporation, as in the following combinations:

corporate culture corporate headquarters corporate image

corporate ladder corporate logo corporate profits

►  C. Commerce 

The word commerce means trade.  However, the adjective commercial is often used to refer

to money-making business activities in general:

commercial airline commercial artist commercial disaster 

commercial land commercial uses

The Commercial College of Iceland (here it is not a money-making enterprise but aninstitution which specialises in trade-related activities e.g. the Verzlunarpróf).

Business Organisations 

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Exercises: Business Organisations

► A. Business and Businesses

The following well-known companies were all started by entrepreneurs. Can you identify

the company from its logo and the entrepreneur behind it?

1 2 3 4 5 6

► B. Corporations 

Referring to section B on the previous page, fill in the missing words in the following

sentences.

1. 

The company has built a grand corporate ___________________________ as a

symbol of its power.

2.  Our stylish new corporate ___________________________ reflects our wish to be

seen as a more international airline.

3.  The economy is growing and corporate ________________________ are rising.

4.  Many women complain that their gender alone makes it difficult to climb the

corporate _____________________________.

5.  Companies that have been hit by computer crime are not talking about it publicly

because they fear the publicity will harm their corporate ______________________.

London & Continental Railways Ltd. is the British company which owns and operates the

railway line under the English Channel connecting England to the Continent. It has several

subsidiaries which you can see in the diagram below. Each subsidiary is responsible for a

different aspect of its business. How many subsidiaries does it have?

London and Continental Railways Ltd.Parent Com an

London and Continental Stations and

Property Ltd.

LCR Finance plc

CTRL (section 1) Finance plc

LCR Treasury Management Ltd.

Union Railways (North)

CTRL UK Ltd.

Eurostar UK Ltd.

Owner of the UK arm of Eruostar

Channel Tunnel Rail Link Ltd.

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►  A. Employees

The people who work for a company, all the people on its payroll, are its employees,

personnel, staff, workers or workforce.  These words usually refer to the people

carrying out the work of a company, rather than the people who are managing it.

Employees who work in office jobs are known as white collar workers; employees

working in a factory making a product are known as blue collar workers.

NOTE: workforce, work-force, and work force are all acceptable spellings. 

► B. Management and administration 

A company’s operations may be spread over different sites, sometimes even in differentcountries.  The most senior managers usually work at the company’s headquarters or HQ .

Some managers have individual offices, but in many businesses, employees work in open-

plan offices: large areas where many people work together.

The everyday work involved in running a company is known as administration, or admin for

short. This is usually office work performed by administrative staff  or support staff .

Administrative tasks include such things as the following:

bookkeeping customer support payroll switchboard

office work computer systems purchasing human resources

►  C. Human Resources (HR) / Personnel Department 

In larger companies there is a department specifically for finding and looking

after the staff. This department is called Human Resources or Personnel, and

deals with things like pay, recruitment, and staff welfare. 

►  D. Unions 

Unions are workers’ organisations that protect the rights of workers. They are called trade

unions in Britain but labor unions in the US.

When workers are unhappy with pay or working conditions, they may take industrial action: 

they may go on strike or walk out.

they may continue to work but more slowly than usual which is known as a go-slow. 

they may refuse to work overtime, known as an overtime-ban. 

People and Workplaces 

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Exercises: People and Workplaces

► A. Employees

1.  The receptionist working at the front desk of Össur’s corporate headquarters is a _______________ collar worker.

2. 

The student working for the summer at Straumsvík manufacturing aluminium is a

 _______________ collar worker.

Look at the vocabulary in A , B and C  and D on the previous page and complete the

crossword.

ACROSS

2+8 down  Various forms of

protest at work (10,6)

3  One of the people working for

an organisation

7  Workers go on _ _ _ _ _ _ to

protest working conditions (6)

9  The everyday running of the

company (14)

10  Everyone working for a

company is on this (7)

DOWN

1  These are trade in the UK and

labor in the US (6)4  Buying the supplies that the

company needs to run or to

manufacture a product (10)

5  All the people working for a

company (5)

6  Another name for the HR

department (9)

► B. The Workplace 

Manuel Ortiz is the founder of a Spanish computer sales company. Use the words

in B and C on the previous page to complete what he says about the company.

I founded Computadoras Creativas 20 years ago. We started with a small (1) _ _ _ _ _ _ in

Madrid. Our (2) _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ is still here, but now we have sites all over Spain, with

about 500 employees. Many of the offices are (3) _ _ _ _- _ _ _ _ : everyone works together

from managers to (4) _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ . The (5) H _ _ _ _ R _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _

Department in Madrid takes care of the (6)_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _ of all our staff.

1

2

3 4

5 6

7

8

9

10

www.CrosswordWeaver.com

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► A. Company Hierarchy

Many companies are organised according to a pyramid shape, known as a hierarchy. At the

bottom of the pyramid are the employees with the least experience, expertise and

responsibility. As employees get promoted, they move up a level and get moreresponsibility, more pay and they often lead a team of other employees. As they move up

the hierarchy, there are fewer people at each level but more responsibility. At the top of the

hierarchy is the Managing Director / MD (BrE) or Chief Executive Officer / CEO (AmE) who

has overall responsibility for the operations and strategies of the company.

Another way to present the structure of a company is in an organigram like the one below.

You can see that it is still pyramid-shaped. This is how the company MODCO is organised:

Do you know the Icelandic names for these divisions and departments? What are they?

