We describe a short, interactive case-based activity for illustrating cognitive distortions of communication underlying resistance to change. Based on a real-life story, the case describes a failed effort by the mayor of Toowoomba, Australia to fund a state-of-the-art wastewater treatment plant. After reading the case, students work individually…

This article describes an exercise that develops students' capacity to identify ethical dilemmas, apply ethical frameworks, and consider ethical issues from multiple perspectives. The exercise consists of five interrelated activities that take place over the course of several weeks, with the central activity being a panel discussion featuring…

Why do I work? Despite instructors' best efforts, students struggle to understand how different people answer this question differently. This exercise enables students to explore what motivates them in comparison to their peers and previous generations while reinforcing the distinction between intrinsic and extrinsic motivation. Students…

The sitcom "The Good Place" can be used by management instructors to teach ethical frameworks and concepts. This series, familiar to many undergraduate students in the US, features a Professor of Ethics and Moral Philosophy who gives mini lectures applied to what the characters are experiencing. These mini lectures can be shown to…

This in-class, 75-minute exercise creates a context for students to observe some of the challenges to cross-functional collaboration and offers insight into processes to achieve more successful outcomes. By demonstrating how a failure by compliance and business operations to work cross-functionally negatively impacts outcomes in the form of…

Global value networks are often large, complex, and opaque. Understanding the relationships among stakeholders involved in these networks or organizations can be challenging. This card sort task provides an interactive way to engage participants in questioning the roles of stakeholders who are involved in a business ethics dilemma or an…

This article presents two in-class exercises designed to develop specific skill sets needed to think critically and make decisions in today's business environment. The first exercise, "Flossing your Teeth" is designed to build information literacy skills needed in the evidence-gathering phase of critical thinking. The second exercise,…

Workplace conflict, with its potential to be either highly beneficial or highly damaging, is best handled with thoughtful, deliberate care. This article presents two classroom exercises that demonstrate the value of carefully weighing both parties' interests in a conflict, as suggested by the well-known "dual concern" model of conflict…

Managers are essential in the strategy-making process and often use the launch of new products to aide in the advancement of their selected organizations. This article links current management curriculum with the role of the product manager, introduces students to the concepts of strategy and product management, and encourages students to think…

Effective class discussions are often frustrated by dual challenges: lack of participation and poor quality of contribution. To address both challenges, we describe an experiential exercise for managing classroom discussion that is based on an adaptation of a classic creativity model. It motivates student participation by generating structured…

Porter's five forces model is an important tool in strategic management. Strategy students use the five forces model to conduct industry analysis by evaluating the external conditions that impact firms in a given industry. The five forces model is deceptively simple, yet it encompasses important nuances that students sometimes struggle to fully…

General and strategic management courses frequently provide external analysis tools through which students identify, classify, and assess how changes in the general external environment impact industries and firms. In this exercise, we facilitate analysis of the general environment through a popular song from the 1980s. Through analyzing an event…

"Kinky Boots: The Musical" is a filmed version of the London West End production that tells the story of the unlikely collaboration between Charlie Price, inheritor of a struggling family business, and Lola, a high-energy and creative drag performer, who together radically change Price & Son's focus from men's dress shoes to fetish…

As business and management instructors, we increasingly struggle with student inattention to information accuracy and quality in our courses, especially when student-based research is required and misinformation is more prevalent. Without the time to teach information literacy (IL) skills, we created a series of information sourcing (IS) prompts…

Appraising firm performance is an important aspect of the strategic management process. Unfortunately, many students in strategic management courses do not have adequate financial analysis skills to do this task. This deficiency affects their ability to learn and perform the full scope of the strategic management process. This article presents an…