Organizational Behavior Teaching Review

Management education is at a crossroad, shaken at its core by the economic, environmental, technological, and social transformations that are changing the work world and the way the world works. Management education scholars have a unique opportunity to shape and frame the larger dialogue about the purpose of management education in light of these shifts, about the appropriate forms and content of management schools and programs for a new generation of learners in a technology-rich environment, and about how best to educate and train organizational citizens and leaders for a rapidly changing global world. The capacity to deliver on these aspirations, however, requires a different way to think about the role and responsibilities of the field; deeper appreciation for its possibilities; and more intentional, rigorous, and interdisciplinary approaches to the work. Bottom-line, the time is right to chart a new course for the scholarship of management teaching and learning. The current state of the field falls short of the full legitimacy, contribution, and leverage needed to significantly affect academia or the larger organizational landscape. A world in danger of overrunning its resources and poisoning its ecosystems demands a broader conception of the scope of issues for management education and its scholarship to address; it requires learning that engenders new levels of responsibility and creative problem-solving skills--and courageous educators willing to convene critical conversations about both. No one is better positioned to respond to the opportunities and pressures of our time than those who see the possibilities in--and importance of--the next generation of management education scholarship. (PsycINFO Database Record (c) 2012 APA, all rights reserved)

We have used Global Markets twice now and found that it serves our purposes well. It is easy to administer, highly engaging, lots of fun, instructive, full of energy and enthusiasm, and conducive to study-group cohesion and effectiveness. It allows everyone in a study group to contribute to the success of the group; it is easy to learn and nontechnical, yet complex enough to demand and reward sophisticated planning and organizing. It also introduces hundreds of people to each other in a short period of time. If you have lots of people that you'd like to engage quickly, Global Markets may be a useful tool for you.

A technique used in college instruction to improve the contribution of individual members to a small working group of students is described. The approach addresses two common problems: (1) resolution of conflicts and (2) dealing with nonperforming group members. Students interview prospective partners and form their own groups, then report on the group process. (MSE)

This article explores the use of the free Zynga computer game FarmVille, which is played in conjunction with Facebook®, to facilitate active learning in a managerial accounting course. Results indicate that it invokes an improved understanding of the accounting content, particularly among nonaccounting majors; a high level of student satisfaction with the assignment; and excellent outcomes in developing peer-to-peer and faculty–student relationships. This innovative approach is offered as an alternative way to achieve managerial accounting learning objectives. Its greatest strength is the social networking benefits it brings.

This article takes the view that formal educational programs often miss opportunities to use the rich experiences of working managers to produce both learning and knowledge. Two alternative pedagogical approaches, action learning and action research, are proposed as contributing to management education by their respective capabilities of generating practical learning and producing actionable knowledge. These approaches are compared with one another and with conventional classroom methodology using a new framework based on voice, level, form, and time.

Implied in the contingency approach to leadership is the need for leaders to be flexible in their choice of leadership style based on the situation. Thus, if the leader's initial attempt to influence a group is unsuccessful, one suggested course of action available to the leader is to adopt an alternative style of leadership more compatible with elements of the situation. This article examines the likelihood that awareness by the leader that the present leadership style "is not working" is sufficient to result in the leader's changing his or her style. It is contended that once a leader encounters resistance to his or her attempts to influence a group, a more likely response of many leaders is to rely even further on the approach to leadership that he or she is most comfortable with. Leadership style(s) used by an organizational behavior (OB) instructor in relating to several OB classes that varied greatly in terms of performance and classroom participation are examined.

This article reviews a classroom application titled “The Quest for Kudos Challenge,” which is a long-term, multitask, large group competition to attain a reward that was designed to adhere to the recommendations for creating a cooperative learning experience while maintaining the elements of a constructive competition. The application was implemented in a course mid-semester, allowing for a comparison of the results before and after the introduction of the Kudos Challenge. Furthermore, the outcomes for the classes that participated in the Kudos Challenge are compared with classes from a previous semester that did not implement the application. Results show that students in the Kudos Challenge classes received higher exam scores, increased classroom participation, and made more voluntary contributions than the Comparison classes from the previous semester. Qualitative feedback from the Kudos classes was overwhelmingly positive. Furthermore, several positive instructor outcomes resulted from the implementation of the Kudos Challenge, including positive feedback from the students, colleagues, and school administrators; higher student evaluations; and an innovative teaching award.

