American Business Merit Badge

Overview   Requirements   Hints   Terminology   Resources

American Business Merit Badge Info

The main point of this merit badge is to present the workings of business to scouts. The main areas of accounting, finance, economics, marketing, and management are covered, as well as free enterprise, banking, profits, and labor. The requirements help a scout begin to grasp the complexities of starting and running a business in America. This supports the mission statement of the BSA by introducing scouts to ethical business practices.

As far as merit badges go, it's not one of the fun, active ones since scouts are not actually creating or doing much of anything. All of the requirements are Explain/Describe types, so it is a lot of reading to understand business concepts. The scout does get to interview a business leader, so there's that.

This is a super merit badge for a scout to do individually with very little interaction with a counselor. The counselor can help the scout prepare for business interactions they will encounter soon as an adult.

American Business is very near the bottom of all merit badges in number earned per year with about 800 scouts earning it annually. But, the past couple years have seen a 10x increase, most probably due to the pandemic since this can be completed solo.

Hints for American Business Merit Badge

• Reading the merit badge pamphlet provides most of the knowledge and a good counselor can help the scout expand what they've learned to apply it towards building a solid personal business ethic.
• When choosing a business to research, it's much more interesting to use a small, local company that will take time to discuss their practices with the scout.
• The business leader that the scout interviews can be the same person they use to research a company.

Terminology for American Business Merit Badge

• Features of Free Enterprise systems include Economic Freedom, Competition, Equal Opportunity, Binding Contracts, Property Rights, and Profit Motive.
• Freedom is the right to exercise choices in thought, speech, and actions. License is an expressed permission to use something.
• The five primary areas of business are: accounting, finance, economics, marketing, and management
• Types of insurance for business: general liability, product liability, professional liability, commercial property, workers' compensation, business interruption, cyber

Resources for American Business Merit Badge
Read a short explanation of the Free Enteprise System, also known as the Free Market.
The Industrial Revolution introduced more efficient manufacturing by machines.
Labor Unions have historically represented works in the U.S. with the AFL-CIO and Change to Win Federation being two key examples.
Read how three types of financial statements work together to manage a company.
Insurance is important to protect a company and its assets. Read about Types of Insurance and their uses.
Minimizing impact of operations on the world environment is a goal of a Sustainable Business model.
There are many pros and cons on both sides of running either a brick-n-mortar or online business model.
Read about the role of the U.S. Dept of Labor.

• Better Investing
• Council of Better Business Bureaus
• Junior Achievement Student Center
• National Endowment for Financial Education
• YoungBiz
• Young Money

Some other merit badges in the Business theme include: American Labor, Communication, Entrepreneurship, and Salesmanship. You might check them out if you found the American Business merit badge interesting.