Course Title:' Strategic Management

This is an existing course previously approved by AlC2: Yes Department Contact Person:
Sara Barbor E-mail: Sara.Barbor@.winona.edu

a. earn significant course credit through extemporaneous oral presentations

Roughly 90% of the student's course grade is made up of points earned either through case presentation or discussion of other students' presentations. Preparation of cases requires extensive reading, research, and analysis of case material from the text and outside sources. Students become in effect, the experts of the day on the particular company or industry, and discuss its problems at length. Presentations usually last 20-25 minutes. This is followed by a 20-25 minute question and answer period. A subset of students not presenting is appointed to lead the discussion. Discussion can take several forms, e.g., questions probing points that were brought up in the presentation and comments about the nature of the presentation itself.

b. understand the features and types of speaking in their disciplines

Students learn to get to the point, presenting material in a clear, concise, and quick manner. Research has shown that attention begins to wane if a business meeting lasts longer than 17 minutes. During the discussion sessions students learn to field questions in situations where they may not know all the answers. This is an important skill in many business situations where uncertainty is a frequent element.

c. adapt their speaking to field-specific audiences

Students are constantly confronted with the problem that the audience knows very little about their case. All students have read the case in the text, but they have not engaged in the extensive research that the presenters have. Thus, the presenters must constantly grapple with the problem of how to make "outsiders" understand the substantive issues. Students present at least six cases during the semester. Every case covers a different topic and requires different approaches in the presentation. Students are encouraged to take chances and develop innovative presentation techniques that will be interesting and informative. Thus, they have the opportunity to experiment with different methods of presentation such as role-plays, skits, outside consultants, panels, interviews, etc.

d. receive appropriate feedback from teachers and peers, including    suggestions for improvement

Students receive grades and other feedback from the instructor on every presentation. In addition, the discussion activities are graded, and this feedback helps the students develop more penetrating and insightful comments and questions. There are two opportunities for peer evaluation. The first and last case presentations are videotaped, and students are asked to critique their group's performance, both as a group and as individuals. This critique is also graded by the instructor.

e. make use of the technologies used for research and speaking in the fields

As stated above, students are encouraged to be creative and innovative in their case presentations. This often means that they incorporate technology into their activities. Presentations using PowerPoint slides are frequent. Less frequent, but present nevertheless, are web pages, created by the students, to illustrate material. Because the cases almost always involve examination of a company, visits to company web sites are routinely carried out. Sometimes students elect to videotape their presentation and show that in class. And, of course, most of the research for the presentations is carried out on the web.

f. learn the conventions of evidence, format, usage, and documentation in their field

Following every presentation the students submit documentation of their research effort. Time is spent in class explaining what the appropriate types of documentation are and how they should be presented. Examples of documentation include notes from various readings, financial statements and ratio calculations, annual reports, summaries of news articles, notes from business interviews, journals of group meetings, etc.

Office Hours E-mail

Table of Groups for Class Presentations

This course satisfies the three semester hours requirement of the Oral Communication Flag component in the University Studies Program. As such, it seeks to provide students taking this course the opportunity to achieve the following outcomes:

a. earn significant course credit through extemporaneous oral presentation;

b. understand the features and types of speaking in their disciplines;

C. adapt their speaking to field-specific audiences;

d. receive appropriate feedback from teachers and peers, including suggestions for improvement;

e. make use of the technologies used for research and speaking in the fields; and

f. learn the conventions of evidence, format, usage, and documentation in their fields

papers critiquing your group 5 performance, worth 50 points each for a subtotal of 100 points. Thus,. there are 1150 total points possible in this course. A 90-80-70 grading scale will be used.

The current text for MGMT 495, Strategic Management, consists entirely of cases. The first few weeks of the course consist of lectures about the strategic management process and explanations about the case presentation method of teaching. The remaining class periods consist of student presentations. The presentation of every case potentially touches on all six objectives of the US program.

Generic Presentation Outline-Mission Statements (b, e, f)

Generic Presentation Outline-Profile (b, e, f)