In this article, the Eco Challenge race video is presented as a teaching tool for facilitating theory-based discussion and application in organizational behavior (OB) courses. Before discussing the intricacies of the video series itself, the authors present a pedagogically based rationale for using reality TV-based video segments in a classroom setting. They then describe the Eco Challenge race series, with an overview of how it is used to facilitate application of course concepts, encourage attention and interest in the course, and provide a frame of reference for other experiential activities and assessment in the course. Readers are encouraged to use this video as a semester-long teaching tool. To assist in this regard, readers are provided with a template for using the Eco Challenge video with a variety of OB topic areas, a list of the potential limitations of this teaching method, and sample discussion and assessment questions.

Project-based courses have become common in universities. Using management advisory boards in projects courses can enhance their realism and spur students to greater levels of achievement. Advisory boards, consisting of volunteers with extensive business experience, advise students on how to complete their project, review progress, and evaluate students’ work, and they confront the students when it doesn’t measure up. Students report that advisory boards motivate them to perform well on their projects and help them learn what will be expected on the job after college. This article describes the effects that boards had in a course and provides suggestions for successfully utilizing such boards.

Leaders need to be able to respond quickly to crisis situations when information is incomplete and the scope for damage is increasing rapidly. Communicating with a range of stakeholders during a crisis in a Web 2.0 environment is a general management competency that can best be learned through practice. The MBA elective course described here used interactive media tools and student-centered learning to build leadership skills. Participating as members of crisis response teams, students outlined action plans on wikis and delivered emergency messages to key stakeholders by online video. Student self-awareness increased through instructor feedback following weekly crisis role-play. The teaching techniques and class activities described here illustrate how business educators can develop agile, entrepreneurial leaders who can act and communicate effectively in the face of the unknown. Applications are possible to general management courses, for business, public, or nonprofit administration, as well as to elective courses on leadership and crisis management.

Seeking to assess the analytical rigor of empirical research in management education, this article reviews the use of multivariate statistical techniques in 85 studies of online and blended management education over the past decade and compares them with prescriptions offered by both the organization studies and educational research communities. Although there is variation in the degree to which the techniques have been appropriately used, they appear to have been adopted more quickly than is typically the case in organizational studies research. Recommendations that emerge from the review include greater consideration of moderating effects, particularly those that have been considered historically to be “control” variables, and reduced dependence on exploratory factor analysis techniques for data reduction except when examining conceptual frameworks composed of constructs borrowed from disparate fields. It is the authors’ hope that this review motivates further consideration of appropriate uses of these techniques in other areas of management education research.

Introductory management courses often are presented as knowledge-based studies. Although students may have limited work experience, they possess considerable life experiences and aptitude that can be used as a starting point for management knowledge. Prior to formal exposure to such issues as planning and leadership, the author asks students to complete self-assessment tests, allowing students to name and quantify their latent abilities and to use the classroom setting to build on this self-discovered knowledge. This article explores the use of this self-assessment technique in the classroom and its implications for learning.

Crisis Management teaching has not featured within business schools to the extent that we might expect given the crises witnessed in a range of business sectors over recent years. One of the criticisms voiced against the MBA degree is that it has too great a focus on the rational and positivistic approaches to dealing with managerial problems. Organizational crises provide a challenge to that paradigm and suggest that a more critical approach to dealing with the management curriculum is required. This article provides an account of a stand-alone course in crisis management that has been delivered over a 20-year period in a number of institutions worldwide. The authors set out how the course is designed and delivered to bridge the gap between academia and business practice, how it makes use of evidence-based management, and how a critical approach is embedded throughout. The authors also discuss some of the challenges associated with designing and delivering a course that is multidisciplinary and technically demanding.

The following article takes a metaphoric approach to case method teaching to shed light on one of our most important practices. The article hinges on the dual comparison of case method as science and as art. The dominant, scientific view of cases is that they are neutral descriptions of real-life business problems, subject to rigorous analysis. The dormant literary perspective enables us to see cases as incomplete natural narratives, open to multiple and diverse interpretations. By taking a stereoscopic view of case method—as a scientific and literary enterprise—we hone our students' managerial, problem-solving skills and heighten their leadership potential by developing their abilities as critical and creative thinkers. This article describes The Language of Leadership, an upper-level elective course that illustrates the implications of treating case method as science and art.

