What is an economic unit. Institutional unit

All participants in the economic process (enterprises, organizations, government agencies, households, farmers, non-profit organizations, banks, Insurance companies etc.) are combined with the concept of institutional units, which are the center for the adoption of independent economic decisions relating to the production, distribution and use of income, investment, lending and borrowing.

- an economic entity (person) capable of independently owning, managing and using real estate and assets, accepting obligations and participating in economic activity, transactions with other persons.

That is, an institutional unit is like an integral formation, structure, a unit that has certain economic interests and behavior, keeps records and compiles a full set of accounts, including a balance sheet of assets and liabilities, within which there can be any number of institutions, each of which is engaged in different types activities.

Main features of an institutional unit:

An institutional unit owns, exchanges or transfers ownership of products or assets;
The institutional unit is capable of making economic decisions and participating in economic activities for which it is directly responsible and accountable by law;
The institutional unit assumes obligations and enters into contracts on its own behalf;
An institutional unit has a set of accounts, or it would be possible and reasonable, both economically and legally, for it to compile accounts.

Institutional units- business entities that can, on their own behalf, own assets, incur liabilities, carry out economic activities and transactions with other units. They can be legal entities and individuals (or groups individuals in the form of households).

There are two types of institutional units:

households (HH - individual or groups of persons);
legal entity is an organization that owns property and is liable for its obligations with this property.

Household is a group of people living under one roof and maintaining a common budget. Although households do not prepare accounts and balances, they nevertheless have freedom in making economic decisions. Family ties do not play a determining role in this case. Economic integrity is important. One family can split into two or more households, share pots and manage separately. Of course, not all households keep household records, but this can be done if they want to function effectively.

Entity is an organization that has four characteristic features: property isolation, independent property liability, independent performance in civil circulation on its own behalf, organizational unity. They include commercial and non-profit organizations, as well as separate divisions.

When characterizing the results of economic activity, differences in accounting for the activities of residents and non-residents are important. Resident is an institutional unit (legal or natural person) that has a center of economic interest in economic territory of this country. Non-residents- citizens who have permanent residence abroad, even if they are temporarily located in the territory of a given country, as well as foreign diplomatic, trade and other official missions with diplomatic privileges located in it.

Institutional sectors

Institutional units are grouped into institutional sectors (IS), which bring together groups of institutional units that are homogeneous in terms of their implementation of the main goals of activity and functions in the economic process, economic behavior and methods of financing costs.

Includes the following institutional sectors:

non-financial enterprises and organizations (production of goods and non-financial services for profit);
financial organizations(financial intermediation or auxiliary financial activities);
(individuals, producers and consumers of goods and services);
servicing households (social, political, religious, etc., obtaining privileges for their members);
public administration (ensuring the living conditions of the population and enterprises);
“the rest of the world” (foreign economic relations).

Sector non-financial enterprises includes units created for the purpose of making a profit.

Sector financial organizations consists of corporations primarily engaged in financial intermediation or auxiliary financial activities.

Under the sector households I understand a small group of people living in the same home and maintaining a common budget, pooling their income and property to meet their needs.

The SNA provides the following household subsectors:

entrepreneurs with employees;
self-employed without employees;
wage-earners;
recipients of income from property and .

To the sector non-profit organizations The following institutional units are included:

trade unions and societies;
churches and religious societies;
charitable assistance funds.

Sector government agencies includes institutional units whose main functions are to provide non-market services to society and to assume responsibility for the distribution of income and wealth through transfers.

Sector " the rest of the world" consists of all nonresident institutional units that enter into transactions or have other economic relationships with resident units.

7. Elementary unit (“atom”) of the organization

7.2. Economic unit (business process)

Economic unit (business process). Activities of the company as economic process. Division of economic activity into economic units, each of which has a specific consumer. Definition of a business process. Requirements for business processes. Business process boundaries. Coordination of business processes in the company. Examples of business processes.

A company is not only a technological reality and a technological process, but also, as already noted, an economic reality, an economic entity that professes the principle of correlating results and costs while striving to exceed the former over the latter.

If the company is considered precisely as economic structure, then it seems obvious that all its activities can be divided not only into technological parts, units (see 7.1), but also into economic parts, units.

