Business Management Course Details

Your four semester Associate Degree in Business Management program consists of courses covering business topics such as business law, economics, corporate finance, and more!

Program Goal and Outcomes

Program Goal

To provide students with the education they need to launch their own business or join an established business in an entry-level position developing the strategies, plans, procedures, and policies that guide a business on both a day-to-day and long-term basis.

  • Demonstrate effective written and interpersonal communication skills
  • Demonstrate effective quantitative skills
  • Demonstrate computer and information literacy
  • Discuss the management function and application to the business organization
  • Understand the steps of the accounting cycle and utilize financial document information as a management tool to plan, and track the financial status of a business
  • Discuss the factors affecting marketing plans to promote the business’s products or services through an understanding of marketing principles and consumer buying habits
  • Discuss and apply ethical and legal standards to the business environment.
  • Demonstrate an understanding of economic and financial markets and the business economy
  • Understand the fundamentals of human resources as it relates to the business environment

Semester 1

Basic Skills Assessment

All degree applicants are required to complete two Basic Skills Assessments, one in reading and one in math, to determine the level of readiness for beginning their selected program. Additional studies may be required.



  • Understand how to use your Student Portal.
  • Connect with Penn Foster on various social media sites.
  • Determine personal financial goals.
  • Set up a typical budget.
Get better at finding and using information!


  • Search the Internet more effectively.
  • Get tips about search engines and reliable websites.

This course outlines the elements of business and the challenges businesses face in a global environment, such as competition and economic factors. You'll learn why accounting, technology and information systems, marketing, and management are essential to starting and growing a business. You'll also learn the basics of managing financial and human resources and the ethical and social responsibilities required of a successful manager.


  • Identify different elements that distinguish capitalism, socialism, communism, and mixed economies
  • Define the role of small business in the free enterprise system
  • Assess elements of the global economy, such as labor, capital, trade, and natural resources, and how they influence business
  • Analyze the functions of business, such as management, organization, human relations, marketing, financing, and ethics
  • Identify the purpose of business policy and strategy
This course familiarizes the student with both the business environment and the manager’s role within it. It covers decision making, planning, organizing, leading, and controlling, as well as developing an ethical perspective. 


  • Summarize the functions of management and the basic steps in various planning processes.
  • Explain how to make effective decisions as a manager and a leader.
  • Describe the fundamental elements of an organization’s structure and the components of an organization’s competitive environment.
  • Explain principles for setting goals that motivate employees, why companies develop control systems, and why teamwork is beneficial.
  • Analyze why diversity is a critical organizational and managerial issue, and describe the criteria for technology decisions and managing change.

Textbook: M: Management, 6th edition

In this course, you will gain an understanding of artistic media, historical periods and artistic movements, the roles of the artist and the viewer, and the principles of art criticism.


  • Define the language, visual elements, and principles of design of art
  • Identify two-dimensional media
  • Identify three-dimensional media
  • Explain the evolution of art from ancient Mediterranean cultures through eighteenth century Europe
  • Identify features and popular examples of art throughout the history of African, Asian, Pacific, and American cultures
  • Compare the genres of the Modern and Postmodern eras of art from around the world

Additional Course Material:
Textbook: Living with Art, 11th Edition

This course will provide you with a foundation in basic mathematical operations, including percentages, discounts, interest, present worth, sinking funds, installment buying, pricing, depreciation, investments, insurance, symbols, and statistics.


  • Analyze functions of whole numbers, fractions, decimals, and percents.
  • Show calculations involved in simple interest, compound interest, and time value of money.
  • Prepare various business math applications involving financial reports, installment buying, and depreciation.
  • Analyze various financial concepts related to taxes, insurance, financial investments, and basic business statistics.

Additional Course Material:
Textbook: Practical Business Math Procedures

Proctored Exam


Semester 2



  • Incorporate useful charts and graphs to summarize data.

This course teaches the skills and techniques of effectively developing, drafting, and revising college-level essays toward a specific purpose and audience: active reading, prewriting strategies, sentence and paragraph structure, thesis statements, varied patterns of development (e.g., illustration, comparison and contrast, classification), critical reading toward revision of structure and organization, editing for standard written conventions, use and documentation of outside sources. Students submit two prewriting assignments, and three essays (process analysis, classification and division, argumentation).


