TECHNOLOGY, STRATEGIC MANAGEMENT ...

TECHNOLOGY, STRATEGIC MANAGEMENT CONCEPTS AND ONLINE DELIVERY Ronald J. Salazar, University of Houston - Victoria, Texas, USA Jifu Wang, University of Houston - Victoria, Texas, USA ABSTRACT This paper reports on the most recent developments in teaching approaches for graduate level strategic management at an AACSB college of business. Our college routinely measures learning outcomes through independent evaluations of students’ written work as a part of its assurance of learning continuous improvement process. The empirical results from the second cycle of evaluations by an expert panel identified a performance gap between face-to-face and internet delivery methods on specific learning outcome dimensions. In response, we implemented a hybrid approach that was intended to close the gap. The approaches we used and the results of our continuing adjustment process are reported in sufficient detail to inform the academy. Our explicit empirical comparison is included to guide others. Keywords: Strategic Management, Technology, Online Instruction, Curriculum I.

INTRODUCTION

How can the case method be used and its principles taught effectively online? How can online MBA students’ performance equal or exceed that of their face-to-face counterparts? What steps should be taken when online course delivery produces inferior results? These are the questions that gave rise to the effort that produced this paper. As we all know, the education of business decision makers seems to be changing at an ever-faster pace. As Harrison, et al point out (2007), “The sustained pressure to adopt teaching curriculum ... that appears immediately relevant ... is overwhelming.” Indeed, while the debate between rigor and relevance continues to rage (McKelvey, 2006; Starkey & Tempest, 2005) the need to communicate meaningful ideas and to build real skills remains. Technological changes in the environment involving the internet and its use have had an effect on the expectations of recruiters of MBAs, on students and on faculty. The use of the internet as a course delivery mechanism to supplement and even supplant the face-to-face approach has flourished over the last decade (Alavi & Leidner, 2001; Eastman & Swift, 2001). A variety of theoretical models for online teaching effectiveness have been proposed (Alavi & Leidner, 2001; Benbunan-Fich, 2002; Brandon & Hollingshead, 1999; Leidner & Jarvenpaa, 1995) and a number of empirical studies into characteristics of business courses in general (Arbaugh, J. B., Benbunan-Finch, R., 2006; Arbaugh, 2005), are helpful. Still, it remains for business faculties to grapple with the course-by-course (and learning objective by learning objective) issues that arise from new technologies and from the new challenges encountered. The teaching approaches that are the subject of the present work are internet course delivery and face-to-face methods at the graduate level. This paper reports further results of our work in innovating our strategic MBA program in general and the capstone course in particular to produce the consistent paradigmatic shifts called for in the literature. We first explain the context of our work. Then discuss the impetus that gave rise to our specific actions. The data underpinning our work is shown in the next section of the paper. The following section deals with the general approach we have adopted and the steps we have taken to produce the results to date. We introduce three innovative teaching approaches that the reader may find beneficial and explore the feedback and process we have put in place to encourage continuous improvement. The approach of our university has been to seek the sort of integration described by Augier and March (2007, pg 130) and perhaps most common in AACSB accredited graduate programs. Although there may be little agreement across the academy as what the “correct” balance, (ibid, p. 131) might entail, or how it might be achieved, within our college significant coalescence has existed for some time. When an expert panel evaluated specific measures of desired learning outcomes, students instructed via internet delivery performed less well than their counterparts did. Our faculty acted in response to the performance dimensions most in need of attention. In an earlier paper we reported the results of our first attempts to align the performance of online students to those of face- to-face students

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(Salazar, et. al., 2008). This paper reports the updated results of our collective efforts to follow a logical, methodologically driven, continuous improvement of learning outcomes. II.

