What is a business – anyway? As usual, Wikipedia offers a pretty good definition: “In economics, business is the social science of managing people to organize and maintain collective productivity toward accomplishing particular creative and productive goals, usually to generate profit.” Not surprisingly, as is the case for any highly complex system or entity, this is just one of multiple definitions.
In quantum mechanics we learn that questions like “what is an electron?” are meaningless unless one also asks “what is your purpose in asking this question?”
An electron is sometimes best thought of as a particle, and sometimes best thought of as a wave depending on what models or measurements one is after. Similarly, one cannot separate asking what a business is from how one wants to use the answer. But I am actually most satisfied with the people-centric definition Wikipedia gives, because I truly believe it is the most important one.
[via Irving Wladawsky-Berger]
The Life Cycle of a Business
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