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Business Management IA Format and Structure

Roxanne

By Roxanne

•

05 Jan 2024

Business Management IA Format and Structure cover image
Get feedback on your Business and Management IA
Marked only by official IB examiners

Do you need some help getting started with writing your business IA? Look no further as Clastify is here to help you with that! Based on our IB experience, this post contains some tips on how to structure your Business Management IA well to get top marks. The guide below is just an example of how a good IA should be structured, however, keep in mind that many high-scoring IAs may also use other structures. For examples of some well-structured IAs, head to the Clastify website where you can read through multiple exemplar IAs!

 

 

Business Management IA Format and Structure 

 

 

The guide will be broken up by section to help you better understand what is required in each part of the IA and will have examples linked, as follows: 

 

Title page:

  1. Include the research question and the key concept being studied (change, creativity, ethics, sustainability). The key concept is new for IAs from the May 2024 session.
  2. Include your IB number and the session for which you are submitting the IA (eg: May 2024).
  3. Include the word count of the IA, which should be 1800 words or fewer.
  4. Do not include your name, school name, or candidate/student number.
  5. Example: This IA has all the above requirements.

 

 

Table of contents:

  1. Include the following: Introduction, Analysis, Conclusion, References and Supporting Documents 
  2. Under Analysis, you should list the 3 tools you have chosen for the IA. 
  3. Tools that you can use for analysis include SWOT analysis, STEEPLE analysis, decision trees, Ansoff matrix, etc. 
  4. Example: This IA's table of contents has clearly stated the above sections as well as explicitly mentioned the tools used for the analysis.  

 

 

Introduction:

  1. Provide a brief introduction to the business or organization that you have chosen for your IA (eg: Apple).
  2. Mention the product or service that will be analyzed in the IA (eg: iPhone 12 sales in a country).
  3. State the problem and how this relates to your research question and key concept (eg: competition with domestic brands, how can this be overcome by changing the price?).
  4. Make sure to include in-text citations for this section.
  5. Keep the introduction short, at around 200 words.
  6. An example of a good introduction can be found here.

 

 

Analysis:

  1. In this section, you should use the 3 selected tools to analyze the problem concerning the key concept. 
  2. Briefly introduce each tool and how it will be used. 
  3. Separate the analysis into different sections for each tool used.
  4. Analyze each tool in the form of a mini-essay. Justify why that specific tool is relevant to answering the research question, analyze how that tool was used (eg: which quadrant of the Ansoff Matrix does the business strategy used by the company fall into?), and provide a conclusion that links each tool to the key concept.
  5. Discuss the limitations and reliability of the sources used to analyze each tool.
  6. The analysis should be around 1300-1400 words.
  7. An example of a good analysis can be found here.

 

 

Conclusion:

  1. Re-state the research question and key concept. 
  2. Provide a brief overview of the findings from your analysis - how was each tool used to help you answer the research question? 
  3. Discuss limitations of the analysis (eg: were the sources of an acceptable depth?).
  4. The conclusion should be around 250-300 words. 
  5. An example of a good conclusion can be found here.

 

 

References:

  1. Cite the supporting documents used, as well as any other sources used in the IA.
  2. The supporting document references should be clearly labelled (eg: Supporting document 1: (insert reference)).
  3. A good example of this can be found here.

 

 

Supporting documents:

  1. Provide the actual supporting documents used here. 
  2. This includes diagrams, articles screenshots, transcripts, etc.
  3. A good example can be found here.

 

 

 

We hope this guide helps guide you in properly formatting and structuring your Business Management IA! If you want to read some exemplary IAs before you start writing, we've got you covered too! Simply head to the Clastify website, where you will be able to find numerous Business IA ideas and examples, so you can look for the ones that are the most relevant to your topic. Good luck!