Small vs Large Organisation
What are advantages and disadvantages of large versus small organisations?
Final draft
Submited to
Sherin White
Reading & Writing course C
Language & Learning Unit
03rd Sept 2010
1165 words
What are the advantages and disadvantages of large versus small organisations?
Porter, Lawler and Hackman (1975) state that organisation is a social entity, existing in order to achieve certain goals, involving specialisation and having some degree of permanence. It is composed of two or more people but the actual number and the way in which they are organised into groups vary from one organisation to another therefore creating the differences between small and large organisations. This essay will briefly gives a definition of an organisation as a whole and subsequently definitions of small as well as large organisations with respect to business particularly. It will cover both advantages and disadvantages of small and large organisations in business respects and will argue that large businesses have an advantageous position in the economy.
The definition of ‘’small business ’’ varies by country and by industry. Small businesses have small number of employees, low volume of sales and focus on certain localised business regions. Most of them are privately run by families or single owners, for example: a neighbourhood restaurant or a local bakery. Being small seems to bring them many advantages. The majority of businesses are considered small businesses and they currently employ 13.2 million people which accounts for greater than 58% of the UK private sector workforce (Connell,2007),and Mack(1999) also claims that virtually all the net new jobs being created are by small firms. Moreover, they play an important role in increasing the GDP of households. Haynes(2007) demonstrates that the wealth and income of households owning businesses tend to grow faster than ones that do not own
Final draft
Submited to
Sherin White
Reading & Writing course C
Language & Learning Unit
03rd Sept 2010
1165 words
What are the advantages and disadvantages of large versus small organisations?
Porter, Lawler and Hackman (1975) state that organisation is a social entity, existing in order to achieve certain goals, involving specialisation and having some degree of permanence. It is composed of two or more people but the actual number and the way in which they are organised into groups vary from one organisation to another therefore creating the differences between small and large organisations. This essay will briefly gives a definition of an organisation as a whole and subsequently definitions of small as well as large organisations with respect to business particularly. It will cover both advantages and disadvantages of small and large organisations in business respects and will argue that large businesses have an advantageous position in the economy.
The definition of ‘’small business ’’ varies by country and by industry. Small businesses have small number of employees, low volume of sales and focus on certain localised business regions. Most of them are privately run by families or single owners, for example: a neighbourhood restaurant or a local bakery. Being small seems to bring them many advantages. The majority of businesses are considered small businesses and they currently employ 13.2 million people which accounts for greater than 58% of the UK private sector workforce (Connell,2007),and Mack(1999) also claims that virtually all the net new jobs being created are by small firms. Moreover, they play an important role in increasing the GDP of households. Haynes(2007) demonstrates that the wealth and income of households owning businesses tend to grow faster than ones that do not own
References: Czinkota.M (1992) How to manage for international competitiveness. New York: International Business Press. Connell, N (2007) The Federation of small business.(1st Edn.). London: Catherine Place. Dlabay,L., Burrow,J. and Kleindl ,B (2009) Intro to Business (7th Edn.). Florence: South-Western Cengage Learning. Haynes,G. (2007) ‘Income and Wealth: How Did Households Owning Small Businesses Fare From 1989 to 2004?’. Income and Wealth, Vol 1 No.3, 5-8. HSBC(2010), ‘ About HSBC’ [online]. Available from [Accessed: 3rd Sept 2010] Longenecker,J. et al. (2006 ), Small Business Management(13th Edn.). Ohio: Thompson Corporation. Mack, R.A.(1999) ‘Congressional Record’. United States Congress, Vol 145 No.59 , p4798. Porter, L.W., Lawler,E.E. and Hackman,J.R. (1975) Behaviour in Organisations(1st Edn.). NewYork: McGraw-Hill. Sizani, B.(2010) ‘Conflict Management’. Building an Organisation [online] available from [Accessed: 8th Sept 2010] Small Businesses(2010) [online] available from [Accessed: 3rd Sept 2010]