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The private sector is usually composed of organizations that are privately owned and not part of the government. These usually includes corporations (both profit and non-profit), partnerships, and charities.

An easier way to think of the private sector is by thinking of organizations that are not owned or operated by the government. For example, retail stores, credit unions, and local businesses will operate in the private sector.

The public sector is usually composed of organizations that are owned and operated by the government. This includes federal, provincial, state, or municipal governments, depending on where you live. Privacy legislation usually calls organizations in the public sector a public body or a public authority.

Some examples of public bodies in Canada and the United Kingdom are educational bodies, health care bodies, police and prison services, and local and central government bodies and their departments.

The concept of joint sector wherein Government and private entrepreneurs join hands to establish new enterprises is indeed an old  one.The Indian Oil Corporation is the joint-Sector enterprise in India.

A cooperative ("coop"), co-operative ("co-op"), or cooperative ("coop") is an autonomous association of persons who voluntarily cooperate for their mutual, social, economic, and cultural benefit. Cooperatives include non-profit community organizations and businesses that are owned and managed by the people who use its services (a consumer cooperative) or by the people who work there (a worker cooperative) or by the people who live there (a housing cooperative), hybrids such as worker cooperatives that are also consumer cooperatives or credit unions, multi-stakeholder cooperatives such as those that bring together civil society and local actors to deliver community needs, and second and third tier cooperatives whose members are other cooperatives.