A Discourse Analysis on Business Plan Executive Summaries: Rhetoric Structure in Focus

A well-written executive summary speaks for the quality of the report- it reflects the value of the document. The business plan is a relatively organized entrepreneurial endeavor and implements activities for the success of the business venture, thus, the writing of an executive summary can be problematic and challenging. Anchored on Hyland’s (2000) five-move model, a corpus of twenty-one (21) randomly selected business plan executive summaries for the academic year 2019-2022. The results demonstrated that the move structure employed in writing business plan executive summaries for the academic year 2019-2022 are namely Introduction- Purpose- Method- Product- Conclusion moves. It was noted that these are the move structures that have been followed and employed by the writers. Furthermore, the findings also revealed that there are three dominant move structures observed in the corpus of business plan executive summaries namely Introduction- Purpose- Method- Product- Conclusion, Introduction- Method- Product- Conclusion, and Introduction- Purpose- Method- Product. It was also noted that the “Purpose” and “Conclusion” moves have sometimes been not observed or have been omit by the writer. Additionally, it was advised that business plan instructors in business administration follow a certain pattern in writing their executive summary to make students who write the summary familiar with the structure and vital components of a well-written document. Through this, writers will be inspired to produce a more coherent summary.