The Asian Tsunami struck Sri Lanka on December 26, 2004. Sri Lanka was the second worst affected country after Indonesia, and this natural disaster killed in excess of 35,000 people and displaced over 1 million. The article explores the Tsunami Disaster Management Program developed by one Sri Lankan university: the Postgraduate Institute of Management at the University of Sri Jayewardenepura. The program encouraged postgraduate students to undertake a range of recovery management projects to improve the operation of temporary camps and restore the livelihoods of tsunami survivors. The article examines the steps taken by postgraduate students to diagnose problems within the camps and implement a comprehensive range of solutions. The recovery management projects enhanced postgraduate students' managerial skills in diagnosis and analysis, planning and goal setting, leading teams and conflict resolution as well as their awareness of their social responsibilities to local communities at a time of national crisis. The article also highlights a number of lessons for other educational institutions contemplating changing their curricula to promote a stronger focus on problem-based learning.

Many organizations struggle with effective training interventions—in particular, the transfer of skills learned in the classroom to the workplace. The present experiential exercise allows students, who are asked to play the role of consultants, to assess training effectiveness from pretraining to posttraining. Student feedback demonstrates that this exercise provides a practical and realistic simulation that aids in the understanding of effective training interventions. This article presents the University Hospital exercise, its linkage to Goldstein's Instructional Systems Design framework, instructor notes, and questions for students. The exercise can be used for undergraduate, graduate, and professional courses.

Quality management is a broad subject whose principles and practices are best understood when studied in the context of real-life organizations. This article describes a major quality assessment field project that serves as the integrative vehicle for an MBA curriculum. Each year the entire entering MBA class devotes a portion of 8 months to performing comprehensive quality audits of external organizations. Whereas they reinforce the principles of quality management, the field projects also require students to integrate the knowledge gained from each of their MBA courses in critically examining all operational areas of their host organizations.

Group projects are an important component of higher education, and the use of peer assessment of students' individual contributions to group projects has increased. The researchers employed an expectancy theory approach and an experimental design in a field setting to investigate conditions that influence students' motivation to rate their peers' contributions to team projects. Two questionnaires were also developed and tested by the researchers. This research found that rating format and rating frequency significantly interacted to influence student motivation and their perceptions of their team. Research findings reveal peer assessment to be a complex process in need of further study. Two peer assessment instruments and peer assessment training materials are provided along with suggestions for future research.

This article examines learning journals as a method for developing self-awareness within a business education context, exploring “how can effective design and assessment of reflective journals assist the development of students' self-knowledge?” The authors describe three different approaches to learning journals, with each case study outlining the purpose of the course and the learning journal within it, the design and assessment of the journal, and an evaluation of this experience. The authors' aim is to illustrate how journals can be implemented in management education. Although each case study is distinct, three interconnecting themes also emerge that underlie why this approach to learning is important: finding the subjective voice that enables students to access their inner learning; accepting that learning is mutually constructed within a cocreative space rather than something “done to the student”; and that a more reflective self-awareness engages a higher sense of personal purpose. These significant outcomes illustrate the success of this learning approach.

This article describes the “Cross-cultural Assignment,” an experiential learning technique for students of business that deepens self-awareness of their own attitudes toward different cultures and develops international managerial skills. The technique consists of pairing up small teams of U.S.-based business students with small teams of international students from the same country, who are not yet completely fluent in English, to form augmented teams that then need to execute tasks and produce several end-products. This pedagogical method has been used successfully in recent years in international management and international business courses for both lower-classman and upper-classman undergraduate business students and for students in graduate MBA programs. The article positions the technique within the literature on experiential learning and cultural differences, describes the methodology in detail, offers several examples of its use, and discusses the benefits and challenges observed in its implementation.

