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Published
September 2026
Page Count
750
ISBN (Digital)
979-8-88794-783-9

Exploring Business New: AI-powered guidance within our eReader New: Textbook audio in 32 languages and dialects (upon request) New: Podcasts Available

Version 6.0
By Karen Collins and Yundong Huang

Included Supplements

Key Features

  • Three times as many video links: Hyperlinks to over 115 embedded streaming videos enrich online courses, engage students, and reinforce or augment many of the presented topics
  • Companies that are of high interest to students, including Uber, Facebook, Under Armour, Tesla, Airbnb, GoPro, Apple, Amazon, Ben & Jerry’s, Starbucks, and Subway, are integrated throughout. An optional case study of a dynamic organization can easily be integrated into each chapter of the text; the company chosen for this purpose is Nike
  • Supportive in-text learning features:
    • Chapter-opening scenarios grab the reader’s attention with topical and compelling real-world examples that preview material to come
    • "Learning Objectives" at the beginning of each main section preview the material to come and prepare students to learn
    • "Key Takeaways" at the end of each main section reflect the corresponding Learning Objectives and summarize key ideas in bullet-point fashion. Key Takeaways enable the learner to pause and consolidate the information just read or experienced into a "chunk." This process enables the reader to better understand and retain the section’s content and its key concepts
    • "Exercises" at the end of every main head section encourage students to analyze information just learned to encourage deeper learning and retention
    • Chapter end "Cases and Problems" align with five key areas of skill and knowledge endorsed by the AACSB:
      • "Learning on the Web"
      • "Career Opportunities"
      • "Ethics Angle"
      • "Team-Building Skills"
      • "The Global View"
    • Optional business plan project for students to work on alongside the course, including an Excel template to prepare financial reports
  • Author-written supplementary materials provide robust instructional support and include an instructor manual, test items, quizzes, PowerPoint lecture slides, and online homework
  • Customizable

Students

Online Access Price
$37.95
Color Printed Textbook with Online Access Price
$64.95
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Exploring Business is suitable for Introduction to Business or Introduction to Entrepreneurship courses taught at the undergraduate level at two- and four-year colleges and universities. 

Designed with guided practice in mind and organized in a logical sequence (how businesspeople engage), Exploring Business meets students at their current level of readiness without sacrificing academic rigor. It replaces "content density" with contextual relevance, using a recurring case-study model as well as student-oriented, highly recognizable case examples to build connections across different business functions. 

More than an overview, Exploring Business is a launch point providing students with the structure, tools, and perspective to explore the modern business world with confidence. 

New in This Version

  • Thoroughly updated to cover advances in technology, such as artificial intelligence (AI), that are bringing rapid changes to the ways we produce and deliver goods and services.
  • All "Cases and Problems" have been correlated with AACSB’s Top Skills for the Future, ensuring measurable skill development.
  • Chapter 1: A new subheading, "Technology as a Pivotal External Force for Business," explores how AI is transforming organizations.
  • Chapter 2: Formerly Chapter 3, "Selecting a Form of Business Ownership" now falls earlier in the book. This new sequence sets the stage for coverage of entrepreneurship in Version 6.0's Chapter 3.
  • Chapter 4: "Business Ethics and Social Responsibility" is completely updated to better reflect the impacts of new technologies.
  • Chapter 5: "Managing for Business Success" contains a new opening case, "How Google Used Data to Prove Managers Matter," which anchors updates on planning, organizing, and leading; in addition, a new leadership profile of NVIDIA CEO Jensen Huang has been added.
  • Chapter 6: "Recruiting, Motivating, and Keeping Quality Employees" now has human resources coverage that includes modern recruiting, online interviewing, and employment assessment tools.
  • Chapter 7: "Product Design and Development" has new or revised explanations of the product-development process, market intelligence, and AI applications.
  • Chapter 9: "Business in a Global Environment" has new material exploring cultural environments, exchange rates, tariffs, WTO and USMCA policy, and current trade blocs.
  • Chapter 10: "Marketing: Principles and Product" has been retitled and significantly reorganized to reflect how marketing is conducted in today’s digital world.
  • Chapter 12: "The Role of Accounting in Business" now has coverage of updated cash-flow statements, new videos, and discussions of AI’s impact on accounting careers and strengthening comprehension.
  • Chapter 13: "Managing Financial Resources" contains a new case on Warren Buffett that introduces investment fundamentals and new coverage of cryptocurrency, blockchain, and modernized explanations of financial institutions and funds (mutual, ETF, pension, money market, and hedge).
  • Appendix C: "Preparing Financial Reports with the Excel Template" now provides a fully completed sample template that shows students exactly how to prepare financial statements step-by-step.
  • Updated the majority of tables and graphs with new data throughout all chapters.
  • Refreshed and sharpened many end-of-section exercises and end-of-chapter cases.

