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I teach a required course to all of our entering MBA students. It is taken typically in the first or second semester of the program and will be called "Competing in the Global Economy" (we are changing the title this fall). It revolves around the use of the Marketplace Simulation by Ernie Cadotte at the U. of Tennessee and Innovative Learning Solutions. I've used simulations for over 20 years and this one is exceptional. It is very different in some key ways to the other simulations on the market and I would highly recommend it. Students have the normal functional decisions to deal with but beyond that, they must deal with market research that has sampling error and isn't always entirely accurate. Students start the simulation and must pioneer an industry as opposed to starting with an already existing industry and a company that already has a manufacturing location and the same resources as all other teams. Students can actually design products based on their market research, thus having to contend with aligning customer wants and needs with product features. They can reverse engineer other teams' products and if they have the appropriate resources, can imitate them, limiting product innovation as a competitive advantage. They can invest in R&D to develop new features that not only can be incorporated into their products, but also can be licensed and cross-licensed to competing teams which provides collaborative exercises for the students. We use a venture capital fair where outside experts (or former students) come into class, listen to the student teams' business plans and then negotiate with any team in which they are interested for an equity position in their firm, providing a negotiation exercise. It is international in scope, allowing students to contend with changing tariffs and exchange rates as well as international political, social, and economic incidents. It has an excellent manufacturing component that provides students with an introduction to lean manufacturing and an outstanding quality control component, utilizing inspection, variance studies, source studies, and improvement actions. Best of all, there is no built-in demand curve. Students must build demand for their products. The list goes on and on...but I think it is an outstanding product and it is very user-friendly. It is on the web and the instructor has to do very little in terms of administration. Support is excellent and the simulation comes in a variety of configurations. I strongly recommend you take a look at it at www.marketplace-simulation.com. Good luck.

Howard Feldman
University of Portland
Pamplin School of Business Administration
5000 N. Willamette Blvd.
Portland, OR 97203
(O) 503-943-7270
(H) 503-892-6261
(Fax) 503-943-8041


________________________________

From: Business Policy and Strategy List on behalf of Paul Miesing
Sent: Mon 3/6/2006 9:22 PM
To: BPS-NET@AOMLISTS.PACE.EDU
Subject: Strategic Management as a Foundation Course


Please excuse cross-postings ... I'm looking for text, cases, or other approaches to introducing a "global strategy" course early in the MBA curriculum. We are moving our full-time MBA capstone strategy course from the final semester in the 2nd year to the second semester of the first year. We hope to focus on industry analysis and international dimensions, and culminate the semester with a major project involving all courses. My challenge is to integrate these courses early on before students have taken them, as well as provide strategy and international business content. I've been asked to see what other Business Schools are doing in this regard. I would very much appreciate any insights, suggestions, or advice you might offer. Thanks in advance ...


~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Paul Miesing

State University of New York at Albany

paul.miesing@albany.edu

http://www.albany.edu/~pm157

I teach the introductory course in strategy to our MBAs at Carlson School
(University of Minnesota) and in the executive management of technology
program and I also teach ethics. I have developed some very special
material for both purposes. For the strategy class, I have written a
textbook called Management Strategy: Achieving Sustained Competitive
Advantage (McGraw Hill, 2005) and a case book called Winning Moves (Marsh,
2006) www.marshpub.com. The material is unique in that there is a
connection between the text and the cases, with some reference to the cases
in the text (though both books can be used seperately), but more to the
point, the case book pairs 2 competitors, Intel vs. AMD, Barnes and Noble
vs. Amazon, Dell vs. Gateway, Best Buy vs. Circuit City, Time Warner versus
Disney, Pepsi vs. Coke, Monsanto vs. Du Pont, and so on. I have students in
my classes divided into two groups. Each group takes one of these firms and
presents their plans for it going forward based on an analysis of key
issues such as the competitive environment and so on. Other groups have the
role of asking critical questions of these groups.Then, a group of judges
gives their views as to how well the two firms are likely to do in the
short, medium, and long-term based on the plans presented. I also designate
a group to provide takeways. This method of teaching has proved very
successful. The students get very involved in the competition and try very
hard to come up with winning strategies. It is a much more compelling way
to teach than to rely on the typical Harvard case method. And it is better
than simulations which students often consider artificial and gimicky.
There is much international material in the cases, a chapter devoted to in
the textbook to globalization, and the Pepsi vs. Coke case in the case
book, which details issues both firms have had in such countries as India,
Japan, and Mexico. If you are at all interested in this approach I would
recommend getting copies of the text and case books from the publishers.
The text book is very short and inexpensive and the concepts are laid out
clearly. However, if you just wish to use parts of the material you can
purchase rights to it from the publishers.