In this case, we need to find out: what is considered such an economic unit, on the basis of which it is possible, in a different way than stated above (see 7.1), to build the structure of the company as economic organization.

Let us remember that any economic relationship presupposes at least the presence of two subjects - a buyer and a seller (producer and consumer) without which economic relations do not become exactly economic, and the product of labor does not take the economic form of a commodity.

Thus, a product or service must have its consumer. All this seems obvious when we consider the relations between independent, independent, sovereign economic entities. What if we transfer this approach to the internal environment of the organization (to the intra-company hierarchy)?

In this case, the company becomes an organization in which there are both producers and consumers of labor products and services. Moreover, this applies to the entire activity of the company, to the entire turnover of capital. In this regard, the question becomes unprincipled: whether or not such activity takes the economic form of a commodity. Speaking about the intra-company hierarchy, we leave aside another form of economic organization, which is the market.

If a firm “moves” a product of labor or a service abroad, then we have “normal” producers and consumers (sellers and buyers), who can act both within the framework of a market economic organization and within the framework of a contract system (they deal with goods as an economic form of labor product, service).

To sum up what has been said, we have the right to assert that it is possible to fragment the economic activities of a company into economic units, behind each of which there is a specific consumer both within the company and outside it.

It is this approach that makes it possible to define a new category for our analysis, which is a business process.

So, a business process is a set of operations that, taken together, form a result that has value for the consumer. By the way, the simplest example of a business process that M. Hammer and J. Champi give in their work is the development of a new product.

Here, as we see, there are no consumers of this activity external to the company. The consumer of new product development is the production division of the company that will create it, the marketing division of the company that will bring this product to the end consumer. New Product, the company’s management itself, which, when developing a strategy, cannot but take into account the creation of new products, etc.

Thus, all final consumers of this activity are parts of the intra-firm hierarchy (of the company). On this methodological basis, another (fundamentally different) structure of the company can be built.

In this case, the company will appear before us not in the form of a bureaucratic organization built on the foundations of technological units, both in the productive and functional areas of the company’s activity, but in the form a set of business processes, the relationship between which within a company does not obey the principles of a bureaucratic intra-company hierarchy.

Let us now clarify the definition of a business process. This is the totality various types an activity in which “input” one or more types of resources are used, and “output” as a result of this activity a product is created that is valuable to the consumer. That is, the business process itself already presupposes the need to correlate results and costs, thereby becoming precisely the economic unit of the organization.

The identification of business processes within a company is based on certain requirements for such economic units of the organization: 1) they can be identified and appropriate boundaries can be drawn: what belongs to a business process and what does not, 2) this activity (set of operations) must have the end consumer either within the company or outside it, 3) the boundaries of the business process are not determined by technological or functional principles, they are based on the request of the consumer-client, 4) the most important figures in determining the boundaries of business processes are not engineers and technologists, but managers and economists.

The structure of a company, built on the principles of identifying business processes, is not a vertical hierarchy. This is most likely either a more horizontal structure or a network structure. Therefore, the process of linking various business processes into single organization- This is a process of coordination, coordination of mutual interests, and not administrative subordination.

It should be noted that issues related to business processes (definition of boundaries, principles of allocation, requirements for business processes, their coordination, etc.) will be specifically and in detail considered in connection with business process reengineering (see 8.1, 8.1.3 , 8.1.4).

Here we will allow ourselves to give only examples of business processes.

Above, we have already presented the process of developing a new product as such. Let's add a possible list of business processes. They can be developing a strategy, and, for example, paying company bills, issuing a loan, market research, logistics, planning, customer support, fulfilling orders, and much more.

It is hardly worth asserting that there are “standard” types of business processes. All this, in fact, is individualized for each company. The identification of business processes in a particular company (firm) is also influenced by objective factors ( production capacity, manufactured products, developed market segment, approved strategy and other factors of the organization’s internal and external environment), and subjective (managers’ preferences for risky or low-risk decisions, managers’ ideas about the company’s activities, its strategy, ideology, etc.).

The design (selection) of business processes is becoming a new and independent type of management activity, where the rules, if they apply, relate to the most general points and approaches. This activity takes managerial work beyond the narrow boundaries of a rational (essentially engineering) approach, creating the widest scope for creative initiative and the development of non-standard management decisions.

