Journal of Management Education

Every experienced management instructor has faced unexpected circumstances that precipitate a quick preparation for a class session in an ongoing course. Issues of being unprepared are put in context of both the instructor's personal feelings and the particular course and students. The article focuses on design skills and solutions that have worked for the author and her colleagues. Seven design criteria for quickly prepared sessions (QPS) are presented and practical examples given for a variety of class situations. The strategies can be kept on hand for when a QPS arises or used as part of overall class planning.

Traditionally, the North American economic paradigm has been predicted on self-interest and growth. The newly emerging environmental paradigm, based on assumptions of finite limits to growth, is additionally concerned with issues of conservation, preservation, and replenishment of resources. Differences between these paradigms raise many serious policy issues requiring the development of new guideposts or managers. The role-play detailed in this study enables students to experience how environmental and ethical issues often cut across management process types and increase the levels of uncertainty and complexity. The role-play can also be used effectively in focusing on specific managerial process issues as well.

High-commitment management practices—including the use of self-managed work teams, broad job descriptions, performance-based compensation, and high levels of employee participation in decision making—are becoming increasingly popular. How can business students best learn to manage effectively in the high-commitment workplace? Drawing on the management education literature and the author's teaching experiences, this article argues that high-commitment management can most effectively be taught the high-commitment way by modeling analogous practices in the classroom and then analyzing the group's own experience to illuminate the distinctive dynamics of participatory management.

This article examines equity theory using examples from the sports world. The publicity that surrounds contract negotiations in sports provides real-life examples of equity theory in action. Examples from football, baseball, and basketball are used. An in-depth discussion of Eric Dickerson's negotiations with the Los Angeles Rams is used to illustrate the role of equity theory in salary issues. The application of these examples for use in the classroom is discussed. Additionally, managerial implications of equity theory are addressed.

The instructor of a group dynamics course (or any management course) is more than an instructor; she or he is also the manager of a complex system. Teaching well requires assuming an active boundary management role. Using a systems perspective (the model that drives much of the group dynamics course), instructors can harness the concept of boundaries (task, structural, psychological, to name several kinds) to make decisions in course planning and implementation.

A management and organizational behavior class designed as a new paradigm (sociotechnical) organization expands the classroom-as-organization (CAO) model. Groups of students take different administrative roles and teaching responsibilities. Helped by a detailed manual, students manage, teach, and evaluate their peers. An elaborate control (grading) system makes this learning organization effective. Rank-order peer grading eliminates tests. Conflict occurs, but eventually students, like members of an autonomous work group, learn to manage responsibly. The professor delegates most tasks and becomes a coach but must contend with the college grading system and teaching colleagues unaccustomed to rank-order peer evaluation.

In 1978 the first large-scale, behaviorally focused business simulation was completed and used to diagnosis and develop leadership skills. It was a fictitious company comprised of a series of realistic management situations permitting participants to perform individually and collectively within a corporate context. Based on observations of participants' performances, feedback was provided. Today, nine fictitious organizations are used by hundreds of companies as leadership practicums to accomplish learning objectives ranging from the development of communication skills to organization and from planning skills to strategic thinking skills. The similarities and differences among these fictitious organizations are described and guidance is provided for choosing among them based on learning objectives of various management development efforts.

The AFMA exercise teaches participants about the potential misuses of quasi-psychological generalizations and the role of emotion in organizational socialization by allowing them, in a gentle way, to experience their own gullibility in the face of psychological jargon and their own emotional involvement when an organization selects or rejects them. The exercise is recommended for graduate and undergraduate students in courses on organizational behavior and organizational change.

This article responds to Andre's AF Managerial Assessment Excercise. The ethics of using deception in an experiential-learning context are explored, and people's susceptibility to and the effects of deception are discussed in the context of situational ethics in the classroom.