With regard to ethics, I have just completed a textbook called Managing
Beyond Compliance: The Ethical and Legal Dimensions of Corporate
Responsibility (North Coast Publishers, 2006) www.NorthcoastPub.com with
Sheryl Kaiser, an attorney and consumer activist, who teaches at Loyola in
Baltimore. We believe that it is very important to integrate the legal
elements into a teaching of ethics, but ours is not a legal text at all. We
cover the main topics of ethical and stakeholder theory, government
regulation, and corporate culture in the first part of the text and in the
second go into detail with repect to ethical and legal obligations to
specific stakeholder groups from shareholders to communities. What is
special about the text and what I have incorporated into my teaching is not
only the longer cases that are found at the end of the book from classics
about Bhopal to new cases about Enron and the accounting profession, but
many short vignettes about issues that come to the fore all the time in the
daily lives of business people. There are a number of very good videos that
I use that I could recommend if you were interested. In my ethics course as
well I use a method where students present the case, are challenged by
other students, and a group of judges decides what it would do.

Alfred Marcus, Edson Spencer Chair in Strategy and Technology Leadership,
U. of Minnesota, Carlson School

I am intrigued at the level of sophistication in strategy concepts that
colleagues seem to be tackling with novice student audiences ..
corporate strategy/global context etc . I have found it hard to get
students to understand anything meaningful about the equivalent of
open-heart surgery before they even know how to take out an appendix
[i.e. the basics of developing and running business-unit strategy in
diverse situations] - or am I alone in finding this to be a challenge?

Kim Warren - London Business School

-----Original Message-----
From: Feldman, Howard [mailto:feldman@UP.EDU]
Sent: 07 March 2006 21:18
To: BPS-NET@AOMLISTS.PACE.EDU
Subject: Re: Strategic Management as a Foundation Course


I teach a required course to all of our entering MBA students. It is
taken typically in the first or second semester of the program and will
be called "Competing in the Global Economy" (we are changing the title
this fall). It revolves around the use of the Marketplace Simulation by
Ernie Cadotte at the U. of Tennessee and Innovative Learning Solutions.
I've used simulations for over 20 years and this one is exceptional. It
is very different in some key ways to the other simulations on the
market and I would highly recommend it. Students have the normal
functional decisions to deal with but beyond that, they must deal with
market research that has sampling error and isn't always entirely
accurate. Students start the simulation and must pioneer an industry as
opposed to starting with an already existing industry and a company that
already has a manufacturing location and the same resources as all other
teams. Students can actually design products based on their market
research, thus having to contend with aligning customer wants and needs
with product features. They can reverse engineer other teams' products
and if they have the appropriate resources, can imitate them, limiting
product innovation as a competitive advantage. They can invest in R&D to
develop new features that not only can be incorporated into their
products, but also can be licensed and cross-licensed to competing teams
which provides collaborative exercises for the students. We use a
venture capital fair where outside experts (or former students) come
into class, listen to the student teams' business plans and then
negotiate with any team in which they are interested for an equity
position in their firm, providing a negotiation exercise. It is
international in scope, allowing students to contend with changing
tariffs and exchange rates as well as international political, social,
and economic incidents. It has an excellent manufacturing component that
provides students with an introduction to lean manufacturing and an
outstanding quality control component, utilizing inspection, variance
studies, source studies, and improvement actions. Best of all, there is
no built-in demand curve. Students must build demand for their products.
The list goes on and on...but I think it is an outstanding product and
it is very user-friendly. It is on the web and the instructor has to do
very little in terms of administration. Support is excellent and the
simulation comes in a variety of configurations. I strongly recommend
you take a look at it at www.marketplace-simulation.com. Good luck.

Howard Feldman
University of Portland
Pamplin School of Business Administration
5000 N. Willamette Blvd.
Portland, OR 97203
(O) 503-943-7270
(H) 503-892-6261
(Fax) 503-943-8041


________________________________

From: Business Policy and Strategy List on behalf of Paul Miesing
Sent: Mon 3/6/2006 9:22 PM
To: BPS-NET@AOMLISTS.PACE.EDU
Subject: Strategic Management as a Foundation Course


Please excuse cross-postings ... I'm looking for text, cases, or other
approaches to introducing a "global strategy" course early in the MBA
curriculum. We are moving our full-time MBA capstone strategy course
from the final semester in the 2nd year to the second semester of the
first year. We hope to focus on industry analysis and international
dimensions, and culminate the semester with a major project involving
all courses. My challenge is to integrate these courses early on before
students have taken them, as well as provide strategy and international
business content. I've been asked to see what other Business Schools are
doing in this regard. I would very much appreciate any insights,
suggestions, or advice you might offer. Thanks in advance ...


~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Paul Miesing

State University of New York at Albany

paul.miesing@albany.edu

http://www.albany.edu/~pm157