The next part of the work will be devoted to considering the method of transition from organizational structures based on technological units to structures based on business processes.

7.2.1. A way to move from organizational structures based on technological units to organizational structures based on business processes

A way to move from organizational structures based on technological units to organizational structures based on business processes. Construction of a functional-structural model of the company (advantages and disadvantages, boundaries of application). Construction of a process-role model of the company (advantages and disadvantages, boundaries of application). Transition from a functional-structural model of a company to a process-role model.

In this part of the work, we will actually be interested in the following problems: a bureaucratic organization in terms of its structure, an organization built on the basis of business processes in terms of its structure, and the transition from the first to the second.

So, a bureaucratic organization. From the point of view of structure, it represents the so-called functional-structural model, which is built on the basis of the imposition of the functional model of the company (based on the movement of capital, successively passing through the phase of acquiring means of production and hiring labor, the phase of direct production and the sales phase finished products) to the structural model of the company (based on the universal principle of division of labor with the subsequent assignment of separated functions (operations) to structural divisions- workshops, sections, teams, departments, services, etc.).

The functional structure of the company allows you to answer an extremely important question for managers - what needs to be done: Purchase means of production (which ones, in what quantity, at what price)? Hire labor(who, in what quantity, with what wages)? Engage in production (what, how much, at what costs)? Establish sales (what, in what quantity, at what price)?

It is necessary to answer these questions for all product groups produced by the company. The more there are, the more difficult it is to do this.

For example, our company produces furniture: sets for the kitchen, living room, separate tables, chairs, sofas and armchairs. It turns out that there are six nomenclature positions and for each it is necessary to answer the questions posed above.

The structural model of the company allows us to answer another extremely important question for the company: who will do it? Having answered it, we get a structure (in fact, a bureaucratic organization, an intra-company, vertical hierarchy).

In our example, we must answer the question posed for all goods produced by the company. As a result, we get either a linear-functional, divisional, or matrix structure of the company (see above).

Now we have the right to combine both models. The result is a functional-structural model of the company, which simultaneously answers the questions: what needs to be done and who will do it?

In fact, this model is based on three documents already mentioned: “Regulations on the organizational structure of the company”, “Regulations on the division” and “Regulations on job responsibilities” .

The resulting model has both advantages and disadvantages. Actually, here we can again talk about the “pros” and “cons” of the bureaucratic organization (see above).

However, perhaps the main problems of such an organization come down to a low degree of flexibility and a high degree of hierarchy, which affects the costs of coordinating activities.

The noted shortcomings ultimately determine the boundaries of the effective use of this model. This is a stable external environment, stable markets, a standard product that has great undifferentiated demand from consumers, a low rate of scientific and technological progress, etc.

For organizations based on economic units and business processes, the model discussed above is not suitable. A different approach is needed. In science it is called the process-role model.

In fact, this model can either be built from scratch, if the company is a newly created entity, or obtained from the functional-structural model of the company. To do this, it is necessary to do the following: 1) transform the functional model of the company into a process model, 2) transform the structural model of the company into a role model, 3) superimpose the two models indicated above.

Let's take a closer look at all these steps.

It is possible to transform a functional model into a process model by replacing the set of activity functions with a set of business processes. That is, it is necessary to present the entire business of the company in the form of a certain number of business processes (the technique of such operations, as well as a possible scheme for coordinating business processes, will be presented in 8.1.3 using the example of the American corporation Texas Instruments).

Such a replacement will expand the list of questions to which the manager can receive adequate answers. This is not only what needs to be done, but also who should be entrusted with? and when to implement? Consequently, our manager moves from the spatial sphere to the spatio-temporal sphere, that is, his activity turns from static to dynamic.

The structural model of the company also undergoes qualitative changes, turning into a role model. This transition also expands the manager’s understanding of the managed object. Besides answering the question - who will do it? - the manager has the opportunity to get answers to other questions: who to entrust? and when to implement? Thus, both models of the company answer almost the same questions.

This makes it possible to build more advanced organizations, devoid of the shortcomings of the functional-structural and bureaucratic models, with new properties and qualities that can significantly increase the overall efficiency of the company.

The process of transition from a functional-structural model of a company to a process-role model based on the identification of business processes described above can also be presented graphically in the form of a diagram (Scheme 2).

