Businesses ceasing to work without a bit of encouragement (8)
I believe the answer is:
agencies
'businesses' is the definition.
(agency is a kind of business)
'ceasing to work without a bit of encouragement' is the wordplay.
'to work' is an anagram indicator.
'without' is an insertion indicator ('without' can be similar in meaning to 'outside').
'a bit of' says to take the initial letters.
The initial letter of 'encouragement' is 'e'.
'ceasing' is an anagram of 'agencis'.
'agencis' going around 'e' is 'AGENCIES'.
(Other definitions for agencies that I've seen before include "Firms who transact business for others, perhaps actors" , "Businesses that serve others" , "Administrative units of government" , "Businesses that serves other businesses" , "Service organisations" .)