THE CONTEXT

Our school is a well ranked, AACSB accredited suburban public university offering both undergraduate and graduate degrees in business. A part of its mission is to provide high-quality academic programs with special emphasis at the graduate level, primarily for non-traditional students. Its focus on underserved constituencies includes a variety of delivery modes (e.g., off-campus sites and Internet) and collaborative arrangements. The college explicitly integrates the strategic planning model throughout the Strategic MBA program, which features cross-disciplinary approaches to solving complex business problems. The program generally follows a generative learning process (Wittrock, 1992) and explicitly involves each of its components of organization, integration, and elaboration (Zantow, Knowlton & Sharp, 2005) in the evaluation of its capstone course. The program permits flexible scheduling (as opposed to lock-step) and is designed to include real-world, applied learning, case studies, and team projects throughout. Primarily part-time students, most of whom complete the degree in less than 3 years, undertake the 48-hour curriculum. Quality of course offerings is supported by faculty committees devoted to assurance of learning. The college faculty committee charged with assurance of learning generated a “short list” of learning objectives for the program. Course objectives were developed for each course and scheduled for routine evaluation keeping with Bloom’s taxonomy (Bloom, 1956). Among the courses required of all students is the course that is the subject of this paper. That course is a seminar in strategic management. The course, the capstone to the program, is the subject of the next section of this paper. The seminar in strategic management is the integrative course for the MBA program that synthesizes and applies cross-functional approaches learned in prior core courses to organizational issues. The course was designed to help students create value for organizations by applying knowledge and skills developed in other MBA core courses. Its primary mission is to help students develop ways of thinking and learning that will make them more effective managers. The course specific objectives for which the course faculty are responsible are 1) Understand and evaluate changes in environment; and, 2) Apply cross-functional approaches to organizational issues. Face-to-face, the course is taught as a traditional strategy course with some didactic work, some Socratic case analyses, substantial teamwork, and some objective quizzes. Online the course closely follows the face-to-face teaching plan. Online, written materials and email system and discussion boards have been used to stimulate learning. In each delivery method, the course requires each student to prepare an individual case analysis for a publicly traded firm, to provide students an opportunity to perform a strategic situation analysis and external) and to identify strategic issues. Each student develops a formal written analysis using the same outline that is used for an MBA Case Competition. The individual case analysis is intended to help students utilize all their knowledge, skills, and abilities, to formulate a workable strategy as a part of a team. The students self-select into groups of three or four people. Each team is then required to prepare a term project that combines the individual analyses and identifies strategic issues. The teams then prepare an implementation plan to address the issue(s) it identifies. Each team then presents its strategic analysis and recommendations at a competitive “case conference” at which its work is evaluated by an expert panel of faculty and business executives not including the teaching faculty for the course. The panels, according to presentation grading rubrics that are consistent with the stated course objectives, grade the presentations of each team. The grade assigned by the expert panel forms a part of each individual semester grade. III.

THE PROBLEM

One of the ways that the college assures learning outcomes for program assessment is to measure the performance of graduating MBA students by closely reviewing the quality of the work product from both the individual and team term projects for the seminar in strategic management. One method, already discussed is the MBA Case Competition mentioned above. The second method has been ex-post review of individual term projects by faculty other than those teaching the courses. We, together with our colleagues had previously developed a series of grading rubrics to measure quality. In the initial evaluation cycle, the performance of students taking the seminar via internet delivery was not as good as that of students taking the class face-to-face. The aggregate performance scores for the entire


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population shown in Table-1 illustrate this pattern. For illustration purposes, we have included the second learning objective - “Analyze changes in the business environment to develop strategies that respond to emerging opportunities and threats” Learning Goal Online FTF Analyze changes in the business environment to develop responsive strategies Aggregate Score 81.2 86.5 Analysis of driving forces causing industry change 81.8 96 Analysis of the economic characteristics of the industry 81.8 91 A profitability analysis of the industry (five-forces) 96.2 77 Analysis of potential strategic moves of competitors 65 82 Table- 1 The most dramatic differences we show here were those we observed in the stark contrasts between the performance scores underscoring the difficulty of online students had in the analysis of an industry’s driving forces and in identifying the potential strategic moves of competitors. We began immediately to plan to close the performance gap. One of the main ways we initially attempted to eliminate the difference in performance was specially designed hybrid delivery for certain course content in the next semester. We attempted to close the gap with two focused mandatory face-to-face sessions that addressed requirements, content, approaches, etc. The approach required students to attend sessions conducted face-to-face and via ITV from one of the university’s remote sites. Learning Objectives for MBA Learning Objective: Apply cross-functional approaches to organizational issues Evaluation of the firm’s financial performance Performs a complete financial analysis that includes the implications of absolute and relative measures of the all firm’s financial statements from an historical and prospective point of view. An evaluation of the firm’s prices and costs Explains, decomposes and evaluates the value creating using value chain approach activities of the firm, identifying all major activities undertaken to deliver value to the customer and considering what might be done to add the greatest value and whether changes are advisable A SWOT analysis Accurately and clearly explains, decomposes and evaluates the quality of the SWOTs in terms that are applicable to the situation. Absolute and relative measures are included. Description of strategic issues based on other The firm’s strategic issues are well defined and concise; analyses all important aspects are included. The description is very well written Learning objective: Analyze changes in the business environment for responsive strategies Analysis of external environmental forces and Complete analysis of the driving forces that will cause the industry to change driving forces causing industry change Analysis of the economic characteristics of Complete description of the economic features of the industry demonstrating a solid grasp of the context the industry A profitability analysis of the industry (five- Complete analysis of the competitive nature of the industry using the five-forces model forces) Analysis of potential strategic moves of A solid prediction of what all relevant competitors are competitors likely to do in the future based on their objectives, capabilities, intentions and beliefs about the industry Table- 2 The first session we designed was delivered in the first weeks of the semester and was devoted to the individual project and its requirements. All online and face-to-face students were required to attend. Every student attended each session. A partial list of topics such as the specific learning objectives listed