  • Use writing skills to construct well-written sentences and active reading skills to understand and analyze text
  • Develop paragraphs using topic sentences, adequate detail, supporting evidence, and transitions
  • Describe the revision, editing, and proofreading steps of the writing process
  • Distinguish between different patterns of development
  • Use prewriting, drafting, revising, and editing to write a formal, college-level essay
  • Recognize how to determine the reliability of secondary sources and to give proper credit to sources referenced in an essay
  • Use techniques of drafting, evaluating, and creating a sound written argument
This course will provide students with a basic understanding of the principles of financial accounting. Topics covered include analyzing transactions; completing the accounting cycle; merchandising businesses; inventories, assets, and liabilities; and corporations, stocks, bonds, and cash flow.


  • Solve important accounting principles and concepts by creating four common types of financial statements: balance sheet, income statement, statement of retained earnings, and statement of cash flows
  • Explain inventory systems, the inventory process, and the role of ethics in accounting
  • Explain cash and receivables, assets, current liabilities, and debt
  • Analyze stocks and the statement of cash flows and financial statements that are used to assess the value of a business

This course covers the principles of marketing. Topics covered include assessing, analyzing, understanding, and targeting the marketplace, as well as the creation, capture, delivery, and communication of value. Students will learn how to develop a marketing plan, use social and mobile marketing effectively, integrate ethics into marketing strategies, influence the consumer decision process, perform market research, perform SWOT and STP analyses, make decisions concerning branding, packaging, and developing new products, price products and services fairly, set advertising objectives, and more.


  • Analyze marketing plans, strategies and the aids needed to catalyze it
  • Analyze the foundation of the marketing model and its emergence
  • Point out the targeted strategies and plans in marketing and globalization
  • Formulate a plan of valuing production, innovation, and product marketing
  • Develop the valuing strategies for products and services in marketing
  • Categorize the strategies for supply chain management and retailing
  • Distinguish between the various domains under IMC strategies
  • Design a marketing plan for an existing business

Textbook: M: Marketing 7th edition

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SSC105 - World Civilizations

This course serves as an introduction to many of the major events of the fifteenth through twenty-first centuries and examines the causal relationships between events and trends.


  • Summarize the various causes and consequences of global trade and its conflicting worldwide impact
  • Report the impact of social and industrial revolutions, fifteenth century onward, on various nations
  • Analyze the conditions that led to the World Wars, decolonization, and the Cold War
  • Analyze post–World War II effects on the economic and political structures around the world
  • Summarize an event that occurred after the fifteenth century and had an impact on a world civilization
  • Demonstrate a knowledge and understanding of World War II and its effects on the world population

Textbook: A History of World Societies, Volume 2

SSC125 - Introduction to Sociology

This course is designed to introduce you to social structure and social interaction through groups, networks, and organizations. Study politics, the economy, population, social movements, technology, and social change.


  • Describe deviance, crime, and social control.
  • Discuss the effects of stratification, racial and ethnic inequality, sex, gender, and sexuality.
  • Examine the role of health, family, education, and religion in human behavior.

SSC130 - Essentials of Psychology

This course will introduce you to the relationship between biology and behavior. You will learn about human development throughout the life span.


  • Identify major psychological theories.
  • Discuss consciousness, memory, thought, and language.
  • Define intelligence, personality, and stress.
  • Analyze the role of gender in psychology.
  • Explain how community influences behavior.
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HUM104 - Music Appreciation

In this course, you'll understand how to appreciate music by learning about the roles of the composer and the listener, the principles of music theory and instrumentation, musically significant historical periods, and varying styles of music.


  • Identify the building blocks of music a composer can use to create a piece, such as rhythm, melody, harmony, texture, form, and timbre
  • Explain the evolution of Western music through history, from the Middle Ages to the twenty-first century
  • Differentiate between the music of the baroque era and the musical styles of previous time periods
  • Recognize the major characteristics of classical music, including form, melody, and instrumentation
  • Discuss the musical trends and innovations that occurred during the romantic era
  • Trace the evolution of American popular music in the twentieth century
  • Recognize the influence of world music on modern Western composition

Additional Course Material:
Textbook: Experience Music, Fourth Edition

ENG115 - Introduction to Literature 

This course will allow you to develop your critical thinking skills and broaden your knowledge of the main genres of literature — fiction, poetry, and drama.


