Māori business concepts in your answers

Why they are in every standard

• Every Level 2 Business Studies standard asks for a Māori business concept where relevant:
  • Achieved — stating a Māori business concept where relevant.
  • Merit — including it to support your explanation.
  • Excellence — integrating it to fully support your explanation.
• "Where relevant" is real. A concept dropped into an answer it has nothing to do with does not help you, and markers say so.
• The exam papers give you the concepts you need. In 2023 and 2024 the paper printed the definition of rangatiratanga and asked candidates to use elements of it; in 2025 the paper supplied tikanga and whanaungatanga in a resource box.

The five concepts named by the standards

Pūtake — the reason for being.

• Why the business exists at all.
• Many Māori businesses exist for reasons beyond profit: to hold and grow collectively owned resources such as land, water or forestry for whānau, hapū and iwi, or to sustain te reo, arts and culture.
• These businesses often run to a multiple bottom line — social, cultural, environmental and economic goals reported alongside profit.

Tūranga — the positioning or anchor of the business.

• How the business is set up and what it is built on.
• A business built on collectively owned Māori land may be legally unable to sell that land, so it cannot make the decisions an ordinary company would make. It must generate returns from the asset rather than out of it.

Tikanga — values, rules, priorities and ways of doing business.

• The set of values that shapes how the business behaves day to day. Named values include:
  • whanaungatanga — kinship and relationships; developing, managing and sustaining relationships, and working harmoniously towards common goals
  • manaakitanga — hospitality, generosity and care; resourcing the business to host and look after people properly
  • kotahitanga — unity and a shared sense of belonging
  • wairuatanga — spirituality, and observing spiritual protocols
• The guide is honest about the tension: obligations to whānau, and whānau expectations, can create real difficulties for a business.

Kaitiakitanga — guardianship of natural resources.

• Responsible environmental management and sustainable enterprise.
• Assets are held for future generations rather than owned outright with a right to sell them, so decisions are judged over decades, not quarters.

Rangatiratanga — self-determination, ownership and control.

• The right and the ability to make your own decisions about your own resources.
• In business terms: keeping ownership and control local rather than selling to an outside investor, and being motivated by that independence.

How to actually use one in an answer

• Pick the concept that matches what the question is about:
  • Anything about waste, water, land, emissions or long-term resource use → kaitiakitanga.
  • Anything about staff relationships, teams, unions, whānau or working together → whanaungatanga (within tikanga).
  • Anything about who decides, ownership, autonomy, or resisting outside control → rangatiratanga.
  • Anything about why the business exists, or goals other than profit → pūtake.
  • Anything about legal structure, land, or collectively owned assets → tūranga.
• Then use it as a reason, not a label. The concept has to be doing work in the sentence.
  • Stating it (Achieved). "This decision reflects kaitiakitanga."
  • Including it (Merit). "This decision reflects kaitiakitanga, because the business is protecting the waterway its orchard depends on for the generations that will farm it after the current owners, not just for this season's crop."
  • Integrating it (Excellence). "…which is also why the cheaper option is not automatically the better one for this business: under kaitiakitanga the cost of restoring a damaged waterway falls on future generations of owners, so a decision that saves money this year but degrades the resource is a loss measured against the business's own reason for being."