Business and the Business Environment

Business activity is an essential and universally relevant part of our daily lives. While business organisations can vary greatly depending on their industry and global location, they all share the common feature of transforming inputs into outputs. This transformation occurs amidst a dynamic, complex, volatile, and interactive external environment that significantly impacts business activity.

The purpose of this unit is to provide students with a foundational understanding of business, including the functions of an organisation and the broader business environments in which they operate. Students will examine different types of for-profit and not-for-profit organisations and explore their size and scope, such as micro, SME, transnational, and global. Additionally, students will analyse organisations’ relationships with their stakeholders and how the wider external environments influence and shape business decision-making.

By studying this unit, students will gain knowledge, understanding, and skill sets that will enable them to gain insight into various business functions, support further study, develop analytical thinking, apply key analytical tools in business planning, and select their preferred areas of specialization in future studies and professional careers.