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• Business Management and Administration
• Finance
• Marketing

With embedded standards for entrepreneurship.

Business
The business world in which people work is dynamic, changing, and expanding. The pace at which it is changing has accelerated due to a variety of environmental shifts: downsizing, outsourcing, offshoring, mergers, global competition, world markets, legal requirements, and technological innovations, to name a few. Business is not limited by being for- or not-for profit, having a brick and mortar or a virtual location, being public or private, or being large or small. Neither is it limited to organizations providing physical goods. Hospitals, attorneys’ offices, and colleges are businesses. Regardless of where people are employed, they are part of the business world, and their economic survival in the 21st century will depend on their ability to understand and execute business skills.

Business and Marketing Education
The National Business Administration Standards provide insight into what business leaders view as important to the success of employees at various levels and in various specialties. These standards define the content for Business and Marketing Education. They inform teachers, administrators, and curriculum developers as to what should be taught. Educators, then, take the standards and determine how to deliver the content (instructional strategies) and how to design the programs/courses. Educators also determine what program area will deliver the performance indicators; i.e., whether the content will be addressed in a business education course, marketing education course, or both. These standards address software applications rather than technical IT content that is found in a separate cluster.

Premises of the Curriculum
The Business Administration curriculum should:
 • Encourage students to think critically and innovatively
 • Stress the integration of and articulation with academics
 • Enable students to utilize technology in the performance of business tasks
 • Stress the importance of interpersonal skills in a diverse society
 • Foster an understanding and appreciation of business ethics
 • Provide a foundation for advanced study in business
 • Foster a realistic understanding of work
 • Utilize a variety of interactions with the business community

Major Sponsors

BPA -Contributing to the preparation of a world-class workforce through the advancement of leadership, academic, citizenship, and technological skills

DECA/DEX - An Association of students with career interests in marketing, management,
and entrepreneurship

FBLA/PBL - Bringing business and education together in a positive working relationship through innovative leadership and career development programs

Glencoe - The nation’s leading publisher in Business and Marketing Education

Goodheart-Willcox Publisher -A premier education publisher for 84 years, now offering a fresh approach to Business and Marketing Education

MarkED/Career Paths -Supporting marketing and business faculty through research, curriculum design, and professional development since 1971

South-Western Cengage Learning -Providing innovative educational materials, the latest technologies, and personal service for business and marketing educators

Supporting Sponsor
Consortium for Entrepreneurship Education - The national leader in advocacy of entrepreneurship education as a lifelong learning process

Curricular Structure
The business curriculum is divided into four tiers of specificity: Business Administration Core, Cluster Core, Pathways, and Specialties.

Tier 1: Business Administration Core
The Business Administration Core consists of academic and technical content common to the four clusters, or occupational groupings, in the States’ Career Cluster Initiative. This core content is divided into 13 instructional areas identified on page 4.

Tier 2: Cluster Core
This tier represents the skills and knowledge that are common to each individual cluster; i.e., Finance Core, Hospitality Core, Business Management and Administration Core, and Marketing Core. Core content for each cluster was identified through a review of business literature and interviews with business representatives employed in each cluster.

Tier 3: Pathways
Tier three represents the content of a variety of broad-based occupational opportunities called Pathways. As an example, the Pathways in the Finance Cluster are Accounting, Banking Services, Business Finance, Insurance, and Securities and Investments.

Tier 4: Specialties
The final tier of specificity contains curricular content unique to a product or service. It addresses job opportunities associated with each Pathway. In the Marketing Cluster’s Professional Selling Pathway, examples of some Specialties are pharmaceutical sales, advertising sales, and real-estate sales.

State Sponsors
These national standards were funded in part by the collaborative efforts of 29 state education departments.  MarkED is grateful for the support of:

Business Administration Core Standards

Business Law: Understands business’s responsibility to know, abide by, and enforce laws and regulations that affect business operations and transactions [Includes Career Cluster topics (e.g., Ethics and Legal Responsibilities)]
Communication Skills: Understands the concepts, strategies, and systems used to obtain and convey ideas and information (Addresses Career Cluster topic: Communications)

Customer Relations: Understands the techniques and strategies used to foster positive, ongoing relationships with customers [Includes Career Cluster topics (e.g., Problem Solving and Critical Thinking, Systems)]

Economics: Understands the economic principles and concepts fundamental to business operations [Includes Career Cluster topics (e.g., Academic Foundations)]

Emotional Intelligence: Understands techniques, strategies, and systems used to foster self-understanding and enhance relationships with others [Includes Career Cluster topics (e.g., Leadership and Teamwork, Ethics and Legal Responsibilities)]

Entrepreneurship: Understands the concepts, processes, and skills associated with identifying new ideas, opportunities, and methods and with creating or starting a new project or venture [Includes Career Cluster topics (e.g., Systems)]

