Sustainable development is a powerful, significant, and occasionally controversial topic in management education. It usually refers to "development that meets the needs of the present without compromising the ability of future generations to meet their own needs." The broad view of sustainable development is articulated on the United…

Decision-making is a critical topic in any management and organizational behavior course. Navigating and understanding the various processes and influences on decision-making, however, can be complicated. This article revises and expands on a common "employee ranking" format activity. It uses in-class student data to systematically…

In an ever-increasingly diverse workforce, cross-cultural communication skills are essential for success regardless of job title or task. We present an engaging and customizable 30-minute activity designed to develop participants' cross-cultural communication skills by increasing awareness and sensitivity to interpersonal differences in…

In this article, we outline an experiential exercise designed to teach students about cognitive schemas (what they are, how they are developed, and how they may influence us). Drawing on the literature related to implicit followership theories, the exercise encourages students to explore their perceptions related to the role of followers, thus…

Team experiences afford opportunities for students to expand their self-knowledge based on peer feedback, yet feedback processes tend to be cumbersome and difficult to manage. Thus, educators often provide feedback only on the team's work output. The purpose of this article is to introduce a simple, structured exercise in which team members share…

Using stories written for young children can be effective in the education of college students. Storytelling is a helpful instructional method that is relevant to many management topics. This activity uses picture books, which can be read to students in "story hour" fashion and then tied to management principles being taught. This…

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…

The Arena activity is an in-class, experiential learning exercise that requires student teams to navigate and assist a blindfolded team member through a maze-like setting. The goal of the activity is to seek and find all of the team's assigned objects. However, only the blindfolded team member can collect these objects in The Arena. This activity…

Organizational culture is a popular topic in management classes, but teaching about culture in a way that undergraduate students can relate to can be a challenge. In this article, we describe the Texas A&M culture exercise, which draws attention to how to diagnose and evaluate organizational culture using each of Schein's three layers of…

Students frequently struggle to understand the differences among various types of organizational structures and how these differences affect organizational processes and outcomes. In the exercise described in this article, students are given a list of jobs from a medical rehabilitation center and asked to create an organizational chart. Students…

Storytelling is an important skill in management education for leaders. However, even though students learn about storytelling, they do not often practice it. When students do practice storytelling, they frequently prepare speeches that they deliver in front of a class. Interacting with theater students can help management students convey a…

Students are often frustrated and confused by the study of leadership since the field cannot offer an agreed-upon definition of the construct. Students are expected to develop leadership skills without understanding what leadership actually is. The Leadership Exploration Project is a multiweek exercise that gives late undergraduate or graduate…

This article features an innovative and engaging assignment to help students learn about labor history events. Labor history is more than just a collection of dates, facts, and figures. Rather, it is the study of the men, women, and children who fought for a workplace that many of today's employees take for granted: paid leave, a 5-day workweek,…

Although the annual performance review has received much criticism from practitioners and researchers alike, organizations continue to use coaching and/or reviews to maximize employee effectiveness and minimize liabilities. A semester class is a great context to practice skills relating to tracking and reviewing performance. This article describes…

Research on the use of experiential exercises to encourage exploration of professional networks shows that such exercises are effective and provide value for students seeking to enter or navigate careers. Often students in the early phase of their undergraduate experience are unaware of the process involved in building a professional network or…