Business Management Aptitude Test

This business management test measure aspects of largely personality-based traits relevant to managing businesses. Scores on this test vary independently of gender, years of business training or experience, grade point average and gender. Most of the traits tested correlate significantly with one or more of the Big Five personality traits. Therefore, they tend to reflect personality factors underlying management aptitude. The Business Aptitude Test calls for judgment decisions.

This test was built by first interviewing several experienced business managers leading successful businesses in a medium sized American city. Test questions were written to capture important business decisions and administered to a sample of several dozen experienced managers. Item analysis determined the selection of the final items for inclusion in the test. The test was normed on the several dozen managers tested. The scores are normally distributed, in both business managers and in about two hundred business management university students subsequently tested. Factor analysis determined the 5 sub sections.

American students do as well as experienced American business managers on this test, apparently reflecting the personality rather than training-based factors underlying aptitude for making good management judgments. Students from Asia at an American university do much poorer than do American students on the Business Aptitude Test, apparently reflecting important cultural differences.