Financial Analysis: Understands tools, strategies, and systems used to maintain, monitor, control, and plan the use of financial resources [Includes Career Cluster topics (e.g., Systems, Technical Skills)]
Human Resources Management: Understands the tools, techniques, and systems that businesses use to plan, staff, lead, and organize its human resources [Includes Career Cluster topics (e.g., Leadership and Teamwork, Problem Solving and Critical Thinking, Systems)]

Information Management: Understands tools, strategies, and systems needed to access, process, maintain, evaluate, and disseminate information to assist business decision-making [Includes Career Cluster topics (e.g., Information Technology Applications, Technical Skills)]

Marketing: Understands the tools, techniques, and systems that businesses use to create exchanges and satisfy organizational objectives [Includes Career Cluster topics (e.g., Systems)]

Operations: Understands the processes and systems implemented to monitor, plan, and control the day-to-day activities required for continued business functioning [Includes Career Cluster topics (e.g., Safety, Health and Environmental; Systems)]

Professional Development: Understands concepts, tools, and strategies used to explore, obtain, and develop in a business career [Includes Career Cluster topics (e.g., Problem Solving and Critical Thinking, Employability and Career Development, Technical Skills)]

Strategic Management: Understands tools, techniques, and systems that affect a business’s ability to plan, control, and organize an organization/department [Includes Career Cluster topics (e.g., Technical Skills)]

Organizational Structure

Knowledge and Skill (Standards)
Within each tier, the curricular content has been organized into Knowledge and Skill Statements, (Standards), Performance
Elements, and Performance Indicators.  The Knowledge and Skill Statements are broad-based content standards that identify what students should know and be able to do as a result of instruction. These statements encapsulate the overarching intent/purpose of a work function.

Performance Elements
Each Knowledge and Skill Statement is composed of multiple Performance Elements. These are broad-based work or cognitive performances that aid in defining the Knowledge and Skill Statements.

Performance Indicators
Performance Elements are defined through Performance Indicators: specific work-based skills and knowledge that specify what an individual worker must know or be able to do to achieve the Performance Elements. They are measurable in that the quality of work associated with them can be determined. The States’ Career Cluster Initiative currently uses the term Measurement Criteria in reference to performance indicators.

Finance Cluster

The Finance Cluster incorporates career opportunities that make strategic decisions to report, obtain, save, protect, and grow the financial assets of businesses and individuals.

Finance Pathways

Accounting: Careers that record, classify, summarize, analyze, and communicate a business’s financial information/ business transactions for use in management decision-making

Banking Services: Careers that accept deposits, lend funds, and extend credit

Business Finance: Careers that manage policy and strategy for (and the implementation of) capital structure, budgeting, acquisition and merger, financial modeling and planning, funding, dividends and taxation

Insurance: Careers that protect individuals and businesses from financial losses by delivering “products” that transfer risk from an individual or business to an insurance company

Securities and Investments: Careers that support the flow of funds from investors to companies and institutions

These pathways encompass both financial services and financial functions that are interrelated. While many performance indicators in Accounting are also in the other Finance Pathways, Accounting also exists as its own separate pathway. All five Finance Pathways are interrelated and stand alone as pathways in finance.

Finance Standards
Instruction for the finance cluster is based on the 13 Business Administration Core Standards, plus four additional standards with outcomes unique to finance careers:
 • Compliance
 • Financial-Information Management         

Additional standards address specialized content associated
with selected pathways.

Research Process
The National Business Administration Standards for finance, business management and administration, and marketing (including entrepreneurship) are derived from an extensive research process conducted over a five-year period. Activities included:

Secondary Research

Primary Research

MarkED’s standards research is a continuing process. Revisions are posted at www.mbaresearch.org  (curriculum and teaching).

Business Management and Administration Cluster
Career opportunities dedicated to performing administrative and managerial processes vital to the success and ongoing existence of a business organization, regardless of the sector or industry in which the business resides or the product/service it provides.

Business Management and Administration Pathways

Administrative Services: Career opportunities that facilitate business operations through a variety of administrative and clerical duties including information and communication management, data processing and collection, and project tracking

Business Information Management: Careers that provide a bridge between business processes or initiatives and IT and help to align business and IT goals

Corporate/General Management: Careers that focus on planning, organizing, directing, and evaluating all or part of a business organization through the allocation and use of financial, human, and material resources

Human Resources Management: Careers that focus on the staffing activities that involve planning, recruitment, selection, orientation, training, performance appraisal, compensation, and safety of employees

Operations Management: Career opportunities that focus on planning, organizing, coordinating, and controlling the resources needed to produce or provide a business’s goods

Business Management and Administration Standards

Instruction for the cluster is based on the 13 Business Administration Core Standards, plus four additional standards with outcomes unique to business management and administration careers:
 • Knowledge Management
 • Project Management

Additional standards address specialized content associated with selected pathways.