In Progress

  • All instructor supplements will be available by October 15, 2026.
  • Homework system for this title will be live by October 15, 2026.

Instructor’s Manual icon

Instructor’s Manual

The Instructor’s Manual guides you through the main concepts of each chapter and important elements such as learning objectives, key terms, and key takeaways. Can include answers to chapter exercises, group activity suggestions, and discussion questions.

PowerPoint Lecture Notes icon

PowerPoint Lecture Notes

A PowerPoint presentation highlighting key learning objectives and the main concepts for each chapter are available for you to use in your classroom. You can either cut and paste sections or use the presentation as a whole.

Test Generator - powered by Cognero icon

Test Generator - powered by Cognero

FlatWorld has partnered with Cognero, a leading online assessment system, that allows you to create printable tests from FlatWorld provided content.

Test Bank Files for Import to Learning Management Systems icon

Test Bank Files for Import to Learning Management Systems

For your convenience, we've packaged our test items for easy import into Learning Management Systems like Blackboard, Brightspace/D2L, Canvas, Moodle, or Respondus.

Test Item File icon

Test Item File

Need assistance in supplementing your quizzes and tests? Our test-item files (in Word format) contain many multiple-choice, fill-in-the-blank, and short-answer questions.

Sample Syllabi icon

Sample Syllabi

Sample syllabi provide useful templates to help new faculty adopters revise their teaching plans to match their assigned FlatWorld textbook or lend insights to existing adopters on how to organize their classes.

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Other Supplements icon

Other Supplements

Solutions manuals, sample exams, video learning segments, workbooks, cases and lab manuals are just some of the extras our books will offer depending on the needs of the course. Click here to see what this textbook offers.

At FlatWorld, we take pride in providing a range of high-quality supplements alongside our titles, to help instructors teach effectively. Supplements are available for instructors who have registered their adoption with us. If you need to review or preview something specific, please contact us.

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Karen Collins

Karen Collins

Lehigh University

Karen Collins (PhD Virginia Tech) was Professor Emerita of Accounting at Lehigh University. Karen previously coordinated Lehigh’s Introduction to Business course taken by all first-year business students. Exploring Business and its robust package of support materials is based on Karen's innovative and successful approach to many years teaching and coordinating the course. For her service in this area, Karen was honored with an "Innovation in Teaching Award" from the Middle Atlantic Association of Colleges of Business Administration. 

Karen was the recipient of numerous other teaching awards, including the "Deming Lewis Faculty Award" (for the faculty member who had the strongest influence on the ten-year graduating class); "Stabler Award for Excellence in Teaching" (for the faculty member who best demonstrates a mastery of his or her field and superior ability in communicating it to others), Coopers and Lybrand’s "Excellence in Teaching and Learning Award" (given to ten faculty members nationally in recognition of excellence in teaching), Coopers and Lybrand's "Faculty Internship" (given to one faculty member nationally based on his or her positive influence on students), and the "Andersen Consulting Faculty Fellowship for Excellence in Teaching" (a two-year fellowship given to a faculty member who demonstrates excellence in course development). This last fellowship allowed Karen to work with course designers at the firm’s national offices in Chicago in the development of the Introduction to Business course. 

Karen's research interests included upward mobility of women in accounting, quality of life issues, stress, and ethnic diversity in the accounting profession.

Yundong Huang

Yundong Huang

Saint Edward's University

Yundong Huang (PhD Texas A&M International University) is Associate Professor of Management at St. Edward’s University in Austin, Texas. In addition to teaching the introduction to business course, Yundong has taught strategic management, international management, organizational behavior, and fundamentals of management at both undergraduate and graduate levels. His teaching evaluations consistently reflect a strong commitment to student learning, emphasizing critical thinking, practical applications, and connecting management theory to real-world challenges.

Yundong’s research focuses on organizational behavior and risk analysis, particularly examining how motivation, uncertainty, and risk influence organizational performance and decision-making. He has published widely in respected peer-reviewed journals in management, organizational studies, and risk analysis, such as the Risks, Organization Development Journal. Yundong’s work helps bridge theory and practice by offering insights into how individuals and organizations can better understand motivation and manage uncertainty in complex environments.

Beyond research and teaching, Yundong contributes actively to academic service through journal editorial boards, conference paper reviewing, and faculty committees. His career demonstrates a dedication to advancing management scholarship while inspiring and mentoring students in the classroom.

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