This article addresses educators’ concerns about using asynchronous online discussions in lieu of face-to-face discussions. Drawing from research on asynchronous online education and Bloom’s taxonomy, the authors introduce the system of “original examples” and “value-added comments” that they have developed to promote engaging and meaningful discussions in which students learn course material from one another. The authors describe how to integrate this system into an online course and provide guidelines for instructor facilitation. They offer evidence that online asynchronous discussions facilitate students’ learning and may be more inclusive than face-to-face discussions for some students. Finally, the authors share their observations and suggestions for implementation.

A Model of Authentic Becoming that conceptualizes learning as a continuous and ongoing embodied and relational process, and uses social constructionism assumptions as well as Kolb’s experiential learning model as its point of departure, is presented. Through a focus on the subjective, embodied, and relational nature of organizational life, the assignment presented in this article provides a structure to facilitate students becoming more effective and authentic organizational members and self-authors. Learning outcomes also include the development of self-understanding, empathy, and the ability to engage in practical reflexivity and self-reflection. Students incorporate organizational behavior concepts and theories meaningfully into their writing and lives. Additional learning and the improvement of the classroom learning environment are facilitated through students verbally sharing their assignments in class with one another.

Racial relations is one of the most difficult topics to cover in a course on managing diversity. This article describes an exercise, based on racial awareness training, designed to develop students' awareness of their own (and others') racial identities. The exercise includes discussion questions designed as a bridge between students' psychological experiences during the exercise and larger issues about racial relations.

Leading change is an essential skill for managers. Instructors in management education must not only teach theories on effectively leading change but also convince students of the necessity of developing their change leadership skills. Students may underestimate the difficulty of convincing others to work toward change; the authors developed the Change Game as a tool to help students experience the difficulties of leading change and identify opportunities for skill development in the area of change leadership. This 45-minute exercise can be used with a range of courses in management curricula, and it scales well for small to large seated classes. Students are divided into two groups (managers and workers) that must cooperate to complete a task and earn a reward. The exercise simulates resistance to change by giving the workers an incentive to stay with the status quo. Classes typically fail to complete the task, which allows for a lively follow-up discussion on successfully leading change, as well as on topics such as communication, intergroup dynamics, trust, power, and motivation.

Against the background of an earlier UK study, this paper presents the findings of a Canadian based survey of career benefits from the MBA. Results indicate firstly that gender and age interact to influence perceptions of career outcomes (young men gain most in terms of extrinsic benefits of career change and pay), and secondly that both men and women gain intrinsic benefits from the MBA. However, intrinsic benefits vary by gender: men in the study were more likely to say they gained confidence from having a fuller skill set while women were more likely to say they gained confidence from feelings of self worth; men emphasised how they had learned to give up control while women argued that they had gained a ‘voice’ in the organization. The role of the MBA in career self- management and the acquisition of key skills are examined as well as the implications for the design of programmes in meeting the varied need of men and women in different age groups.

Inspired by the educational benefits of project-based learning, a class project for leadership courses is described that takes interview assignments to a new level. Students use the findings from their interviews with managers to develop a book on leadership that they have had a hand in from start to finish. The project provides a comprehensive approach to linking the concepts and realities of leadership and engages students in a collaborative learning activity that challenges them as both individuals and group members. The project also provides numerous skill-building opportunities that maximize the value of the project. The six phases of the project are described in detail, along with suggestions for the project's timeline and assessment mechanisms. Options for altering the project's length are discussed as well as its potential for use in other management courses.

A case in which a business student claimed, in class, that his employer was acting unethically is commented on by a business ethicist, focusing on issues of moral and legal obligation, student confidentiality, and classroom trust faced by the faculty member. The teacher's multiple responsibilities are emphasized. (MSE)

Using a toy construction set, we introduce to students the job characteristics model in a fun and engaging way. The activity not only describes the theoretical variables of the model but also allows students to (a) experience the dynamic interaction among these variables and (b) gain a better, hands-on understanding of the model. The exercise progresses through three stages where participants are gradually exposed to different manipulations of the variables in the job characteristics model. The exercise can be conducted in one quick-paced 75-minute class session.

