Dogs start talking: Experiential learning in strategic management

Abstract

This article describes an interactive activity for the first week of an undergraduate Strategic Management (SM) or Business Policy and Strategy (BPS) course. This activity is designed to foster student engagement, which is critical to both the teaching of theory and the practice of strategy while reinforcing course learning objectives regarding crucial SM concepts. This activity moves students to active learning by asking the class, “What happens in the world if dogs talk?” Post-activity survey results indicated that students found the activity an effective way to introduce fundamental strategy concepts, create a conversational learning space, and motivate them to learn throughout the course.

Keywords:

• Critical thinking
• engagement
• experiential learning theory
• external analysis
• strategy

Notes

1 PESTEL scans, monitors, and evaluates factors (Political, Economic, Sociocultural, Technologic, Environmental, and Legal) that affect an organization (Rothaermel, 2019). Industry is a group of existing firms that face the same suppliers and consumers (Porter, 1980).

2 Cognitive biases and bounded rationality theories shape the decisions of the firm’s employees and their performance (Rothaermel, 2019). People are boundedly rational; they satisfice rather than optimize choices due to cognitive or time limitations (Simon, 1972). Cognitive biases (e.g., illusion of control, escalation of commitment, confirmation bias, and groupthink) lead to rational decision-making errors (Das & Teng, 1999; Rothaermel, 2019).