The meaning of partnership business

Learn, that partnership is a form of business structure. That means that you would find it in the list of business structures. If you include; Sole proprietorship, limited Liability Companies and Co-operative societies as forms of business structures, you are correct, for all of those constitutes examples of business structures. But your list is only a short or limited list. There is one that you didn't include, that you are yet to include. It is the Partnership. It is regarded as one of the major forms of business structures. 

Wherever business structure discussions are performed, it would very likely feature in the talk. Do not be surprised if you heard your teacher mention it as one of the forms of business structures, for he must have read it in one of the business text-books. The media is not exempt from the advertisment of Partnership as a form of business structure.

Just when you learn that it is a form of business structure, you may want to have a picture of what it entails. You may know what sole proprietorship means, what it entails and could provide a lecture on it. You are likely very likely learned on the intricacies of other business structures. But your knowledge only does not qualify you to know partnerships meaning. Business structures are distinct in many aspects, not just their name.

You are hungry to know, and curios. You begin to think about it.

Sometimes the name that something is given gives you a clue to aspects of its nature. If something is termed, 'marketing-tool', you may judge from it's name that it is something used to accomplish marketing; something pertaining to marketing. If someone  is given the name king, you could conclude that he is a sovereign; a monarch, or certainly possess sovereign power. True, there are times when names do not indicate the nature of something, because not all names are literal.

You may wonder, though if this business is the kind that is established by a group and remotes by them, hence it is called Partnership.

Judging from established definitions we are correct if we make that judgement. Partnership is not a concept that authorities have not defined. 

                       DEFINITION 

The Partnership Act of 1890, Section 1 defined it as; ''A relationship which subsists between persons carrying on a business in common with a view of profit''. 

Sir Fedreck Pallock defined it as; ''the relationship which subsists between persons who have agreed to share the profit of business carried on by all of them for the benefit of all of them''.  

Those two are only but few amongst the many established definitions that we could draw from.

From those, we could judge that it is a communal business. 'Partnership is a business whose establishment and management is achieved by a community whom reap the dividends. Business usually consists of activities like; production, trading, service rendering etc. If you carry out those activities as a group you can be said to be running partnership business.

                   ILLUSTRATION 

A school project may consist of activities like research and recording of findings. Suppose you want to achieve this project alone, you cannot be said to partner with anyone, but if you choose to involve others you are partnering. 

A partnership business is a project run by a team. Like a school project, a group of people control the activities involved in it. If you have chosen to design your business to become a partnership, you are like the student that chooses, to run it with a team. 

It is a business that is not established by one person but a team of individuals.

The student is at liberty, to carry out the project as a group. But then, he may be but he may be concerned with what i entails to carry out a school project as a team. He knew that there has to be rules or requirements that he has to fulfil to carry out the project as a team. 

For instance he may be concerned with the number of people that the group may consist of. He cannot just include all the students in the class, there has to be a defined number of students. He would want to learn the minimum and limit of the groups number. He would have to learn this. 

          THE NUMBER OF FORGERS

The person whom aspires to start a partnership business is just like the student. He would have to forge the business with a group, but how many could he forge it with? There are always laws that governs businesses. So he is correct to think that there is a convention or law that applies to this. And like the student he has to learn about this. The student could learn from the schools law book, or directly from his teacher whom assigned them the project. The aspirant of business can learn from business authorities. 

The truth is that the law on the number differs from country to country. But in every country, the minimum number of persons that can forge a partnership is 2. In Nigeria the same is true, but the maximum number of those that could forge it is 20. Having learnt this, the aspirant is at liberty to decide how many people he want to start a business with.

Partnerships are very many, found in every country, owned by different men.

                      EXAMPLE 

A teacher could use an example to help his students understand better a subject he is teaching. A teacher walks into a classroom. He introduces the subject for the day. Let us suppose he wants to teach the students about Robot. He would introduce it to be the topic. He defines the subject. He uses established facts to help them understand the meaning of the topic. Perhaps he could draw from established definitions. He goes on to talk and talk about the subject. He succeeds in only making little impact. The student did not understand very much the concept. He does not want to stop at that. His goal is to make them understand. Only if they do, can he succeed in his teaching. 

He decides to use an example to help them grasp better the meaning of what he is teaching. He excuses himself from the class and returns with a physical Robot, and stationed it in front of the class, to the surprise of everyone. 

Then he said to the class that that very entity is what is a Robot. He establishes that it is an example of a Robot. The students begins to observe the Robot. They could see its unique characteristics, that defines its nature. And they came to understand what it really entails. They now learnt that a Robot is anything that has that very nature. Whenever they see entities that are like that, they would consider it a Robot. All Robots would have the nature of that entity they concluded. With that example, the teacher helped his students understand the topic better. 

Throughout history, men have used examples to establish and enhance understanding of concepts. When talking about powerful figures, you could cite Alexander the great as an example. Implying that whoever is to be considered powerful would possess his characteristics. Whoever does, would be considered powerful. The person you told would be able to distinguish a powerful person.

Having learnt the efficacy of examples, and desiring to enhance our understanding of partnerships business, we could use an example to enhance our understanding of partnership. 

According to authorities an example of a partnership in Nigeria is the Diya Fatimilehin and Co. It is an estate firm. A popular Nigerian business. Everyone considers it a partnership. And the claim has not received opposition. When we observed the business we discovered aspects of its nature that defined it. It was established by a team. The team manages it. And they, receive its profits. This example gives us a true picture of what partnership is, supporting the claim that partnership is a team business, giving us understanding of what the business is about.

There are very many examples of partnerships. We have observed them. And we found the same traits in them. All of them are established by a team and manages by them, who reap the business profits. Therefore whenever we see a business with the same traits as those we would consider it a partnership.