Business
busi·ness · from Old English bisig: busy, occupied
Business studies deal with the knowledge, skills, attitudes, and values critical for informed, productive, ethical, and responsible participation in the formal and informal economic sectors — how organizations create value and make decisions.
- Anchor the project to a specific company, market, or decision you can study.
- Separate what people claim from what the numbers actually show.
- Watch for survivorship bias — don't study only the winners.
- If you survey or interview people, ask permission and keep responses anonymous.
Related areas & concentrations
Business overlaps with the social sciences and policy. Those neighbors are good places to find a framework, a dataset, or a mentor.
Related research areas
- Economics: markets, incentives, and how value moves
- International relations & political science: policy, trade, and regulation
- Science & technology studies (STS): how technology reshapes industries
Sample concentrations
- Business models & healthcare: how the models behind emerging apps can improve care
- High-growth entrepreneurship: the firms, founders, and ecosystems behind fast-scaling ventures
- Entrepreneurship for community development: building integration experiences for global entrepreneurial communities
- Finance & decision-making: financial accounting & analysis, capital markets, and how choices get made
Four ways into a question
Most business papers work through one of these lenses. Picking yours tells you what evidence to gather and where to find it.
Entrepreneurship & Strategy
How firms start, grow, compete, and decide where to play — the choices that make or break a venture.
Why did one local business succeed where a similar one nearby closed?
Finance & Accounting
How money is raised, spent, and measured — capital markets, valuation, and financial statements.
How did two rival companies' profit margins change over three years?
Marketing & Consumer Behavior
How people choose — brands, pricing, and what actually drives a purchase.
Does a loyalty program change how often students say they visit a café?
Management & Operations
How organizations run day to day — people, processes, and how work gets done.
How does a small team's hiring choice shape its early culture?
Turning an interest into a question
A topic isn't a research question. Narrow to one company or market, one measurable outcome, and evidence you can actually collect.
Start from a business you can observe
A public company with filings, or a local shop you can visit and ask about, both give you real evidence to work with.
Narrow to one decision or outcome
Not “why do businesses succeed” but one pricing change, one product launch, one measurable result.
Make it a “how / why” or a comparison
Compare two firms, or two time periods, so you have something to argue rather than just describe.
Decide what evidence you can get
Public filings, a survey, interviews, or a documented case — pick what's realistic in your timeframe.
Methods & where to look
Pair a method you can carry out with the data and literature that business researchers actually use.
Common methods
- Case study: a deep, evidence-based look at one firm or decision.
- Surveys: structured questions to measure consumer behavior.
- Interviews: founders, managers, or customers, with consent.
- Financial analysis: reading public filings for revenue, costs, and margins.
- Market & data analysis: comparing firms or trends over time.
A small, careful survey or a single well-documented case beats a broad opinion piece.
Where to find sources
- Company data: SEC EDGAR for public filings (10-K annual reports) and investor pages.
- Economic data: the Bureau of Labor Statistics, the U.S. Census, and the World Bank.
- Papers: Google Scholar, JSTOR, and SSRN (free working papers).
- Practitioner & journals: Harvard Business Review, and the Journal of Business Venturing.
Company press releases sell a story — balance them against filings and independent coverage.
Reading a business
You can understand almost any company through three lenses. Answer all three and you have the makings of a real analysis.
Model
How does it create and capture value? What does it sell, to whom, and how does it actually make money?
Money
What do the numbers say? Revenue, costs, and margins — is it growing, and is it profitable?
Market
Who are its customers and competitors, and what forces — rivals, regulation, trends — shape its choices?
Cite your data sources, and label clearly what's a fact from a filing versus your own interpretation.