Internal Assessment

What Is the IB Business Management IA?

The Internal Assessment is worth 30% of your final SL grade (20% at HL) and needs a different skill set from the written exam: researching a real organisation, identifying a genuine business issue, and applying course tools to a justified conclusion. It is a written commentary of about 1,800 words (the same task at SL and HL) — you do not design or conduct an experiment.

Format overview

Base your commentary on three to five supporting documents about a real organisation facing a real issue. These provide the factual basis for your analysis — news articles, company financial statements, interview transcripts, or extracts from the company's own publications. You then apply business management tools, techniques, and theories to analyse the issue and draw a justified conclusion that answers your research question.

The commentary is marked across several assessment areas, explained below.

Supporting documents (selection and relevance)

Your supporting documents must be genuinely relevant to the issue you are analysing, providing concrete, specific information — not just general background. Strong documents give you data and evidence to use: financial figures, market data, quotes from decision-makers, or descriptions of the specific problem. A general company history that does not link to your chosen issue will not support strong analysis.

Choice and application of business tools, techniques and theories

This is the analytical core. Select appropriate course tools (SWOT analysis, ratio analysis, decision trees, Ansoff's matrix, force field analysis, STEEPLE) and apply them effectively to the specific issue. "Apply" and "analyse" are the key words — you are not describing what the tool is, you are using it to generate insight. A SWOT that lists four bullet points without connecting each to evidence from your supporting documents is superficial; one where each point links to specific evidence and informs a recommendation is effective.

Choice and analysis of data and integration of ideas

Extract and interpret relevant data from your supporting documents and integrate it coherently into your argument — financial figures (revenue, profit margins, debt levels), market share data, employee numbers, survey results, growth rates. The data should be directly relevant to the issue, and you should show you understand what the numbers mean, not just quote them.

Conclusions

Draw conclusions that are consistent with the evidence you presented and explicitly answer the commentary question. This is not a summary — it is a clear, justified judgement that follows logically from your analysis. A weak conclusion says "the business should consider all options carefully." A strong one says "based on the SWOT, ratio analysis, and force field analysis above, the analysis shows the business should pursue Option A because it addresses the identified weaknesses while building on the company's key strengths in X and Y, and the expected value analysis suggests it has the strongest risk-adjusted return." (Under the current syllabus, recommendations to the organisation are not required — the priority is answering the research question with well-substantiated conclusions.)

Evaluation

Critically reflect on your own analysis. What are its limitations? What assumptions have you made, and how might they affect your conclusions? What factors might change them? Which stakeholder groups would be affected? A strong evaluation acknowledges uncertainty and alternative perspectives, showing that you understand business decisions are rarely clear-cut.

Structure and presentation

The commentary should be well-organised — a clear introduction, logical flow between sections, an argument that is easy to follow. Present it with a title page, an accurate table of contents, appropriate headings, consistent referencing of all sources (including supporting documents) in a recognised citation style, and numbered pages. Graphs, tables, and diagrams should be clearly labelled and referred to in the text.