Undergraduate Teaching Philosophy: I find the undergraduate students at KU to be extremely good students in that they are bright, personable and hard working. My goal in teaching them to try to affect how they think about issues and problems faced by top managers whether it pertains to business strategy or how they manage and lead organizations. Because I do not focus heavily on memorizing standard techniques or vocabulary, much of my teaching revolves around case examples and even extensive use of video cases. Class participation is essential, as students need to be able to vocalize their thinking about important issues facing managers. I tend to emphasize papers, participation and essay exams because those assignments focus students on application of concepts and theories. The students do not realize it, but I design a large dose of current research knowledge into the classes.

In the past, I was the primary instructor for Corporate Strategy (i.e., managing the scope of the firm) in the MBA Program. In the future, I will be shifting to teaching the required Strategic Management course and also the course on Strategy Implementation.

MBA Teaching Philosophy: I use the same philosophy as my undergraduate teaching but each class session is controlled less by me and more controlled by the students. Because the many MBA students bring tremendous knowledge of organizations to their class, it just makes sense to use that knowledge and allow them to shape the flow of the class. Therefore, case discussions in class are guided less by me and more by the flow of what the students say. I try to steer that flow toward what might be the discovery of a valuable insight. I keep lecturing to an absolute minimum in my MBA classes. Teaching MBA students is the hardest teaching that I do because it requires having extensive knowledge but also realizing and adapting to the fact that the students sometimes have more knowledge that you do about a particular event, company, case or even a phenomena like organizational mergers.

A main reason that I am at KU is because of the School of Business’ Ph.D. Program. While I enjoy teaching Undergraduate and MBA students at KU, I really, really, really enjoy working with Ph.D. students. It’s a totally different type of teaching where instead of being an instructor, you are a guide and mentor to students as they discover how to become social scientists and teachers. While I advise students in Strategic Management, I also serve on dissertations in HRM and other areas of Management.