Activities for team-building in college-level management and organizational behavior classes are described. The exercises use adventure-education techniques but have as their central theme the production of rhythms in various forms: creating predictable agendas; beating simple rhythms on desks; a Japanese hand clapping; recitation; and feeling heartbeats. (MSE)

Getting students to network with one another can be one of the biggest challenges in college courses, despite being a highly important function of higher education. Networking can, in fact, lead to that first job or to professional advancement, and technology can improve the success of individual and institutional efforts. This article describes how one instructor moved from a systemwide “Meet the Classmates” assignment nested within the learning management system to the use of a free social networking system, LinkedIn®, and how one icebreaker assignment evolved to three larger, more comprehensive assignments that better leveraged certain social networking system characteristics for greater career preparedness. Exploratory data from 154 respondents from undergraduate capstone strategy courses provides insights into some possible advantages and limitations of the free social networking system to offset networking challenges as well as to enhance those professional and career-based advantages associated with effective network management.

Although most business students participate in team-based projects during undergraduate or graduate course work, the team experience does notalways teach team skills or capture the team members’ potential: Students complete the task at hand but the explicit process of becoming a team is often not learned. Drawing from organizational learning and group/team theory, this article presents a “learning team model” that emphasizes feedback at the team—not individual—level of analysis by establishing a team feedback tool that can be easily and regularly used to improve performance. In addition to the feedback tool, a structured process is presented in which students learn to become a team.

The teaching of business ethics is almost inherently pluralistic, but little evidence of explicitly pluralistic approaches exists in teaching materials besides the available decision-making frameworks. In this article, it is argued that the field needs to acknowledge and adopt pluralism as the standard pedagogical approach, whether the individual teacher uses a philosophical approach or a more applied approach, to best serve students and society. Examples of teaching approaches are offered, including attempts instructors have made to teach ethics in a pluralistic manner.

Although management scholars have provided a variety of metaphors to describe the role of students in management courses, researchers have yet to explore students' identification with the models and how they are linked to educational outcomes. This article develops a measurement tool for students' identification with business education models and explores how those identifications are related to educational outcomes. In two samples of undergraduate management students (N = 916), the authors developed and validated a Student Identification With Business Education Models scale and found links between specific models and grade point average, course satisfaction, likelihood to donate to the university or college, and perceived discrepancy between current and deserved course grade. The authors discuss the implications of the findings in the context of management education innovations to improve student outcomes.

Many capstone strategic management courses use computer-based simulations as core pedagogical tools. Simulations are touted as assisting students in developing much-valued skills in strategy formation, implementation, and team management in the pursuit of superior strategic performance. However, despite their rich nature, little is known regarding the relationship between team-level attributes and simulation performance. This research reports the findings of a multiyear study that uncovered a clear link between specific team cultural values, as measured by the Competing Values Framework, and simulation performance. It then explores how these findings may influence the pedagogical use of simulations in the strategy classroom in areas ranging from using culture as a performance tool to diagnosis and training.

The urgent messages of good business include the importance of ethical management behaviors, focus on corporate citizenship, recognition of principled leadership, moral awareness, and participation in social change. This article describes the Service Learning Metaproject (a nested set of projects required of all students) and shows what students can accomplish to promote a better world. It addresses four measurable learning objectives: providing contact with divergent populations, making conscious moral decisions and committing to ethical action, deriving meaning from everyday activities, and developing adaptability and flexibility. It documents the achievement of these with undergraduate business students performing metaprojects that begin with service, lead to learning, and are followed by the development of a direct application. The conclusion is the implementation of that application. All the service learning projects this article describes required a Service Folio for student reflection on service experiences, relationships to readings, and concrete team project deliverables.

Innovation often happens at the margin. For the past 5 years, in the academic equivalent of an ecotone, Aquinas College in Grand Rapids, Michigan has built and continues to refine offerings in its 4-year Bachelor of Science degree in Sustainable Business. Emerging out of the demands of a rapidly changing business world and the sustainable business movement, this degree program integrates and spans across disciplines. As the country's first undergraduate program of its kind, Aquinas' program-building effort for its signature Sustainable Business degree offers lessons and insights for those who might embark on a similar journey on the "sustainability frontier." Faculty creativity, administrative leadership, and external support all contribute to this innovative curriculum.

Given the widespread use and success of cross-functional teams in industry and the American Assembly of Collegiate Schools of Business's focus on the importance of interdisciplinary education, many business schools have incorporated interdisciplinary elements into their curricula. This study examined current student and alumni perceptions of the value of interdisciplinary, teamtaught, undergraduate business courses. Of specific concern was the impact of perceived integration. Overall, the courses were perceived to have value. In addition, the more integrated the course, the more positively it was evaluated on every dimension. Practical and research implications are discussed.

