Teaching Introduction to Business: Visual Learning for a New Generation of Students

Do you struggle to get your students to read 700-page textbooks while you try to fit an ever-expanding array of topics into your limited class time? Bovée and Thill’s Business in Action offers full, 20-chapter coverage like other leading textbooks, but does so with a high-efficiency format that is 20 percent shorter. The secret to this student-friendly approach is the concept of Exhibits That Teach. Business in Action has more than 150 unique diagrams and quick-reference tables that present vital concepts more efficiently and more effectively than long, intimidating blocks of text. Business in Action covers all the fundamentals you expect but also continues to lead the way with unique topical coverage and new ways to address important subjects. Mobile communication and connectivity are revolutionizing business, and Chapter 1’s discussion of the technological environment explains why mobile is such a disruptive technology. Aspects of mobile are integrated throughout the 8th Edition, from job search apps to mobile commerce to security and privacy concerns. With the spread of contingent workforces, talent markets, virtual organizations, and the “gig economy,” many of today’s graduates will spend some or perhaps all their careers working outside traditional organizational structures. They will need to define their personal brands and take greater responsibility for their professional growth. Business in Action helps them understand this new world of work and how they can prepare themselves to succeed in it. The rise of social media has redefined the relationships between companies and their stakeholders, and marketing communication is a great example of this fundamental shift. Companies that cling to the old 4P’s idea of unidirectional promotion are out of sync with today’s social marketplace, where consumers demand to be active participants in a free-flowing conversation about products, brands, and the companies behind them. Business in Action replaces the outdated concept of promotion with the new social communication model that reflects show today’s successful companies interact with customers.   Each chapter is divided into six concise segments, each with its own Learning Objective. Each segment focuses on the most essential concepts and terminology to help students achieve that particular objective before moving on. The consistent structure simplifies course planning and class time allocation for instructors, and it helps students organize their reading, review, and test preparation. Each chapter segment concludes with a comprehensive Checkpoint that helps students review and reinforce what they’ve learned in manageable doses, rather than reviewing an entire chapter at once. With this approach, each learning objective is addressed as a mini-chapter within the chapter, which helps students absorb new concepts in small, carefully metered segments and get confirmation before moving on to the next segment. Together, the six Checkpoints in a chapter also make an ideal test-prep tool for students: They can simply skim the Checkpoints in succession for a quick refresher on chapter concepts and key terms. The unique Real-Time Updates service is yet another way Business in Action provides more value for you and your students. This system, developed by the authors and available free to all adopters and their students, provides regular content updates linked to the material in the textbook, including interactive websites, presentations, online videos, and articles. Simply visit the Real-Time Updates website whenever you need fresh lecture material—or get new items delivered to you automatically. Media resources are also integrated into the fabric of every chapter. “Learn More” media items connect students with dozens of carefully selected resources that provide contemporary examples, best practices from innovative companies, and insights from successful professionals. Many of them will help students hone their job search skills, too. To get an examination copy of Business in Action, 8th Edition,, visit http://introtobusiness.businesscommunicationnetwork.com, and click the cover of the book on the right-hand side of the page, which will take you to the publisher's (Pearson's) catalog. Click on "Request an Exam Copy" on the upper right-hand side of the page. Alternatively, you can send a request for an exam copy to to [email protected].