  • Explain how to effectively read fiction for both knowledge and enjoyment
  • Identify different styles and forms of poetry
  • Use what you've learned in this course to discuss, write about, and understand literature
  • Prepare a critical interpretation of fiction or poetry based on what you've learned in this course
  • Discuss how literary dramas differ from fiction and poetry
  • Identify different strategies of critical literary analysis
Proctored Exam


Semester 3

This course will provide an overview of macroeconomics and the modern market economy. Law of supply and demand, the cost of living, monetary systems, international factors, and short-run economic fluctuations will be examined and discussed.


  • Explain the economic systems and the economic perspective
  • Identify the key factors in macroeconomics and how economists study the economy as a whole
  • Explain the macroeconomic models and fiscal policies
  • Explain money, banking, and financial policy
  • Explain extending analysis of aggregate supply, current issues in theory and policy, and international economics
  • Analyze foreign exchange and investment and the effects each nation’s economy has on another nation’s economy
This course provides an introduction to managerial accounting; analysis: C-V-P and management; budgeting and performance evaluation; decentralized operations; differential analysis and product pricing; capital investment analysis, and cost activities.


  • Analyze the various concepts related to managerial accounting and the cost accounting
  • Show the different tools of management used for the decision-making process
  • Identify the various budget analysis processes and the performance measurements for decision making
  • Analyze the various components of capital budgeting, cash flow statements, and ratio analysis
  • Solve examples of real-world accounting problems using knowledge of accounting forms and equations

Textbook: Managerial Accounting

Study basic algebraic concepts. Review the systems of equations, polynomials, and radicals. Learn how to factor polynomial expressions and simplify rational expressions.


  • Explain basic algebraic concepts
  • Solve and graph linear equations and inequalities
  • Analyze relations, functionality, and systems of linear equations
  • Prepare algebraic operations on polynomial and rational expressions and equations
  • Solve problems involving radicals and complex numbers

Additional Course Material:
Textbook: Intermediate Algebra

This course provides an introduction to the various methods of organizing material for a professional setting. Students will compose business documents using the ABC method. These include memos, emails, outlines, reports and proposals, descriptions, and organizing materials. Students also work on honing their grammar skills.


  • Describe the basics of the writing process and the ABC method of organizing material for a document
  • Identify the parts of speech in a sentence
  • Demonstrate correct pronoun use
  • Choose proper and effective words for writing documents
  • Identify the elements of a well-written sentence
  • Demonstrate how to use length, directness, emphasis, and variety to craft impactful sentences
  • Explain how to construct a coherent paragraph
  • Describe how to write an effective cover letter and resume
  • Format and write an interoffice memorandum, a routine business letter, and an effective email
  • Identify the different ways to write for blogs, the Internet, and social media
  • Describe how to create an organized formal outline
  • Identify the types of research and methods of documentation used in business and technical writing
  • Explain how to create visual interest and clarity in reports with illustrations, tables, graphs, charts, and overall design
  • Explain the purpose and importance of various types of informal reports
  • Describe the nature of formal reports and identify their components
  • Differentiate among external, internal, informal, and formal proposals
  • Describe an object or a process and prepare a set of instructions
  • Describe the preparation and submission of professional and technical articles and manuals
This course provides an overview of Human Resources Management (HRM) as it's understood today. It illustrates the dynamic interaction of the personnel functions with each other and with the objectives of an organization.


  • Describe the elements of human resource management, including labor considerations, regulation, and management of workflow
  • Explain how companies should prepare for and implement HRM to hire new employees and create training programs
  • Identify the aspects of employee, career, and turnover management
  • Summarize how employees are paid, including legal requirements, performance-based pay, commissions, salaries, and benefits
  • Describe other HRM functions including collective bargaining, labor relations, global HRM, and building a high-performance organization

Additional Course Materials:
Textbook: Fundamentals of Human Resource Management

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SCI120 - Introduction to Biology

An introductory course that explains the origin of life and the relationships between all living things. It describes how a significant number of organisms are structured and how they work, in order to enable students to discuss intelligently the various forms of life and their processes.