In today’s global environment, companies continue to seek new customers and suppliers on an international level. However, the “rules” for doing business can differ from country to country. Business schools, therefore, need to develop courses that will sensitize their students to these differences. This article presents an innovative, interdisciplinary approach for a short-term study tour to Europe that addresses this challenge. In addition to the underlying theory and pedagogy behind the course, this article includes a detailed description of the structure, implementation, and focus of the course that provides multilens analyses at the intersection of culture, technology, and business practices and how these three influence one another.

e-Learning is replacing face-to-face classroom instruction in a growing number of businesses, but what is the prospect for the continued proliferation of e-learning in business? On one hand, the quality of instruction, the cost effectiveness of new technology, a supportive e-learning educational culture, an expansion of the Internet, an increase in online courses, shorter business cycles, mergers, and increasing competition encourage business use of e-learning. On the other hand, employee reticence in using learning technologies, insufficient corporate investment, lack of business-relevant university courses, narrow bandwidth, and Internet access issues are constricting the business use of these technologies.

This article introduces an experiential exercise that enhances students’ ability to identify ethical issues and to respond to them in ways that consider the relationship between organizational factors and ethical action. Students identify a required number of ethical incidents in their workplaces during a specified period. Students submit a written description for each incident, drawing from moral philosophical frameworks and/or other ethical concepts to label the issue as one that either exemplifies a “best practice” or “raises concern.” For “best practice” examples, students consider the implications of the practice on the organization and its stakeholders and whether and how the practice could be improved. For examples that “raise concern,” students explain what the ethically appropriate action would be, indicate whether they would take that action, report any reservations they have about taking that right action, and consider how to behave ethically in a way that would bring about desired outcomes without incurring negative outcomes. Then, a subset of submissions is selected for an in-class discussion. Using examples from students’ own experiences engages them and underscores for them the relevance of business ethics issues. Instructions for facilitating classroom discussion and variations for adapting the exercise are provided.

Classroom discussion is a frequently used “active learning” strategy; however, a dilemma this strategy produces is what to do about students who are less inclined to volunteer. This study examines an environment which uses cold calling and graded participation to include more students in discussions. The results suggest that despite widespread concerns about cold calling, students are not uncomfortable. This environment also is shown to increase participation frequency and marginally affect preparation, which in turn lead to increased comfort. Practical guidance is provided to help instructors design cold calls to ensure students have a positive experience and fully benefit from inclusion in the discussion.

Classroom discussion is perhaps the most frequently used “active learning” strategy. However, instructors are often concerned about students who are less inclined to participate voluntarily. They worry that students not involved in the discussion might have lower quality learning experiences. Although instructors might consider whether to call on a student whose hand is not raised (“cold-call”), some instructors resist cold-calling fearing that the student will feel uncomfortable. This study examines the impact of cold-calling on students’ voluntary participation in class discussions and their comfort participating in discussions. The results demonstrate that significantly more students answer questions voluntarily in classes with high cold-calling, and that the number of students voluntarily answering questions in high cold-calling classes increases over time. Furthermore, students in classes with high cold-calling answer more voluntary questions than those in classes with low cold-calling; this also increases over time. Finally, in classes with high cold-calling, students’ comfort participating in class discussions increases while in classes with low cold-calling, students’ comfort participating does not change. Research findings show that cold-calling can be done fairly extensively without making students uncomfortable. Thus, the research reported here provides support for using this instructional strategy to engage more students to participate in discussions.

In today's business world, the ability to work efficiently and effectively with others in a group is a mandatory skill. Many employers rank "ability to work with a group" as one of the most important attributes for business school graduates to possess. Therefore, it is important for instructors to understand the factors that influence group dynamics and outcomes and students' attitudes toward group experiences. The objective of this research is to test whether the method of group member assignment (i.e., random or self-selected) affects the nature of group dynamics and outcomes, and students' attitudes toward the group experience. The results indicate that the method of group member assignment does influence group dynamics, attitudes toward the group experience, and group outcomes. (Contains 3 tables.)

