What is the difference between 会社 and 社 when referring to a company?

Question

Both terms refer to a company. I want to know if there are differences on when one term would be preferred over the other.

Answer 1

会社【かいしゃ】 kaisha is an independent word meaning "company" or "corporation". In compounds it describes a type of company (and is always pronounced がいしゃ gaisha)

• 航空会社【くうこうがいしゃ】 kūkō gaisha airline company
• 証券会社【しょうけんがいしゃ】 shōken gaisha brokerage firm
• 株式会社【かぶしきがいしゃ】 kabushiki gaisha stock company

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社 may be used independently as an abbreviation of 会社, but 会社 is far more standard as an independent word.

In compounds, 社 can be thought of an abbreviation of 会社, e.g.

• 社長【しゃちょう】 shachō (company) director
• 社屋【しゃおく】 shaoku company office building

Most often, however, ～社 is used as a suffix, e.g.

• similarly to がいしゃ above

  • 出版社【しゅっぱんしゃ】 shuppansha publishing company
  • 新聞社【しんぶんしゃ】 shinbunsha newspaper company

• after the name of a particular company

  講談社 Kōdansha

• as a counter word for companies (or 神社 "shrines"), giving (apart from the usual 20社 "20 companies") words like

  • 数社【すうしゃ】 "several companies"
  • 本社【ほんしゃ】 "this company" or "head office"
  • 当社【とうしゃ】 "this company"

  _{cf. 数日、本日、当日}

Answer 2

No, they are not interchangeable at all.

• 会社{かいしゃ} This is a word, meaning "company", large or small

• 社{しゃ} This is a single character, which as so often happens corresponds to about half of a word. One of its meanings is "company" as a prefix or suffix in a compound: e.g. 社内{しゃない} means "company-internal", or 他社{たしゃ} means "other-company".

You will find other compounds in a dictionary, plus the original meaning of 社｛やしろ｝.