  • Analyze cells and their processes for obtaining energy and reproducing.
  • Explain how traits are passed on from one generation to the next.
  • Explain how different species of living things have evolved and are classified.
  • Write responses to fundamental biology essay prompts.
  • Identify the characteristics and behavior of plants and animals.
  • Diagram the anatomy and physiology of the human body.
  • Describe the ecology of living things.
  • Summarize complex biological issues using research articles.

SCI140 - Nutrition 



  • Explain the various components of nutrition as a science.
  • Describe nutrition from a global viewpoint.
  • Understand the importance of water and exercise.
  • Identify the basics of human growth and aging.
  • Discuss food safety procedures.

SCI110 - Earth Science



  • Describe specific characteristics of Earth.
  • Describe different types of rocks and minerals.
Proctored Exam


Semester 4

This course will introduce students to the world of finance including financial concepts, instruments, and financial decision making. Topics covered include financial assets, investing in long-term assets, capital structure and dividend policy, financial planning, and working capital management.


  • Categorize financial management functions and organizational structure
  • Analyze a firm's financial statements, cash flow values, risks, and returns
  • Recommend budgeting policies, planning, structures, and costs for a firm's capital

Additional Course Material:
Textbook: Finance: Applications & Theory


This course is an introduction to the legal environment of business. Topics covered include American court practice and procedure, torts, employment law, international law, environmental law, and contract law.


  • Categorize the various sources of law in the U.S. legal system
  • Analyze the formations and characteristics of sole proprietorships, partnerships, and the corporation forms of business entities
  • Point out the various constituents of the contract law
  • Show the rules of a written contract with the rights and breaching of a contract
  • Report the contract laws that govern principal-agent relationships, law of agency, and labor-management relationships

Textbook: Business Law with UCC Applications

This course provides an overview of management approaches.


  • Learn the process of human decision-making.
  • Study conflict management, communication in groups, power and influence, and organizational environment, structure, and design.
  • Learn about the fundamental forces of change.


  • Interpret and present data.
  • Conduct time series analysis.
  • Forecast business.
  • Apply the theory of probability and statistical inference.


  • Describe how to effectively use of the 10 necessary steps to preparing and presenting a public speech
  • Demonstrate effective delivery and presentation techniques through practice and rehearsal
  • Show how to effectively organize and present a narrative/personal experience speech
  • Make effective presentation aids to enhance your public speaking
  • Produce a speech to inform your audience of a product or service
  • Prepare a speech to persuade your audience on a topic in which you are personally invested
  • Demonstrate the key elements of public speaking through a variety of formats and occasions
Proctored Exam


Additional Details


Penn Foster College Accreditation & Licensing Details


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A Committed Support System

While you can study independently, you’re not alone! With a dedicated Student Services department, the Student Community, and instructors just a call away, you’ll have access to the support you need.


Over the course of our Business Management Associate Degree program, you will have the opportunity to attend live or recorded webinars to help you better understand your lessons. The live webinars will allow you to ask our instructors questions in real time.

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Progress Tracking and Goal Setting Tools

Our customizable goal-setting tools will help you create a schedule and stick to it. Need some extra time to complete a lesson? Not a problem — you can adjust your study plan at any time to set a pace that works for you.

Student Community

Looking to connect with other Penn Foster students? Our Student Community is the perfect place for you to interact with your peers — as well as Penn Foster faculty and staff — to discuss your online learning experience, congratulate fellow students, and share your Penn Foster experience.

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sample lesson.

Sample Business Management Associate Degree Lesson

Penn Foster courses are written in a way that is easy to understand, and materials are broken down into manageable lessons. Take a look at what an Associate Degree in Business Management course would look like.

Computer Specifications
As you know this is an online academic program. This means you will need access to high-speed internet to begin your program. In addition, you will need access to a Microsoft® Windows® based computer running Windows 10® or later or an Apple® Mac® computer running macOS® or later, Microsoft® Office 2019 or Microsoft 365®, and an email account to complete this program.