Scheme 2

Transition from a functional model to a process-role model

Cited from: Bochkarev A. Denial of a business plan // Expert. 1998. No. 23. P. 28

Issues related to the definition of a structural unit of an organization and the transition from one type of such structures to others are generally considered. Therefore, it can be argued that the third question of the theory of organization is also resolved positively.

Now it is time to concentrate on the last, fourth, issue of organization theory - ways to adapt an organization to change. As part of this problem, we will explore ways to change the structures of the organization. This will be the subject of the next section.

2. Theory of economic organization

2.1. The market as a form of economic organization, the main provisions of the market model

2.2. The role and place of contractual relations in market conditions

2.3. Non-market model of economic relations (hierarchy), intra-company contracting

2.4. Property relations and the variety of organizational forms of a company

Methods of intra-company organization (ownership relations)

Degree of hierarchy of organization methods (in ascending order)

2.5. Fundamental transformation of market relations into intra-company ones

Key performance indicators of the world's largest companies in 1970 - 1997.

2.5.1. Cartel - syndicate - trust - concern, conglomerate, transnational corporation

2.5.2. Horizontal integration, vertical integration

2.5.3. The role of technological, organizational and economic factors in fundamental transformation

2.6. Life cycle of an organization

3. Theory of the firm

3.1. The relationship between the concepts of “capital” and “firm” in a market economy

3.2. Neoclassical theory of the firm (rationality of economic actors, solution to the problem of market equilibrium)

3.3. Transaction theory of the firm (transaction costs, bounded rationality of economic actors and the possibility of opportunism)

Types of economic organizations

3.4. The variety of organizational and legal consolidation of property relations (sole proprietorships, partnerships and partnerships, capital companies)

3.5. Capital ownership structure in developed market countries and Russia

Share in the capital of JSC main investors

Historical and logical periodization of the development of the Soviet and Russian economy

4. Modern corporation and intra-company management. How to organize organizational elements

4.1. Linear-functional, divisional and matrix structures of the organization (advantages, disadvantages and areas of application)

4.2. Unitary, holding and multidivisional structures of modern corporations

5. Natural monopolies and their regulation (organizational aspect)

5.1. Natural monopoly - an economic organization or a form of public (state) regulation?

6. Development of organizations as a process of achieving their most effective functioning

6.1. Management development as a process of achieving the greatest efficiency in the functioning of organizations

7. Elementary unit (“atom”) of the organization

7.1. Technological unit based on division of labor

7.2. Economic unit (business process)

7.2.1. A way to move from organizational structures based on technological units to organizational structures based on business processes

Transition from a functional model to a process-role model

8. Ways to change the organizational structure of a company (firm)

8.1. Reengineering of the corporation and revolutionary restructuring of its organizational structure

8.1.1. Reengineering objects

8.1.2. Subjects of reengineering

8.1.3. Business processes in the corporation and its organizational structure

8.2. Evolutionary methods of restructuring the organizational structure of a company using reengineering technologies

8.2.1. Diamond model of an intra-company management system

7.2. Economic unit (business process)

7. Elementary unit (“atom”) of the organization7.2.1. A way to move from organizational structures based on technological units to organizational structures based on business processes

Economic unit (business process). The activity of a company as an economic process. Division of economic activity into economic units, each of which has a specific consumer. Definition of a business process. Requirements for business processes. Business process boundaries. Coordination of business processes in the company. Examples of business processes.

If the company is considered precisely as an economic structure, then it seems obvious that all its activities can be divided not only into technological parts, units (see 7.1), but also into economic parts, units.

It is this approach that makes it possible to define a new category for our analysis, which is a business process.

Here, as we see, there are no consumers of this activity external to the company. The consumer of the development of a new product is the production division of the company, which will create it, the marketing division of the company, which will bring this new product to the end consumer, the company management itself, which, when developing a strategy, cannot but take into account the creation of new products, etc. d.

Let us now clarify the definition of a business process. This is a set of different types of activities, within which “at the input” one type of resource or more is used, and at the “output” as a result of this activity a product is created that is valuable to the consumer. That is, the business process itself already presupposes the need to correlate results and costs, thereby becoming precisely the economic unit of the organization.

