Issue link: https://www.e-digitaleditions.com/i/58063
"The companies that recruit from us want students to learn to work with people they've never met, who have a different set of beliefs, work habits, schedules, and languages." —Dan Conway, Indiana University, Kelley School of Business medical support to a country such as Afghanistan. When they learn that 10 percent of that money is going to support the opium trade, they must choose what to do. "The question there is, Do I enrich a dic- tator and feed people at the same time, or do I not do business in that country?" says Conway. The "oil for food" problem is the kind of ethically gray area that the professors like. Says Conway, "We don't want students to be going through accounting records to find illegal actions. We want to present Students sitting in a classroom in Germany use video conferencing to join American students in a joint presentation held at the Indiana campus. them with situations in which none of the choices are good." That takes planning, he says, as he and Franz work back- ward from the ethical dilemma they want students to con- front. "That's the question on the top layer," says Conway. "The next layer down is, How would different cultures re- spond to this dilemma? The next layer down is, How do you create a context where this will play out? The next layer down asks, How do you get processes in place so that the ethical dilemma presents itself when the teams are merged?" Conway continues, "When the collaboration occurs, cul- tural differences surface. That's something students have to live through and struggle with in order to have a meaning- ful learning experience. That's something that just doesn't make sense in a book." Expanding the Program While the change management dimensions of this course work particularly well in a process management class, the collaborators believe a disruptive learning exercise could be adapted for almost any discipline. Since the first half of the class is devoted to teaching the basic material, students get an excellent grounding in a particular topic. The next stages of the class allow students to build their cases—and then fig- ure out how to modify their cases to handle the disruption. "You could follow that structure with accounting, business law, or marketing as well," Conway says. Maurizio agrees. Once any kinks are smoothed out in the 3C Learning course, SAP's University Alliance wants to in- troduce the class as a pilot project and make the materials available to all other member universities. "If we could en- courage networking and collaboration in different countries and different schools, the synergy could be unbelievable," Maurizio says. 38 BizEd MARCH/APRIL 2007 If that's not convincing enough, Conway and Franz offer five more reasons business schools should adopt similar classes. First, there's no additional cost. Students can use free, widely available, Web-based software for their collaborations, and the big-screen video presenta- tions also can be handled for free over the Internet. Since most stu- dents are fairly tech-savvy already, it is not particularly difficult for them to learn these collaborative tools, Conway says. Second, while students might find the course stressful, other stakeholders love it, particu- larly parents, alumni, and recruiters. "The companies that recruit from us want students to learn to work with people they've never met, who have a different set of beliefs, work habits, schedules, and languages," says Conway. "John Deere has increased its hiring from us as a result of this class." Third, the course encourages collaboration among facul- ty. "The academic rewards system is not structured for cross- discipline work," Conway points out. "I'm a traditional op- erations, MIS, and quant person. I'm not an expert in ethics. If I weren't doing this, I wouldn't have had a reason to go talk to the ethics person in the business law department. So a course like this is helpful for the business faculty as well." Fourth, students get just a taste of the uncertainties of working in the real world. "So many students come into class thinking, 'This is what I have to do to get an A,'" says Conway. "They're very good at grade management. When they're in a situation where they have no idea what they're supposed to do, that's a very valuable experience." Finally, the class not only gives students a grounding in the realities of globalization, it has the potential for creat- ing a true international network. Franz hopes the students of Bloomington and Brandenburg consider swapping visits between cities—but he also wonders if some of them might meet up again at a later date. "Maybe the students will see each other after graduation at a real merger, and then they'll know better how to deal with each other," he says. As more business schools look for ways to break down the silos of discipline, a course like the 3C Learning project offers a blueprint for integrated learning. Hot-button top- ics like globalization, ethics, and multicultural teamwork are folded into an experiential learning course so memorable that students are likely to retain its lessons forever. ■ z