Curriculum Planning Levels

To facilitate curriculum planning, the performance indicators are assigned to one of six curriculum planning levels. These levels represent a continuum of instruction ranging from simple to complex. The levels can serve as building blocks for curriculum development in that students should know and be able to perform the performance indicators at one level before tackling more complex skills and knowledge at the next level.

Curriculum planning levels can also be used as the basis for developing an unduplicated sequence of instruction for articulation between high school and postsecondary business courses. The six curriculum planning levels are:

Prerequisite (PQ)
Career-Sustaining (CS)
Specialist (SP)
Supervisor (SU)
Manager (MN)
Owner (ON)

For more complete information and descriptions of each planning level, please visit the curriculum section of our web site (www.mbaresearch.org).

Marketing Cluster
Careers in the Marketing Cluster create, communicate, and deliver value to customers and manage customer relationships in ways that benefit the organization and its stakeholders.

Marketing Pathways

Marketing Communications: Career opportunities that inform, remind, and/or persuade a target market of ideas, experiences, goods/services, and/or images

Marketing Management: Careers that require broad, cross-functional knowledge of marketing and management to support strategic decision-making

Marketing Research: Careers that utilize qualitative and quantitative research methods to determine information needs, design data-collection processes, collect data, analyze them, and present data so that they can be used to make business decisions

Merchandising: Career opportunities in retailing that focus on efficient and effective product planning, product selection, buying, licensing, and inventory control

Professional Selling: Careers that require in-depth knowledge of the target customer such as the customer’s needs, business, competitors, and products; pre-sales activities; sales processes and techniques; and servicing after the sale

Marketing Standards
Instruction for the marketing cluster is based on the 13 Business Administration Core Standards, plus seven additional standards with outcomes unique to marketing careers:
 • Channel Management
 • Marketing-Information Management 
 • Market Planning
 • Pricing
 • Product/Service Management
 • Promotion
 • Selling     
Additional standards address specialized content associated
with selected pathways.

Building Courses and Programs of Study
Research-based standards and supporting performance indicators (competencies) provide the starting point for building a quality, rigorous and relevant local program.  MarkED’s course-design process, outlined in more detail at www.mbaresearch.org, incorporates the following decision-model:

 • Determine the level of the desired curriculum (page 6)
 • Review corresponding BA performance indicators and develop objective rationale for changes
 • Determine level of specificity – i.e., clusters, pathways, specialties (page 3)
 • Review corresponding performance indicators and develop objective rationale for changes
 • Assign resulting list of indicators to courses
 • Identify major student experiences to be associated with standards and courses
 • Identify resources as required
 • Determine appropriate pedagogy throughout
 • Develop or identify appropriate assessment tools and strategies
 • Identify and encourage appropriate certifications (independent proof of learning)

Academic Integration
The 2008 Business Administration standards lend themselves to academic integration in a variety of ways.  Many of the technical standards build upon various academic standards, particularly in math (e.g., statistics), language arts (e.g., technical writing, interpreting technical documents), or sciences (e.g., scientific method, data-based decision-making), and social studies (e.g., economics). Specific teaching resources are also available from MarkED.
States’ Career Cluster Initiative

The research reported in this document was completed in part to support the States’ Career Cluster Initiative (16 broad occupational groupings).  The research findings have been endorsed by the State Directors of Career and Technical Education Foundation, which provides oversight of the Career Cluster initiative.  MarkED’s research findings, edited for consistency with other clusters, will be the basis for Career Cluster revisions scheduled for release by the State Directors’ offices in 2008.
The Career Cluster initiative presently recognizes 10 Cluster Topics that form the
basis for reporting in all 16 recognized clusters. For a variety of technical and philosophical reasons, the 10 Cluster Topics are not reported separately in MarkED’s research findings. Rather, they are integrated throughout the core and Cluster standards reported herein. A detailed crosswalk documenting the correlation between the Cluster Topics and MarkED’s work is included in the appendix of each final report.

Assessment
Students have many opportunities to prove what they’ve learned in Business Administration Programs. These opportunities include:

A•S•K Certification
An industry-based exam to certify student learning of specified business skills and concepts
www.ASKInstitute.org 

CLEP Tests
Business-related College-Level Examination Program® exams that demonstrate undergraduate college-level achievement

College
A smooth transition to college-level business courses that may include dual credits, AP, Tech Prep or other opportunities determined locally

Student Organizations
Three business-oriented high school student organizations (BPA, DECA/DEX, FBLA/PBL) and their respective collegiate associations, offer competitive opportunities for business students of all ages to prove their technical competence.

Technical Assessment
Custom-designed end-of-program and end-of-course assessments are available from MarkED for each Cluster and Pathway.


Final Reports
Research findings, including the complete list of validated performance indicators (measurement criteria) are available at www.mbaresearch.org (Curriculum/Teaching).
Technical Assistance
For technical assistance, including technical assessment, readers are invited to contact MarkED directly:  This e-mail address is being protected from spam bots, you need JavaScript enabled to view it .