Amber Hassan

Professor Babcock

ENGL 137H

30 October 2023

Perceiving Business

Business, Business, Business, through its own convolutedness we all seem to understand

somewhat of what it means when someone brings it up in conversation, but is this always the

case? Known to be one of the most entered fields for college students, business’s exact definition

is hard to pinpoint due to its variety in subjects. Some of which include entrepreneurship/owning

a business, working in the multiple subsection with a company (ex– Finance, Marketing, Risk

Management, etc), and many other things. Though business at its roots was never this big, it

expanded into what we know it now over many periods of time. The way we perceive business

has changed wildly throughout history. It changed what we understood was “business,” how

business-related work can be performed, who can work in business, and how business’s

expansion has led to it being used as a means to promote a particular ideology.

Throughout the years there have been varying perceptions of the phrase, “I have/am a

part of a (business). Shrenis were seen as the first “firm-like” system used that had been

documented, reported in 4 B.C. They were seen as a town that united individuals seeking

financial interests. Shrenis would typically specialize in one trade, but what a Shreni was

specialized varied. Some were your run of the mill artists, others ministers, and some being

hobos and cheats. There was distrust amongst the general public about Shrenis because not all of

them specialized in a particular job that could help the public, they would specifically specialize

in something that would gain them money (“What Were Shrenis and Their Functions?”).
 Seen to have high influence in economic and political matters, guilds were seen as the

firms in Medieval Times (Fourteenth to Fifthteenth Century). There were 2 types of guilds: craft

guilds and merchant guilds, with the latter seen to have more power. Their main goal was to

provide a product/service that could in exchange help them financially (and disincluded the

previously included hobos/cheats). Guilds were perceived as local monopolies due to the fact

that they would recruit anyone in the area with exceptional skills within a trade, forbid anyone

else from entering that market, and lower supplies to drive up prices. In addition, to the eyes of

the general public they were expected to make high quality goods, change government policy to

benefit said guild (the higher ups in the guild tended to be local government officials), help

families in need (that belong to said guild), and openly/frequently support religious (typically

Christian) activity (Bosshardt and Lopus).

The next major shift in people's perspective of having/being a part of a business

happened during the Industrial Revolution (Eighteenth Century). Specifically there was a change

to the perception of how frequent to interact with business and their trade in this time period.

Because of an advance in technology, goods (made by the same company) were now allowed to

be nearly identical to each other and more affordable. Improved transportation allowed for

products to be better distributed around a particular area, increasing the chance of seeing the

same type of item in New Jersey and Pennsylvania, increasing the popularity of certain brands.

This made people recognize that businesses, who are no longer inclined to help spread

religion/help families in need, typically still helped the common folk. Certain item’s demand

increased and markets more than ever were buzzing with life (ex. clothing). Societal expectations

now expect people to rely on businesses for those objects, rather than make them themselves.
This allowed businesses and trade to become more mainstream to the public (History.com

Editors).

The perception of what a business could specialize and how also changed in this time

period. The telegraph industry was born, being one of the first businesses dedicated to

communication. Something that was originally a thing limited to face-to-face contact was now

enlarged to allow people to communicate any time they needed and allowed people to make

money off it. Also, as transportation advances kept advancing, the ways to get involved in this

industry also expanded (History.com Editors). People were now able to create railroads to

promote transportation, have trains to transport items, create steam engined ships to sell, or have

stream engined ships to transport items. In addition to certain industries branching out into

different specialties, people within a more formal business setting were also starting to elect

people to specialize in different parts of that business, even if this concept was still in its early

years of conception. According to Rita McGrath–an author for the Harvard Business Review

journals, “Prior to the industrial revolution… there wasn’t much “management” at all – meaning,

anyone other than the owner of an enterprise handling tasks such as coordination, planning,

controlling, rewarding, and resource allocation,” (McGrath).

In addition to those previous examples, in the Industrial Revolution, there was another

change in perception– where the working/lower class was expected to work and how they would

work. Though the middle and upper class were able to benefit from the big business boom,

people in the poor and working class were still struggling. As the History website states, “The

mechanization of labor created by technological innovation had made working in factories

increasingly tedious (and sometimes dangerous), and many workers— including children—were

forced to work long hours for pitifully low wages.” Higher classes were able to take delight from
business, though knew of the danger of working in factories/business. Viewed as dangerous to

work in those areas because, “as overcrowded cities suffered from pollution, inadequate

sanitation, miserable housing conditions and a lack of safe drinking water,” (History.com

Editors).