The structure of a company, built on the principles of identifying business processes, is not a vertical hierarchy. This is most likely either a more horizontal structure or a network structure. Therefore, the process of linking various business processes into a single organization is a process of coordination, coordination of mutual interests, and not administrative subordination.

Here we will allow ourselves to give only examples of business processes.

It is hardly worth asserting that there are “standard” types of business processes. All this, in fact, is individualized for each company. The identification of business processes in a particular company (firm) is influenced by both objective factors (production capacity, manufactured products, developed market segment, approved strategy and other factors of the organization’s internal and external environment) and subjective factors (managers’ preferences for risky or low-risk decisions, managers' ideas about the company's activities, its strategy, ideology, etc.).

The next part of the work will be devoted to considering the method of transition from organizational structures based on technological units to structures based on business processes.

Institutional units

The basis of accounting in the CNC is "institutional unit" (an economic agent who carries out business transactions). This economic agent (firm), owning goods and assets, has the ability to carry out operations and various types of transactions with other agents.

Residents - these are institutional units that constantly conduct their operations in the country; in this case, it does not matter whether the resident representing the company is or is not a citizen of the host country, as well as the ownership of its assets. Residents include:

o persons permanently residing in a given country;
o migrant workers living in the country for more than one year;
o government bodies, including their foreign missions;
o companies that constantly carry out economic activity in a given country, despite the fact that they may be wholly or partly owned by capital of foreign origin.

Non-residents - these are institutional units that are permanently located outside the borders of a given country; branches or affiliated companies residents, if they are permanently located and conduct their operations in the territory of a foreign state.

CHC distinguishes two main types of institutional units - individuals (households) And legal entities (enterprises ). Within the SNA, all institutional units are grouped into five groups that represent the main sectors of economic activity:

1) non-financial corporations - institutional units engaged in the production of goods for the market and non-financial services (firms). The non-financial corporation is the main institutional unit of the real sector;
2) households (house-holds) - all individuals who operate in the national economy. These are families, the main consumers of goods and services;
3) non-profit institutions - legal entities that provide non-market services to households and are based on the voluntary participation of individuals. Non-profit institutions are an institutional unit of the real sector;
4) government agencies - also engaged in the production of non-market goods and services for individual or collective consumption and the redistribution of income. Government institutions - ministries, departments, including government funds (social security sectors) play an important role as institutional units public sector economics;
5) financial corporations are institutional units (banks, financial companies) that provide financial intermediation or auxiliary Financial services. The financial corporation is the main institutional unit of the monetary sector.

Statistical yearbooks (Year Books) published by governments tend to reflect the structure presented economic indicators, including macroeconomic indicators (GDP, ND, etc.).

Types of macroeconomic accounts

Cash accounts, unlike income tax and GDP, are inventory accounts. They usually reflect the following types:

1) flows, which characterize the results of the activities of an institutional unit (for a certain period of time). Flows are carried out through transactions, they can also be financial and non-financial;
2) stocks, which record the residual value of the corresponding indicator.

Macroeconomic accounts are compiled within the framework of the SNA. They, in turn, are divided into three groups:

1) current accounts reflect the value of production volumes of goods and services, the creation of income, its distribution, redistribution and use for consumption or savings;
2) savings accounts reflect the acquisition and sale of financial and non-financial assets and liabilities by institutional units;
3) balance sheet accounts show the value of assets and liabilities at the beginning and end of the reporting period.

Foreign economic operations

Foreign economic transactions are in the most general form transactions of participants in transactions, economic agents (institutional units) that fix ownership (full, partial) of material or financial assets or involve the provision of certain services on the basis of mutual obligations. This kind of operation is called internal , if they are committed in a specific country; international - if they are committed by organizations (institutional units) of a number of countries.

Thus, the system of national accounts makes it possible to solve the following problems:

1) control the “economic pulse” of the country; SNA allows you to measure the volume of production at a specific point in time and reveal the reasons why production is at this level;
2) by comparing the levels of national income over a certain period of time, it is possible to trace a long-term trend that determines the nature of economic development: growth, stable reproduction, stagnation or decline;
3) the information contained in national accounts serves as the basis for the formation and implementation of public policy aimed at improving the functioning of the economy and achieving the main objectives of the government. National accounts make it possible to systematically monitor the economic health of a society and to determine policies that help maintain and improve that health ( the economic growth, full employment, income growth, etc.).