An independent legal entity owned by shareholders is generally called a corporation or a company. A corporation is very different in structure to a sole proprietorship or a partnership. Shareholders decide on how the corporation is run and who manages it. Corporations are more complex and may include more people in the decision-making process.

Read the section on Privately-Held Corporation in Forms of Business Ownership ^[1] to find out more about this form of business ownership and its pros and cons. You may find it helpful to complete the self-reflection questions at the end of the reading.

Research activity

• Search on the internet (or through a local business support agency) to find out:
  • What terminology is used in your country for a business that is owned and run by shareholders
  • What the main features are of this sort of business entity in your country

• Thinking about your business idea and the factors that you thought were important in choosing a business ownership model, identify:
  • Two advantages of using this form of business ownership for your start-up business
  • Two disadvantages of using this form of business ownership for your start-up business

• In your learning journal blog:
  • Make notes on what you have found out and cite your sources so that you can refer to it again. You will use this information for the learning challenge.
  • Remember to tag or label your post using the course code: IENT102 (This is needed to harvest a link to your blog post in the course feed.)
• Look in the course feed to see what others have written.

1. ↑ VUSSL: The Business Environment