This Introduction to Business course develops students’ understanding of business fundamentals with learning design structured around timely, real-world case studies and examples. Key topics include the role of business, the global economic and legal environment, ethics, marketing, accounting and finance, and managing processes and operations. Enriched OER content (text, video, simulations, etc.) orients students to the shifting business landscape and prepares them for success in business program curriculum and the workplace.

Course Improvements

We believe in making continuous improvements to our courses in order to enhance and facilitate student learning. This newest version of the course includes data-driven improvements to assessment questions and text content in order to better illustrate, clarify, and evaluate concepts.

This new edition of Waymaker Introduction to Business includes improvements and enhancements including:

• Fully revised Module 5: Legal Environment and Module 8: Entrepreneurship with new updated content.
• Added a new module, Module 17: Using Technology to Manage Business Information.
• Added practice opportunities to every learning outcome for students to enrich their learning.

Contributors

This course was developed by Lumen Learning, supplemented by content from OpenStax Principles of Economics and Boundless Business, with significant contributions by:

Primary Content Authors
Linda Williams, Tidewater Community College
Nina Burokas, Mendocino College, Saddleback College
Robert Danielson, Contributor
Tina Lance, Germanna Community College
Wendy Wright, Cerritos College
Betty Fitte, Tidewater Community College
Bob Carroll, Montgomery Community College
Andrea Foster, Montgomery Community College
Charlene Barker, Spokane Falls Community College

Acknowledgments
This book has benefited from the contributions of many people, including Magdi Alkaifi, Jeff Allen, Kylee Allred, Anthony Avram, Aidan Byrnes, Michelle Cain, Bill Chambers, Morgan Cheramie, David Clark, Benjamin Conger, Andrea Connolly, Claudia Eckelmann, Jessica Ecker, Luke Edwards, Gerardo Enriquiz, Yolanda Entzminger, Becky Forbes, Thordur Fridjonsson, Emily Fulton, Rey Lopez Gonzalez, Nico Goodbar, Brian Goulet, Kathryn Grace, Ashley Griffin, Barry Hardy, Joshua Hirschfeld, Caitland Holland, Marvin Holley, Daniel Hossa, Teri Huff, Shawna Hunt, Kathleen Jackson, Ellen Johnson, James Keating, Tammi Lampe, Abigail M, Anni Mabasa, Aaron Marcinkevich, Ryan McMahon, Nate Moore, Kathleen Norton, Lelah Jones Olender, Sophia Pierno, Forrest Presnell, Ty Powell, Forrest Presnell, Kelly Pusch, Alaina Ray, Rachel Rim, Claire Roberts, John Rolon, Jasmine Ryan, Simon Salaev, Aaron Seay, Emilee Sheffer, Kristy Stoddard, Klaas Van Gelder, Dyneesha Watkins, and Renny Y.

About Lumen

Lumen Learning courseware is based on open educational resources (OER). When we can find well designed, effective OER that are appropriately licensed, we use them in our courseware. When we can’t find pre-existing OER, we create original content and license it as OER (under a Creative Commons Attribution license).

Lumen’s authoring process doesn’t end when our courseware is released. Our choice to adopt open educational resources means that we have the copyright permissions necessary to engage in continuous improvement of our learning content. Consequently, our courses are continually being revised and updated. Errata reported for our courseware are fixed in a matter of days, as opposed to the traditional model in which errors persist until the next “edition” is printed (often a year or more). Students and faculty can suggest improvements to our courses directly from within the courseware as they use it. And we conduct regular analyses to determine where students are struggling the most in our courseware, and make improvements that specifically target these areas.

Given our unique approach, our list of authors and other contributors may look different than the lists you are used to seeing. We provide both a list of the primary content authors (the people involved in the initial creation of the course) and a list of everyone who has contributed suggestions and other improvements to the course since it was first released. We invite you to join us as we create courseware that supports student learning more effectively each semester.

If you’d like to connect with us to learn more about adopting this course, please Contact Us.

You can also make an appointment for OER Office Hours to connect virtually with a live Lumen expert about any question you may have.