How to write an IB Business Management IA: complete 2026 guide

Why the IA matters more than you think

The Internal Assessment is worth 30% of your final grade at SL and 20% at HL. Since the first assessment in 2024, SL and HL students write the same business research project, with the same limit of 1,800 words. That's a lot of marks sitting in a single document that you have months to perfect. Yet every year, students walk in with brilliant research questions and walk out with mid-band marks because they confused length for depth.

The IA is not an essay competition. It is a structured business investigation. Markers want to see that you picked a focused question, applied two or three relevant tools properly, drew a defensible conclusion and respected the format. Anything beyond that is decoration.

One sentence summary. A great IA answers a single business question, using two or three frameworks and 3 to 5 supporting documents, through one key concept, in no more than 1,800 words, and concludes with a judgement.

1. Pick the right organisation

You need a real organisation you can access. That word matters. If you can't find 3 to 5 recent, detailed documents about the issue (annual reports, financial statements, industry reports, serious journalism), you'll struggle in Criterion B (supporting documents) regardless of how exciting the company sounds.

Good choices:

• A local SME where you (or a relative) know the owner: you can interview them, see their accounts, observe operations.
• A medium-sized firm that publishes detailed annual reports.
• A school-linked organisation (the school itself, a uniform supplier, a canteen contractor).

Bad choices:

• Apple, Tesla, Coca-Cola: too big, too well-covered, and you won't get primary data.
• A start-up your friend is launching: no real data yet.
• An organisation in a totally different country with no English-language sources.

2. Craft a research question that won't trap you

The research question is the single most important sentence in your IA. A bad RQ guarantees a bad essay; a sharp RQ does half the work for you.

The IA-friendly RQ formula:

To what extent [decision/strategy] is the right choice for [organisation] in [time frame]?

Examples that work:

• To what extent should Café Lumière expand into delivery within the next 12 months?
• To what extent will adopting cell production improve productivity at MetalWorks SA over the next 2 years?
• To what extent is influencer marketing the best promotional strategy for Casa Roma to attract a 25 to 35 demographic?

Notice the structure: there is a decision, a specific firm, and a time frame. That trio forces you to evaluate, not just describe.

3. Choose your supporting documents

The IA is built on 3 to 5 supporting documents. Each one must be dated and no more than three years old when you submit, and each should ideally be no longer than about five A4 pages (use a relevant extract of a longer report). The documents must be attached to your IA: a URL alone is not enough.

Good mix: a document published by the company, independent journalism, an industry or government report, and a source that offers a critical or different view. Range and depth matter more than volume.

Primary research such as an interview or a survey is optional: the research can be based on primary sources, secondary sources or both. Of your 3 to 5 supporting documents, at most one may be a transcript of an interview, a video or an audio recording; the others are secondary sources such as reports, articles and company documents. Survey results can inform your research, but they cannot be attached as extra supporting documents. Reference everything, because the IB takes academic honesty seriously.

4. Choose two or three tools (not five)

One of the most common errors is dumping five frameworks into 1,800 words. Markers see this immediately, and it hurts both Criterion C (selection and application of tools and theories) and Criterion D (analysis and evaluation).

Pick 2 to 3 tools that match your RQ. For a marketing question: SWOT + Boston Matrix + Porter's Five Forces. For a finance question: break-even + ratios + investment appraisal. For an HR question: Maslow + Force Field analysis.

Whatever you pick, apply it properly. A half-applied SWOT with 2 items per quadrant is worth less than no SWOT at all.

5. The structure markers actually want

1. Title page: RQ, key concept, candidate code, word count.
2. Contents page: paginated.
3. Acknowledgements: short.
4. Introduction (150 to 200 words): the firm, the issue, the RQ, the scope.
5. Methodology (150 to 200 words): what data, how collected, limitations.
6. Main results & analysis (800 to 1,000 words): apply your tools, integrate data, build the argument.
7. Conclusions & recommendations (200 to 300 words): answer the RQ with a judgement, suggest action.
8. References: full citations, formatted consistently.
9. Supporting documents and appendices: the 3 to 5 attached documents (at most one of them a transcript of an interview, video or audio), plus any survey data in an appendix.

6. Apply the marking criteria as you write

Don't write the IA, then check the criteria. Write each section with the criterion taped to your monitor:

• A: Integration of a key concept (5 marks): one of change, creativity, ethics or sustainability, used as a lens throughout.
• B: Supporting documents (4 marks): relevance, depth and range of views.
• C: Selection and application of tools and theories (4 marks): suitable tools, applied correctly to the evidence.
• D: Analysis and evaluation (5 marks): depth of reasoning, balance, limitations.
• E: Conclusions (3 marks): answer the RQ, consistent with the evidence.
• F: Structure (2 marks): a logical, coherent argument.
• G: Presentation (2 marks): title page, contents, headings, page numbers, consistent references.

That is 25 marks in total. These are short summaries; read the full descriptors in the IB subject guide or ask your teacher for them.

7. Common mistakes that cost easy marks

• Descriptive instead of evaluative. "The SWOT shows X" is description. "The SWOT suggests Y because Z, but A weakens this view" is evaluation.
• Too many tools. Three applied well > five applied badly.
• No clear judgement. Markers want a "yes / no / partially" answer to the RQ, with reasoning.
• Word count abuse. The limit is 1,800 words for SL and HL, and headings count. Anything after the limit is not read or marked.
• Weak referencing. Citations matter for academic honesty and for Criteria B and G.

Master those seven points and the IA becomes a controllable, repeatable process. Most students don't lose marks on what they don't know. They lose them on what they didn't tighten.