Now we see business as a part of everyday life, a big one at that. Because of interference

with certain laws, people aren’t allowed to control Monopolies or force people to work in cruel

and morally unfair conditions. Business has become the most entered field and as of 2021, 11.5

million people were working in the field (“Business | Data USA”). As touched on before as well,

new positions within business also opened up (management, marketing, and subsections such as

Risk management to name a few) have allowed more people to join the workforce and no longer

required people working in business to be a factory worker or a CEO.

There has also been a shift in how we work on particular items because of modern day

technology. For example, with technology, a lot of things that were done by hand and spent hours

of time have become much more accessible (resource and time wise). Some examples of these

are research– used to answer the question, “What product might I want to sell to make a profit?”,

traffic tracking– seeing how many people visit a location (physical or virtual) in a given time

period, setting up something with a bank account to automatically send money to those you owe

money to (person who owns the store your renting, supplies to create your product, etc.), creating

virtual copies of important documents to have on hand, and helping you with recruiting people to

name a few. Before people were expected to spend time just trying to do menial tasks to get the

same result, but now people are expected to use these resources to get them done quickly (“20

Business Tasks That Can Be Automated”).

 Advertisements of products/services aren't relatively new, but it wouldn’t be so big had it

not been for technology's influence! Within recent years advertisements have grown to be their

own separate field in marketing. Not only do we use it to create designs for said advertisements

(digital art), but the populace uses the virtual web all the time (more chances for more people to

see said advertisements). Because of the advancements on search browsers, cookies, and other

data gathering tools, people are more likely to recommend something that they could use. When

this happens, more people will feel less annoyed with ads and more accepting of them (and more

willing to buy the advertised product). Not only that, but if an ad is making a statement–and the

more times a singular person sees that claim–the more likely they are to believe said statement. If

the claim promotes buying the product then people might be prone to buy that product. This is

because of how our memory works. Research shows that the more times a thing is repeated to a

person, the more likely that thing is identified as true by that person. So ads have had a lot of

recent success due to technology. Nowadays, there are billboards to advertise stuff, but most

people agree that it is more effective to use the web to advertise items, whether that be through

tv, social media, side ads on certain websites, etc.

Within the field of business, Ecccomerce has made a big splash in how many sales a

business can make. Though relatively new, Ecommerce has made a big impact on business,

generating sales (in ecommerce alone) up to $2.3 trillion in 2017. The first online market–

Boston Computer Exchange–was made and publicly available in 1982, though the field took off

when Amazon and Ebay launched. Then we got the rise in the digital wallets, Paypal and Apple

Pay, which cemented ecommerce’s impact on the world. Millions around the world use these

tools which have improved their lives significantly. Seeing the success of ecommerce stores,

many brick and mortar stores (like Macy’s) created their own online platform to compete with
them. And with the demographic shifting to Millennials and Gen Z more and more sales will be

produced by these platforms. With the changing demographic, it is hard to believe that

businesses that only use physical stores as a platform to sell their products will get much success

(“History of E-Commerce”).

Social media and Influencers have a massive effect on business in general. Not only has it

allowed even more people to enter the field because of the introductions of Social Media

Entrepreneurship and Influencer Marketing, but it also helps spread the word of products vastly

(Goldstein). When people see a person they trust (Influencers) say something good about a

product, they in turn want to see the product. With the growing demographic of younger

generations, the sales to be had in this field are yet to be realized (Karra).

Within recent years there has been a strive to make sure people of different demographics

attain higher positions on the corporate ladder. Women definitely had a hard time getting into

business at first. In a Harvard Business Review Journal, Colleen Ammerman and Boris

Groysberg went in depth in a previous article by HBR where the authors were interviewing

women and males about women having jobs. They found that practically no one at the time

(women included) would believe a woman could hold jobs at the top of the corporate hierarchy.

And even when a woman did the same work as a male, her work was considered “Clerical.” But

because of the changing demographic, when people are asked what gender their manager is, 50%

of them would say a woman (Ammerman and Groysberg). Though this still has not extended

completely to the top of the hierarchical ladder, women are slowly closing in on that gap. Within

business, the idea of women having a higher position than some guys has slowly become more

acceptable.
 Not only have women made strides to end racial discrimination against them by holding

jobs originally thought to only belong to males, but many ethnic minorities have also made this

stride. As immigration started to become more frequent, people started to have distrust in

immigrants and having discrimination towards them. Because of this many minor ethnic groups

have resorted to being self employed, creating a huge boom in jobs over the recent years. “In the

US, minorities owned just over 3 million businesses or nearly 15 percent of all US firms in 1997,

compared with 7 percent in 1982…Asians own a disproportionate share of all US companies.