As educators, we must ensure that organizational change and transformation are at the core of our 21st-century management curriculum. In this article, we explore our rationale for changing the design of our leadership course and discuss the development of an experiential exercise that focuses on new themes associated with leading change. The exercise and implementation issues described provide an effective and efficient link between change theory and practice.

Students preparing for the diverse workplace of the future need to understand the glass-ceiling phenomenon and its ramifications for both individuals and organizations. This article suggests that an effective way to explain this concept is by examining gender differences in management development. The rationale for this perspective is provided. A review of the literature that indicates that gender differences in developmental activities create and perpetuate the glass-ceiling effect is also provided. Suggestions are included for ways to teach students about the glass ceiling.

Teaching crisis management is both fascinating and frustrating. It is fascinating because crises, by their very nature, are spectacular, dramatic, and intense; immediately arouse the individual and collective imagination; and because everyone seeks explanations for what, at first glance, appears inexplicable. It is also fascinating because educators are exposed to a transdisciplinary and transborder field of studies with wide-ranging ramifications. Yet it is frustrating because educators must often deconstruct the popular perception that crises are rare, improbable, and unpredictable phenomena, often leading individuals to feel powerless and fatalistic. It is also frustrating because of the lack of knowledge in the field itself, at three levels: conceptual/theoretical, practical, and reflective. This article highlights the teaching challenges in this rich and diversified field at each of these three levels and examines three teaching tools to address them: case studies, crisis simulations, and the reflexive journal. The authors also consider that a crisis cannot be viewed as a homogeneous concept. With the help of Gundel’s crisis typology (conventional, unpredictable, intractable, and fundamental crises), the authors present promising teaching approaches to deal with each of the three aforementioned teaching challenges, explaining how each approach can be seen as a function of the four types of crises.

Students find that choosing the appropriate technology for a virtual team meeting is not as simple as it first appears. The authors describe a class exercise used to demonstrate the benefits and drawbacks of using virtual team meetings by requiring students to replace a face-to-face meeting with a virtual meeting. The exercise challenged students’ assumptions about the ease of meeting virtually, and groups learned how to choose technology with capabilities appropriate for their meeting objectives. After reviewing the literature concerning the effectiveness of virtual work teams and technology choice, the authors describe the objectives of the class exercise, the context and content of the exercise, and classroom reflections. Finally, they review the benefits and limitations of this experiential exercise and advise instructors who see an opportunity to incorporate virtual team meetings within different management courses.

Prevailing values in management education are coming under increasing scrutiny for a deeper understanding of their connection to endemic poverty, institutional violence, and environmental degradation that are no longer just the expressed concern of critical organizational scholars. Attempts to name and transform values that are deemed to contribute to this dark side of global development are more accessible than ever to the management educator. Examples of such commitment include the rise in interest and competency in the area of corporate social responsibility, the amplification of the views of advocates of business as an agent of world benefit, and various sustainability discourses. There is a symbiotic relationship between these ideas and the United Nations Millennium Development Goals (MDG) and the subsequent generation of Principles for Responsible Management Education (PRME). The Journal of Management Education (JME) has taken a leadership role in developing and advocating these principles based on a commitment to a closer examination of the values that are implicit and explicit in management education (see Schmidt-Wilk, 2009). Among these commitments is an emerging interest in and amplification of the voices of indigenous peoples. This emergence draws attention to another document of the United Nations: The Declaration of the Rights of Indigenous Peoples—rights and responsibilities made explicit by influential organizations such as the World Bank (Sarfaty, 2007).

A longitudinal study of 390 students in 64 Practical Organizational Behavior Education (PROBE) project teams was conducted on the effects of intragroup diversity and student diversity-management skills. The impact of gender, age, and nationality variables on student grades, cognitive processes, perceptions of team effectiveness, and satisfaction were examined. Although the PROBE method places emphasis on the development of teamwork skills, the study found that students were disadvantaged in their grade performance and other outcomes depending on the type of group to which they were assigned and their particular position within the group.

Thomas Gordon's "Leadership Effectiveness Training" text states that for successful relationships to develop and persist in the workplace, mutual needs satisfaction must occur. A college instructor used the overall theme of Gordon's book to convey her own needs as a teacher to an organizational behavior class and ascertain her students' needs. (MLH)