EXPERIENTIAL LEARNING - Teaching Activities

Business Strategy Simulation

7/13/2019

Since 2012, I have taught the capstone Strategic Management course in the following institutions:

Keuka College, Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam (2016)
University at Buffalo School of Management in Singapore (2016-2019)
University at Buffalo School of Management in Buffalo (2016-2019)
Keuka College in Buffalo, in both the undergraduate and MBA capstone courses (2019.

Teaching in three countries at four campuses, has helped me develop the use of the Business Strategy Game simulation (https://www.bsg-online.com/) into the undergraduate capstone courses.
The students make 57 decisions weekly for each year of the simulation, covering business operations in the following areas:

Corporate social responsibility and citizenship (up to 8 decision entries).
Production operations (up to 11 decision entries per production facility, with a maximum of 4 plants).
The addition of facility space, equipment, and production improvement options (up to 8 decision entries per production facility).
Worker compensation and training (up to 6 decision entries per production facility).
Shipping and distribution center operations (up to 5 decision entries per geographic region).
Pricing and marketing (up to 9 decision entries in each of 4 geographic regions).
Offers to sign celebrities (2 decision entries per offer).
Financing of company operations (up to 8 decision entries).

Each week represents a year of business operations in a global shoe industry. The students are divided into teams, with each team representing one international shoe company, and the entire class represents the worldwide industry. The teams compete with each other.
Students approach the simulation in one of two ways. The majority of the students see it as a game and simply guess. A few student teams realize that this is their opportunity to apply their undergraduate studies into one course, using the skills they have gained from their business education to make holistic decisions in competition with the other teams (companies). It is these few groups of students who learn the most from this simulation.
This is an example of Project-Based Learning. The students learn from experience. They analyze their strategic positions, make decisions weekly, and then see the results of their decisions on Monday mornings.
After graduation, students have contacted me after job interviews to tell me that when they explained their work in the simulation, the interview took notice, exploring in greater depth what they had done and learned. These students tell me that their experience, and discussing it with interviewers, has helped them stand out from other candidates, and in some instances, get jobs.
I'm about to start two new sections of Strategic Management at the University of North Carolina at Asheville. With my own learning experiences from using the simulation, I hope these two capstone sections to be the most productive for the students ever. I'll report back at the end of the coming fall semester.

#project-based learning #experientiallearning #businessstrategygame #bsg #unca #uncAsheville #universityofnorthcarolinaatasheville

0 Comments

"Why Managers Need to Know Transgender Terminology" (AOM)

7/2/2019

0 Comments

Recently, I shared an article here about non-binary gender pronouns. The following new article from Academy of Management (AOM) explains why managers (and of course, teachers) need to know transgender terminology. If this subject interests you, follow the link to the article. There is a detailed glossary of terms that you can save for reference.

Link to AOM article:
https://journals.aom.org/doi/10.5465/amle.2015.0355.summary

The following are the first three paragraphs of the article:

Learning terminology related to transgender issues is one of the first steps toward creating a respectful work culture for transgender employees, according to Michael J. Robinson of Case Western Reserve University, coauthor of an Academy of Management Learning & Education article.

“People who don’t understand the language automatically have a really negative predisposition to something,” said Robinson, who coauthored, “Bringing Transgender Issues Into Management Education: A Call to Action,” with Chantal van Esch of California State Polytechnic University in Pomona and Diana Bilimoria of Case Western Reserve University. “That’s part of the reason you’ll hear people say, ‘She thinks she’s a woman,’ when they’re talking about trans women, or, ‘She calls herself a woman, but she’s really a man.’”

U.S. managers who do not know how to interact respectfully with transgender employees, or how to build workplace cultures in which coworkers interact respectfully, face fines from the federal Equal Employment Opportunity Commission, or financial penalties or settlements in civil courts. Organizational reputations can also take a hit, according to the article.

Retrieved online from https://journals.aom.org/doi/10.5465/amle.2015.0355.summary

0 Comments

Generation Z

6/30/2019

0 Comments

McKinsey & Company recently published an article based on research of Generation Z (born 1995-2010). The article related generational beliefs and behaviors to business, but anyone who teaches should consider this new generation of college students.

As teachers, we have to relate to and communicate with all of the students, whether they are Millennials, Generation Z, or even Baby Boomers.

I've had Boomers in several of my courses, sitting beside and learning with Millennials and lately, Gen Zs.

The McKinsey article title is "‘True Gen’: Generation Z and its implications for companies."

This is a link to the article: https://www.mckinsey.com/industries/consumer-packaged-goods/our-insights/true-gen-generation-z-and-its-implications-for-companies

0 Comments

<<Previous

Business Strategy Simulation

"Why Managers Need to Know Transgender Terminology" (AOM)

Generation Z

Subscribe by email

Paul McAfee

Archives

Categories