Introduction to Business Textbooks

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Is your textbook keeping up with the changes sweeping through the business world?

If you teach introduction to business, you know how quickly the world of business is changing, with industry after industry being reshaped by digital systems and artificial intelligence.

The question is: Does your textbook reflect this revolution?

Unless it has already embraced these new concepts discussed in this video, chances are it is preparing students for yesterday’s business world, not tomorrow’s.

Every Enterprise Is Now a Digital Enterprise

The business world is experiencing waves of technological and social disruptions that are reshaping what it’s like to launch, lead, and work for companies. Consider this stunning change: In a 2015 survey, fewer than 1 percent of executives believed digital technology would disrupt their industries.

Only two years later, more than 75% said digital would have a “major” or “transformative” impact on their industries. In a fundamental way, virtually all businesses are becoming digital enterprises, regardless of what they produce, because digital systems are essential to how they create value and connect with customers. And this digital transformation is affecting every aspect of business, from HR to finance to marketing.

The Exciting—and Unsettling—Prospect of Digital Transformation

Students need to be ready for this new world of business for two key reasons. First, executives who are scrambling to implement their own digital transformations are looking for employees who are tuned into these concepts and technologies.

Second, students can’t afford to set their sights on traditional career paths without understanding how those career paths are changing—or in some cases, disappearing. Many of today’s jobs are vulnerable to disruption from artificial intelligence and related technologies, and many graduates will be working in jobs we can’t even envision today.

Preparing Students to Thrive in the Digital Enterprise

Clearly, the business curriculum needs to prepare students for a vastly different world of work—while still helping them grasp the core principles of business. The new Ninth Edition of Business in Action tackles this challenge with a unique approach called Thriving in the Digital Enterprise.

Each chapter features six structured learning objectives devoted to the important principles of that topic, followed by a new, seventh section that features one key aspect of thriving in the digital enterprise. These new sections offer concise, non-technical explanations of disruptive business technologies that are likely to affect students’ careers in the coming years.

Today’s Students Are Looking for Business with a Higher Purpose

The changes sweeping through business today are about more than just technology, however. For example, today’s younger workers show a keen interest in finding or creating work that involves a more meaningful purpose than simply making a paycheck.

Business in Action explains the ways that many companies are moving beyond the concept of corporate social responsibility to become purpose-driven companies. It helps students understand the challenges of moving beyond the bottom line, and shows them how companies can do well by managing business as a force for good.

Exhibits That Teach: Visual Learning for Today’s Students

It’s no secret that information habits are changing and that today’s learners value alternatives to lengthy written accounts. Business in Action supports these learners with high-efficiency visual learning. The Ninth Edition features nearly 150 exhibits that teach—diagrams, graphs, quick-reference tables, and other exhibits that address the challenge of getting students to read long passages of text by presenting vital concepts visually.

The emphasis throughout is on productive learning by helping students minimize the time they spend reading while maximizing their learning outcomes.

Other Highlights of the Ninth Edition

The Ninth Edition is one of the most comprehensive revisions in the long history of Business in Action, making it more concise and more effective than ever.

Streamlined coverage

New learning and career-development features

Growing as a Professional encourages students to apply the business concepts they are learning in each chapter to facets of their academic and personal lives right now.

Resolving Ethical Dilemmas challenge students with realistic ethical dilemmas that require thoughtful analysis and decision-making.

Intelligent Business Technology helps students grasp the benefits of the smart systems that their future employers are likely to be using.

Extensive content enhancements

The Behind the Scenes chapter-opening vignettes and end-of-chapter case studies show students how professionals apply the same skills and concepts they are reading about in the chapter. All 16 vignette/case study pairs are new in this edition.

Every chapter has fresh project ideas and evaluation questions, with a total of more than 275 new questions and student activities.

Well over a hundred individual sections have been added, updated, or extensively revised throughout the 16 chapters.