Last week Poets and Quants published its 2025 rankings for undergraduate business schools. Our rank here at Wake Forest University rose from 33rd last year to 18th this year. In the "Academic Experience" category, which constitutes 33% of the total ranking, alumni responses from the class of 2022 pointed out how
- "the hands-on simulation where students 'run' a company from initial R&D to sales, operations, marketing, and finance" was pivotal in their learning experience.
- "Our senior capstone consisted of a simulator that combined all aspects of building a successful enterprise amongst competitors in an industry."
Wake Forest strategy students use both a Capsim simulation and my textbook Strategic Management: Value Creation, Sustainability, and Performance 8e (2024). The combination, which integrates well and emphasizes superior performance through cross-functional collaboration, created an unforgettable learning experience.
Prepping a new text or incorporating a sim into your curriculum is usually perceived as a time-consuming endeavor. Most folks want to believe that doing so will make a difference – in recognition of the effort, in student learning outcomes, and in course evaluations. The P&Q report provides positive evidence. And my experience is that teaching strategy actually becomes easier and in fact a joyful endeavor with the right tools in hand.
- Strategic Management: Value Creation, Sustainaibility, and Performance 8e is the leading strategy textbook on the largest digital text distribution platform in the world (VitalSource). For more information see https://www.strategicmanagement.org/
- Capsim, the leading provider of business simulation software in use in strategy classes, offers a variety of sims to meet the differing needs of course designs. Discounted bundles of the textbook and Capsim simulations are available, see here: https://www.strategicmanagement.org/8e/bundle.html
Happy to provide more information if needed.
Best regards,
Page
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Page West, PhD
School of Business
Wake Forest University
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