While they comprise 4 percent of the US population, they own 4.4 percent of all US companies

(US Census Bureau 2001),” (Basu). In the times when immigration was still new to the States,

many ethnic people had a very hard time getting a job and people of ethnicity with a higher

position on the corporate ladder were looked down upon. But as we get more and more closer to

the present, we can see there have also been efforts to get ethnic people in higher positions of

power, due to them being able to show that they are able to get the job done.

All in all, business has grown a substantial amount from its humble roots. With how

much marketing and advertisements go on to promote products, these ads also have an effect on

diversity acceptance, especially in the United States, with this push being relatively new. There

are states that aren’t as diverse as others. That's just a fact. So the people in those states might not

realize if they do something offensive to a different culture or how many people around them

actually belong to that culture (microaggression). Thats where ads comes in. The more someone

is exposed to something, the more they believe it. So the more people see diverse casts within

shows, the more their mind opens up around how many people belong to that ethnicity/culture.

But ads have something that in a sense one-ups shows/films. The fact that they are specialized to

be shown to people with aligning interest as the sellers/product. So they can reach people in
more meaningful ways and communicate that there are people who are like them, but just come

from somewhere else or believe in something else. Some examples of these in modern times are

the Anita x Lays (Chips) ad and some spanish voice overs shown for other certain ads. Though

this is an improvement from how we would use to cater to “White America,” this concept has yet

to peak.

Our conception of what business is is shaped by the various forms of conception it had

during its lifespan. Owning a business, what is included in business, who can work in business,

and how business can affect other popular topics– the perception to each of these have changed

to give way to the business we know now. Business, Business, Business, though convoluted we

must respect it, for it has provided jobs like no other career before. On multiple accounts it

shattered what the “business” before it meant, and has helped many people find a workplace that

is constantly growing alongside humans and the quest to create a fair and equal world.
 Work Cited

“20 Business Tasks That Can Be Automated.” OnDeck,

www.ondeck.com/resources/20-business-tasks-you-can-easily-automate.

Ammerman, Colleen, and Boris, Groysberg. “How to Close the Gender Gap.” Harvard Business

Review, 12 Apr. 2021, www.hbr.org/2021/05/how-to-close-the-gender-gap.***

Basu, Anuradha, ' Ethnic Minority Entrepreneurship', in Anuradha Basu, and others (eds), The

Oxford Handbook of Entrepreneurship (2008; online edn, Oxford Academic, 2 Sept.

2009), https://doi.org/10.1093/oxfordhb/9780199546992.003.0021, accessed 18 Oct.

2023.

Bosshardt, William, and Jane Lopus. The Economics of World History Business in the Middle

Ages: What Was the Role of Guilds? 2013. (se_77021364.pdf (socialstudies.org)

‌“Business | Data USA.” Datausa.io, Business | Data USA Accessed 16 Oct. 2023.

Goldstein, Joel. “Council Post: How Social Media Influencers Can Drive Sales for Your

Business.” Forbes, How Social Media Influencers Can Drive Sales For Your Business

(forbes.com). Accessed 16 Oct. 2023.

History.com Editors. “Industrial Revolution.” History, A&E Television Networks, 29 Oct. 2009,

www.history.com/topics/industrial-revolution/industrial-revolution.

“History of E-Commerce.” George Washington University,

www.healthcaremba.gwu.edu/history-of-ecommerce.

Karra, Sai. “Council Post: How Social Media Is Changing Business Strategies.” Forbes,

www.forbes.com/sites/forbesbusinesscouncil/2023/01/19/how-social-media-is-changing-

business-strategies/?sh=3edba2452f5f. Accessed 17 Oct. 2023.

‌McGrath, Rita Gunther. “Management’s Three Eras: A Brief History.” Harvard Business Review,

2 Nov. 2014, www.hbr.org/2014/07/managements-three-eras-a-brief-history.

“What Were Shrenis and Their Functions?” GeeksforGeeks, 17 Aug. 2022,

www.geeksforgeeks.org/what-were-shrenis-and-their-functions/. Accessed 17 Oct. 2023.

***For the Ammerman, Colleen, and Boris, Groysberg citation, I am not sure if this link is

correct. When I wrote my rough draft I found an article (definitely from them) and typed a

sentence about it, but unlike all other links I did not copy and paste it into the draft (I might have

forgotten to at the time) The cited article is the only one that I can see, (Harvard Business

Review only gives you a few times to look at an article, but after that you need to pay a

subscription) but if you would like the links to the other possible links they are as followed–

● Gender Equality in Business: 100 Years of Progress? - Case - Faculty & Research -

Harvard Business School (hbs.edu) / Gender Equality in Business: 100 Years of

Progress? - Teaching Note - Faculty & Research - Harvard Business School (hbs.edu)

(These two share the same name and seem the most familiar, but I can’t access the actual

article)

● The New-Collar Workforce (hbr.org)