►  B. Company executives, directors and managers

Board ofDirectors

MD/ CEO

Finance

Director

AccountsManager

PurchasingManager

InformationTechnology

Director

ComputerSystemsManager

Human

ResourcesDirector

PayrollManager

RecruitmentManager

MarketingDirector

SalesManager

Company Organisation 

Department managers

senior executives /

directors of divisions

Group of advisors

who do not work

at the company

The head of the company

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The CEO (AmE) or MD (BrE) is the most senior person in the company and is at the top of the

company hierarchy. An executive or director is someone who is very high up in the

company hierarchy who has responsibility for one area of the company’s activities, forexample, The Finance Division or the IT Division. Each division is usually then divided into

various departments and each department is headed by a manager who supervises other

employees.

The Board of Directors is a group of people who do not usually work in the company but are

there to advise the company’s executives. The members of the board may represent a

group of shareholders or they may be business experts who are invited to sit on the board

because of their knowledge of the industry or their experience. They meet in the

boardroom.  The Board of Directors appears above the CEO in the company hierarchy

because he reports to them and is advised by them.

Exercises: Company Organisations

► A. Company Hierarchy

Look at the organigram on the previous page and match the following tasks to the director

or manager most likely to be responsible for doing it. Who would . . .

1.  meet with an advertising agency to discuss a new advertising campaign? __________

2.  develop a new company website. ________________

3.  put an ad on the Internet and in the newspapers advertising for a new Marketing

Director? __________________

4. 

deal with complaints from customers? ____________________5.  put together the budget for next year? ____________________

► B. Who is Who?

Read what the following people have to say and then fill in the organigram on the next

 page.

My name‘s Montebello and I´m the CEO or MD of the company. We have some excellentpeople on our board of directors, including one who represents our largest group of

shareholders and another who has ex ertise in our industr : Gordan and Jones.

My name’s Smith and I’m responsible for all the financial activities of the company. I

work closely with Chang and Roberts, as they tell me what their divisions need with

My name‘s Dawes and I head up Personnel, on the same level in the company as Chang and

Roberts.

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Borgun is an Icelandic company that issues credit cards and provides credit card services to

local companies. Study the organigram below and then translate the names of thedivisions into ENGLISH. 

Haukur Oddson is the ____CEO/MD ____________________________________. (full title)

Davið Þór Jónsson is the head of Finance Department/ Financial Director

Anna Rut Þráinsdóttir is the head of HR__.

Stefanía Björg Þráinsdóttir is the head of Marketing______________.

Jón Egilsson is the head of ___IT____________________.

Job: Non-executive Director  

Name: Gordon

Job: Executive Director

Name:  Jones 

Job: MD/CEO

Name: Montebello 

Job: Finance Director

Name: Smith 

Job: Chang

Name: IR Director

Job: Human Resources 

Name: Dawes

Job: Roberts

Name: Marketing

Director

Davið Þór Jónsson

Anna Rut Þráinsdóttir

Stefanía Björg Eggertsdóttir

Jón Egilsson

Bergþóra K. Ketilsdóttir

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►  A. A job for life

Many people used to work for the same company until they reached retirement: the age at

which people retire, or end their working life. Career paths were clear; you could work

your way up the career ladder, getting promotion to jobs that were more senior, withgreater responsibility. To leave the company, you could resign or hand in your notice.

►  B. A job for now

When times are tough or a company is not doing well,

it may have to downsize or cut its costs. The easiest

way to do this is to reduce the number of staff working

for the company, thereby cutting the payroll (as

MODCO did in the diagrams on the right).

Restructuring or reorganising the company may also

help to improve efficiency. Cutting costs and

improving efficiency should lead to higher profits.

►  C. In-house staff or freelancers? 

There are other ways to cut costs than to reduce the workforce. The company MODCO has

outsourced many jobs previously done by in-house personnel; outside companies clean theoffices, transport goods and run the staff canteen. This frees MODCO up to concentrate on

its main business activities.

MODCO also uses freelancers, independent people who work on temporary contracts for

specific projects. This gives MODCO flexibility because it is only employing these people

when it needs them. However, there is less job security in freelance work which is perhaps

difficult for employees.

► D. Losing your job 

Just as in Icelandic there is a big difference between ‘að reka’ and ‘að segja upp’, there isa similar difference between the words in the two columns below:

If you do something wrong, you are . . . If the company needs to cut jobs, you are . . .

fired laid off  

sacked made redundant

dismissed offered early retirement

terminated 

The Career Ladder  

MODCO after

restructuring

MODCO before

restructuring

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Exercises: The Career Ladder

► A. The Career Ladder

Match the sentence beginnings (1-5) to the correct endings (a-e). The sentences all contain

words from the previous page.

1  Career paths aren’t what they used to

be; B

2  He worked his way up the career ladder

from D

3  The new management have downsized,

E

4  We used to do printing in-house, C

5  Workers are afraid they will be maderedundant A

a  and they will be replaced by freelancers

b  companies won’t take care of us for life

any more.

c  but now we outsource it.

d  factory worker to production manager.

e  reducing five management levels to

three.

► D. Losing your Job

Carla used to work for an Italian magazine company. She talks about how she lost her job.

Choose the correct form of the words in brackets to complete the text. 

Edizone Fenice is a big magazine publishing company and a very nice

company to work for. I was director of a magazine called Casa e

Giardino.

Then Fenice was acquired by an international publishing group. After

a few months they started laying staff (1) __________ (off / on / out).

Our own journalists were put on temporary (2) __________________

(contracts / contractual / contracting) or replaced by (3)

 ____________________ (freelancer / freelancers / freelanced).

Then they started making more senior people like me (4) __________________

(redundancy / redundant / retired). They said they wanted to make the company more

(5) ________________________ (effective / efficiency / efficient) and they needed

more (6) ________________________ (flexible / flexibility / inflexibility). I’m now

trying to decide what my next (7) _______________________ (carer / career / carrier)