Influences on Business Decisions | Edexcel A-Level Business (9BS0)
Influences on Business Decisions
- 97 questions
- 4 subtopics
- Theme 3: business decisions and strategy
- Paper 2 and Paper 3
Influences on business decisions is the fourth section of Theme 3.
It covers the pressures inside a business that shape what it decides: how far ahead it looks, the culture it has grown, whose interests it serves, and where profit and ethics pull in different directions.
Sample questions from Influences on Business Decisions
Answer each one closed book first, then open the answer.
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Corporate influences
Why do family-owned and private businesses often find it easier to adopt long-term perspectives?
Show the answer
They face less pressure for immediate shareholder returns, allowing them to focus on sustainable growth over extended periods. -
Corporate influences
What factors might limit the effectiveness of evidence-based decision making?
Show the answer
The quality, relevance, or availability of data, and the time and cost required to gather it. -
Corporate culture
What benefits does role culture provide to an organisation?
Show the answer
Stability and predictability. -
Corporate culture
How does socialisation of new employees transmit corporate culture?
Show the answer
Through induction, training and informal learning, new employees learn cultural norms and expectations. -
Shareholders versus stakeholders
What are the typical objectives of employees as stakeholders?
Show the answer
Job security and fair pay. -
Shareholders versus stakeholders
How might cutting wages to increase profits create shareholder-stakeholder conflict?
Show the answer
Wage cuts boost profits and shareholder returns but harm employees by reducing their income and potentially their motivation and wellbeing. -
Business ethics
Give three examples of ethical pay practices.
Show the answer
Paying living wages, ensuring equal pay for equal work, and avoiding exploitative wage structures. -
Business ethics
State four arguments in favour of businesses adopting CSR.
Show the answer
Enhanced brand reputation, improved employee motivation, customer loyalty and long-term profitability.
The 4 subtopics
One subtopic is one session. Work down the list.
| Subtopic | What it covers | Questions |
|---|---|---|
| Corporate influences | Short-termism against long-termism and why ownership affects the choice, evidence-based against subjective decision making, and the factors that decide the balance between data and judgement. | 23 |
| Corporate culture | Strong and weak cultures, Handy's power, role, task and person cultures, how culture forms, and the difficulty of changing it. | 29 |
| Shareholders versus stakeholders | Internal and external stakeholders, what each wants from a business, and the conflicts that arise between the shareholder and stakeholder approaches. | 28 |
| Business ethics | Trade-offs between profit and ethics, Corporate Social Responsibility, and the effect of ethical decisions in the short term against the long term. | 17 |
How the guide is worked
Answering a question from memory stores it far better than reading the answer again. The guide runs that as a fixed procedure on one subtopic at a time, about twenty minutes a session.
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Step 1 · Closed book
Cover the answers. Work through one subtopic and write down what you can. Leave blanks where you have nothing.
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Step 2 · Open book
Go back to the top. Read each printed answer and write it out in full, including the ones you had right.
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Step 3 · Closed book again
Same questions, same order, from memory. The gap between pass one and pass three is the session result.
Read the full method, the return schedule and the research behind it.
Nearby topics
Edexcel A-Level Business Active Recall Guide
Every topic, not just this one. 2,305 questions with their answers.