Learning about Organizational Management through “Organizational Management”: Closing the Gap

Abstract

Using the whale course situation as a work organization the author was able to teach an introductory management course in which the students experienced key organizational processes: leadership, decision making, problem solving, communication, conflict, cooperation and competition. This experience approximates the organizational reality better than a conventional course. Two classes (110, 40) of business seniors in a midwestern university participated in the experiment. This paper reports the rationale, methodology and caveats of this experiment.