MBA Research

Teach your students how effective leadership can help a business be more productive, its employees be more creative and skilled, and its leaders enjoy both internal and external rewards. LAPs (Learning Activity Packages) are comprehensive instructional packages that include all elements of a performance-oriented lesson plan. This LAP includes a student handout (with CopyIT! permission) that includes information about leadership in organizations, a (So What?) discussion of why it's important to...

What is gross domestic product and how can it be used to measure the health of economies across the world? Use LAP-EC-917 to teach your students all about gross domestic product, how to calculate and use it, and its advantages and flaws for governments and businesses. LAPs (Learning Activity Packages) are comprehensive instructional packages that include all elements of a performance-oriented lesson plan. This LAP includes a student handout (with CopyIT! permission) that includes information...

Owning your own business is risky, but if you do it right, you’ll receive something for your efforts: profit. The financial gains realized from profit provide business owners with a real incentive to build successful businesses. Use Risk Rewarded to teach your students about types of profit, the benefits received from profit, the external and internal factors that affect profit, as well as ways to gain more profit. LAPs (Learning Activity Packages) are comprehensive instructional packages that...

Your students take risks all the time, but do they realize how to translate their everyday risk experiences into the business world? If not, LAP-EC-911—Lose, Win, or Draw (Business Risk) can show them how! Use this LAP to teach your students the types of risk that businesses face, as well as how to handle them. LAPs (Learning Activity Packages) are comprehensive instructional packages that include all elements of a performance-oriented lesson plan. This LAP includes a student handout (with...

When businesses consider new ventures, they need to find out whether or not they can succeed. Teach your students about feasibility studies—why businesses conduct them, what they include, and the benefits they provide. LAPs (Learning Activity Packages) are comprehensive instructional packages that include all elements of a performance-oriented lesson plan. This LAP includes a student handout (with CopyIT! permission) that includes information about conducting feasibility studies, a (So What?)...

Do your students know where their stuff comes from? Chances are their favorite products have traveled a great distance to get to them. In this LAP, students will discover the impact of globalization—both on their everyday lives and on the buying and selling of goods across the world. They will learn why countries engage in global trade, the economic benefits of global trade, and the many barriers to trade. In The Gray Zone, students will examine the ethicality of sweatshop labor, an important...

Before the Industrial Revolution, many workers labored for low wages in poor working conditions. Organized labor began when workers joined together to demand better treatment. Teach your students what labor unions are, how they negotiate with employers, and what effects they have on employees and businesses. LAPs (Learning Activity Packages) are comprehensive instructional packages that include all elements of a performance-oriented lesson plan. This LAP includes a student handout (with...

Writing down everything that you want isn’t easy. That’s because we all have unlimited, competing wants, but our resources are limited. As a result, we must learn to make wise economic choices. Economics is all about decision-making—determining how to get the most satisfaction with the fewest resources. LAPs (Learning Activity Packages) are comprehensive instructional packages that include all elements of a performance-oriented lesson plan. This LAP includes a student handout (with CopyIT!...

Teach your students about the advantages and disadvantages of specialization and division of labor, the impact of specialization on businesses and employees, and the relationship between job scope and depth. LAPs (Learning Activity Packages) are comprehensive instructional packages that include all elements of a performance-oriented lesson plan. This LAP includes a student handout (with CopyIT! permission) that includes information about specialization and division of labor, a (So What?)...

Competition isn’t a bad thing—it turns the wheels of our private enterprise economy! This LAP explains the types of competition, the four main types of market structures, and how competition benefits businesses, customers, and society. LAPs (Learning Activity Packages) are comprehensive instructional packages that include all elements of a performance-oriented lesson plan. This LAP includes a student handout (with CopyIT! permission) that includes information about competition, a (So What?)...

Explore the unpredictable business cycle and its expansions, contractions, peaks, and troughs with your students. Examine the difference between a recession and a depression, and help your students learn about the up-and-down business cycle, its phases, and internal and external factors that cause booms and busts. LAPs (Learning Activity Packages) are comprehensive instructional packages that include all elements of a performance-oriented lesson plan. This LAP includes a student handout (with...

What’s the difference between economic and noneconomic wants? What are goods and services? How can goods and services be classified? This LAP answers these questions and explains even more about economic goods and services. LAPs (Learning Activity Packages) are comprehensive instructional packages that include all elements of a performance-oriented lesson plan. This LAP includes a student handout (with CopyIT! permission) that includes information about economic goods and services, a (So...