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in Table- 2 on previous page as well as others i.e., systems theory, industry analysis, I/O economics, alternative theories of strategic management, etc. were all topics of the first session. The first session seemed to accomplish the goals we had established. The students immediately sought out their teammates and were free to ask questions. We were able to guide the teams along the way. The second mandatory face-to-face session addressed topics related to the team project’s requirements and included requirements for the MBA conference presentation as well as reiterating the objectives mentioned in Table 2. The second iteration of program evaluations revealed that the sessions had been largely successful in closing the performance gap. Our reverie was short, however. Our review of course evaluations revealed that students’ perceptions related to the course indicated clearly that our particular student population found the mandatory sessions too costly for us to maintain them for the longer term. We then began to solve our performance problem using the methods described in the next section. IV.

THE ATTEMPTED SOLUTION

Armed with all the foregoing information we set out to modify our internet course delivery using new technologies. We decided to take a series of approaches using recently developed technologies that permits us to forego the mandatory sessions by recording the content of the presentations, developing and recording an audio soundtrack and making them available to students via streaming video. The technology allows the student to move around within the presentation, review the content, listen, and work at the lessons in self-paced fashion. We are working on polishing the presentations we will be using for future classes. The session communicates the basics of the requirements for the individual term project. We viewed this as a part of the solution. Closing the performance gap we had identified also required us to be able to answer student’s questions in real time and to be able to communicate with groups with members in different locations. In order to address the latter two issues we initiated one technological response to each. Answering student’s questions in real time has been facilitated by instituting “virtual” office hours using hosted video conferencing through Adobe Connect. The technology facilitates the process in several ways. First, students may come and go as they wish. However, they only enter the video conference with the permission of the instructor. Secondly, the entire office hour session is recordable. A final approach we have adopted to facilitate teamwork is to establish video conferencing capabilities for each group. Using the technology, each group can meet using hosted video conferencing independent of the instructor to accomplish course requirements. Within the adopted technology, students may chat, share documents and files, and use video and whiteboard functionalities independent of the other teams or of the instructor. The instructor can use the recorded sessions as a part of group evaluations as well. V.

RESULTS AND PLAN FOR THE FUTURE

Our current results indicate that streaming video seems an attractive alternative, as measured by students’ reaction and immediate feedback in general terns. However, to our dismay, we failed to utilize an evaluation system to ensure that all students watched the video presentations containing the information they needed. After the semester ended, a series of interviews with students revealed that although popular as a curiosity, the videos were ignored later in the semester. So, the problem of better performance from face-to-face students persists. In the next semester we will make two major modifications. First, we will add quizzes (for credit) using the WEBCT assessment function. Secondly, we will add quizzes at intervals within the streaming videos and track completion in that way. Until these problems are solved we cannot be completely certain how effectively video technologies might be in resolving our performance gap. The virtual office hours are gradually gaining in popularity. Video conferencing for groups remains the least well used technology. This paper has summarized the new approaches we have employed to close the observed performance gap between face-to-face and online students. We advise that instructors considering including important video assignments couple them with evaluation schemes for credit to ensure that the materials are received.


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