IBDP Business Management
Key Resources & Websites to support your learning
1) IB Guide.
5) Hoang Workbook (MS)
6) Course Companion
IBDP Business management is a rigorous, challenging and dynamic discipline in the individuals and societies subject group. The role of businesses, as distinct from other organisations and actors in a society, is to produce and sell goods and services that meet human needs and wants by organising resources. Profit-making, risk-taking and operating in a competitive environment characterise most business organisations.
Term 1: Unit 1: Business organisation and environment
In this first introductory unit, business and management is set in context: students learn to analyse organisations’ internal environment (for example, stakeholders, strategic objectives and Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) and external environment (for example, the impact of technological change and globalisation). Students learn to apply fundamental strategy models such as social, technological, economic, environmental, political, legal and ethical (STEEPLE) analysis as well as the strengths, weaknesses, opportunities and threats (SWOT) analysis. HL students also learn to apply and evaluate more specific tools such as fishbone diagrams, decision-trees and force field analysis.
Term 2: Unit 2: Human resource management
In this unit, students explore how businesses recruit, organise, develop and lead their arguably most important resource—their people. In unit 2, students also learn what motivates individuals to perform well at work. The unit looks at how structural changes and changes in the business environment or in key people impact Human Resource Management. Alongside the cultural issues addressed throughout this unit, HL students also examine organisational (corporate) culture as well as industrial/employee relations. This gives them more tools to analyse the relationship between different stakeholder groups as well as the role of individuals in a business.
Term 3&4: Unit 4: Marketing
Both SL and HL students learn the marketing mix of the four Ps—the essential ingredients of marketing planning: product, price, promotion and place (distribution). At HL, this model is expanded to the seven Ps: students also explore how people, processes and physical evidence can be applied to the marketing of services. Given the strategic nature of marketing, unit 4 is closely linked to the other business functions students study in the business management course.
Term 4-6: Unit 3: Finance and accounts
In unit 3, students examine finance and accounts through both quantitative and qualitative methods. They learn how businesses represent themselves numerically through accounts, learning how to construct basic balance sheets and profit and loss accounts. HL students additionally explore methods of depreciation of assets. By the end of the unit, students will be able to explain the meaning of accounts by calculating ratios such as gross profit margin, net profit margin and return on capital employed (ROCE) and interpreting the results. HL students also explore budgeting strategies used by businesses