Your students might think they understand supply and demand, but do they know about buyer’s and seller’s markets, achieving equilibrium, and elastic and inelastic demand? It’s the Law (Supply and Demand) will teach them all these concepts and more! They’ll learn all about how supply and demand work together and affect every business. LAPs (Learning Activity Packages) are comprehensive instructional packages that include all elements of a performance-oriented lesson plan. This LAP includes a...

Businesses have a lot to do with utility—they can create it, and they can enhance it. That’s why it’s so important for your students to learn what utility is and how businesses influence it. Teach them with Use It (Economic Utility)! This LAP explains the four types of utility, as well as what businesses can do to give their products more utility. LAPs (Learning Activity Packages) are comprehensive instructional packages that include all elements of a performance-oriented lesson plan. This LAP...

Why do we pay what we do for the things we buy? Help your students understand the importance of price, the functions of relative prices (information, incentives, and rationing), and the impact of supply and demand on the prices we pay for products and services. LAPs (Learning Activity Packages) are comprehensive instructional packages that include all elements of a performance-oriented lesson plan. This LAP includes a student handout (with CopyIT! permission) that includes information about...

Economic resources (factors of production) enable businesses to produce the goods and services that consumers want. Regardless of a business’s product or size, a significant consideration affecting the business’s success is its ability to choose and use the best combination of natural resources, human resources, and capital goods. Use this LAP to help your students learn about the different types of resources and their limitations, how to respond to limited resources, and why economic...

Do your students know the characteristics that make up the private enterprise system? Do they even know what private enterprise is? With People Power (The Private Enterprise System) you can help students learn the benefits and disadvantages of the private enterprise system, as well as the effects it has on the people who live in it. LAPs (Learning Activity Packages) are comprehensive instructional packages that include all elements of a performance-oriented lesson plan. This LAP includes a...

Government plays an important role in our private enterprise system—but how? This LAP explains how government’s role in business has changed and expanded over the years, as well as how government regulates and protects businesses. LAPs (Learning Activity Packages) are comprehensive instructional packages that include all elements of a performance-oriented lesson plan. This LAP includes a student handout (with CopyIT! permission) that includes information about government and business, a (So...

Each of the four basic economic systems—traditional, communist, socialist, and market—has its own problems and its own way of answering three important economic questions. Help students understand the challenges that economic systems face, the decisions that they must make, and ways in which these decisions impact everyday life. LAPs (Learning Activity Packages) are comprehensive instructional packages that include all elements of a performance-oriented lesson plan. This LAP includes a student...

Productivity involves working hard and keeping busy, but there’s more to it than that. What can businesses and individuals do to improve productivity? And what will get in the way of productivity? Help your students learn the answers to these questions, as well as the ways that productivity affects businesses, workers, consumers, society, and the economy with Make the Most of It (Productivity). LAPs (Learning Activity Packages) are comprehensive instructional packages that include all elements...

Just as the human body needs to accomplish certain activities to live and maintain health, companies need to engage in primary business activities to survive—and thrive. In this LAP, students will discover the core business activities of financial analysis, human resources management, information management, marketing, operations, and strategic management. Students will also learn about the interdependence of these activities and how they shift and adapt during changing circumstances. LAPs...

What to do in business situations is not always black or white, right or wrong. Help students understand the critical need for business ethics when the right course of action is not clear. LAPs (Learning Activity Packages) are comprehensive instructional packages that include all elements of a performance-oriented lesson plan. This LAP includes a student handout (with CopyIT! permission) that includes information about business ethics, a (So What?) discussion of why it's important to learn,...

The world is getting “smaller” all the time. Teach your students how globalization affects businesses and ways that businesses can venture into foreign markets. LAPs (Learning Activity Packages) are comprehensive instructional packages that include all elements of a performance-oriented lesson plan. This LAP includes a student handout (with CopyIT! permission) that includes information about the global business environment, a (So What?) discussion of why it's important to learn, ideas (Make it...

Well-planned organizational design is crucial to the success of any business. In Designed to Work (Organizational Design of Businesses), students will learn the importance of structure within an organization and discover the many types of organizational design used by successful companies today. In the Gray Zone, students will evaluate a situation in which a manager potentially abuses their authority within an organization’s hierarchy. LAPs (Learning Activity Packages) are comprehensive...