///Entrepreneurs in Action!
Developing the
Entrepreneurial Spirit
Learning in Action!
A Cross-disciplinary Problem-Based Learning
Environment for Entrepreneurship
University Cases
A Safety Manager’s Dilemma
(Foreign Trade Case)
Test Version 1.0
(A Work in Progress)
David L. Fender, EdD
Murray State University
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TABLE OF CONTENTS
INTRODUCTION
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LEARNING VIGNETTE-- A SAFETY MANAGER’S DILEMMA
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BACKGROUND
TODAY
THE SITUATION
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THE CHALLENGE
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CORE CONCEPTS
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LEARNING OBJECTIVES
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GUIDING QUESTIONS
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RESOURCES
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ARTICLES & SOURCES
WEB SITES
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IMPLEMENTATION
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INTRODUCING CASES
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STUDENT ACTIVITIES
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PRODUCTS
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PHASE ONE – DOING THE RESEARCH
PHASE TWO – FIND A SOLUTION
PHASE THREE – TAKING IT PUBLIC
ASSESSMENTS
FORMATIVE
SUMMATIVE
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A Safety Manager’s Dilemma
Test Version 1.0
Introduction
Safety, Health and Environmental (SHE) issues are throughout the world although in
different places the problems and issues may be different. No one really wants to get hurt
or cause someone to get sick or pollute a stream but people see the cause of and the risk
about these things differently. Other issues may also override concerns for these areas.
Examples are job security, costs, profit, perceived importance of people and the
environment, and political and economic considerations. Science and technology may
not always be readily available for certain problems and scientists can have valid
conflicting opinions on issues, usually due to different interpretation of data or
inadequate data.
A good example of this, in the environmental area, is the Kyoto Treaty. The stated
purpose of this treaty is to reduce the rate of global warming by reducing the emission of
so-called “greenhouse gases.” The assumption of the treaty is that these gases are
causing the earth to gradually warm and there are scientists and special-interest groups
that actively promote this view and these groups consider it a proven fact. The problem
with this is there are also scientists who believe the greenhouse gases are not responsible
for global warming and they blame other materials such as water vapor or normal climate
cyclic climate changes that have occurred throughout the earth’s existence. So the basic
science is not totally established and certainly not universality agreed upon. The
greenhouse gas proponents have been very active for the last several years promoting
their view and they have convinced many that greenhouse gases are a problem. The issue
has now become a political issue with politicians and countries getting involved and
taking sides and each promoting their view. The Kyoto Treaty discussion gets even more
complicated when you add in that some countries could be hurt or benefit economically
from a reduction of green house gases. Thus you are set up for disagreement on a worldwide scale. The Kyoto Treaty basically requires developed nations, such as the US to
reduced greenhouse gases and put little to no reduction on underdeveloped countries,
such as China, even though China emits large amounts of these gases. It is believed that
conformance to this treaty would hurt the US economically while allowing China, a
growing economic power in the world, an advantage. Thus we have economic and
political issues as well as the environmental concerns that some have. The solutions are
not simple and there is little agreement between the sides.
Safety, Health and Environmental problems can be difficult to handle, even within a
single plant, can be more difficult across a company with many plants and can be even
trickier across a company that has plants in different countries. Culture, expectations,
and laws are different as well as different norms and requirements. If a corporation based
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in Great Britain buys a company in Italy it would be normal for the corporation to want
the new company to do things the way they do things and to follow their procedures and
processes. The temptation is to just take the British company procedures and implement
them in Italy but what happens when these procedures run into Italian culture,
expectations and perhaps laws? For example, in Germany, as it is in the US, it is
stipulated by law that workers must be given breaks after every so many hours of work.
What is different is that the in Germany the employer, by law, must allow alcohol
consumption during workers’ breaks. In the US, alcohol consumption during working
hours would be automatic grounds for firing, not so in Germany, it is considered normal.
A US company trying to institute a standard US practice of no alcohol on the job in
Germany would run into a formidable obstacle backed by the strong labor unions and the
government.
So how do international companies blend different cultures and expectations and
establish good SHE programs without a mishmash of different programs and
requirements? That is the question we will be addressing in this case study.
Learning Vignette -- A Safety Manager’s Dilemma
Background
The Hargis Brothers Co. was established in 1908 by John Hargis and his brother Leroy.
The company initially made whips for buggies and other purposes. The company
flourished at first but unfortunately they were at the beginning of the automobile age and
within five years, with whip sales declining, the company was losing money. After an
argument over the direction of the company Leroy offered to sell his share of the
company to John and John accepted the offer.
John knew that the company had to change direction and rapidly if it was going to
survive but the question was how and where? As John was pondering this one day he
thought of his neighbor who had purchased an automobile a few months earlier and of the
conversation he had with him. The neighbor praised the virtues of the automobile and
how it was much better than a horse. The neighbor had even gotten rid of his horses and
only traveled via the automobile. The neighbor was delighted with his purchase and said
that horse travel would be a thing of the past. John humored him at the time and scoffed
inside at his predictions but John wondered if there wasn’t some truth in it. The
revelation came when John was pondering the limited usefulness of the automobile
because of the limited passable roads, only 20 miles in the Decatur area. How could
something that could only be used for relative short distances be better than a horse?
Suddenly it came to him. The horse was usually for relative short distance travel also, if
someone wanted to go a long distance they used the train. The automobile was no
different than the horse except it was faster, didn’t require daily feeding and cleaning and
didn’t kick or bite you.
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The more John thought about it he
believed that the automobile was
going to be the new thing. He didn’t
know if it would completely replace
the horse but its’ use would increase,
he knew it. John decided that since the
automobile industry was what was
hurting his business that maybe that
was where the future was.
When his neighbor left on the train to
visit some relatives for a couple of weeks, John talked him into leaving his automobile in
an empty storeroom at his factory. John had his best machinist look it over with the idea
of seeing if they could manufacture automobiles but John soon came to the conclusion
that the technology was too complicated for his liking.
One day John was looking at the automobile and the machinist pointed out to John that he
was surprised about the low quality of upholstery in the seats and that the passenger
compartment was generally drab. That comment gave John an idea, if they couldn’t
make automobiles, they could make some of the parts that went into them. In other
words, make automobile parts and sell them to the manufacturer to use in their products.
Seats seemed a good place to start. John knew several excellent upholstery men in
Decatur and jigs and tools would be quick to make or buy. The only question was where
and who to sell their product too?
After many trips to car manufacturers of the time including getting rudely rebuked by
Henry Ford, John got a contract with the fledgling Oldsmobile Company for a new model
they were coming out with. John’s company in Decatur made the seats and shipped them
by the train car load to Detroit to be installed in new cars. Also, there was a certain
amount of business replacing seats from accidents and other occurrences. As the quality
of John’s product became known, companies started coming to him and thus the Hargis
Brothers Co. was saved.
John also did something else around this time that you could say “cemented” the
company’s future. What was it? Cement of course. John always paid attention to
politics and noted the increased talk in Washington about the inferior quality of roads
throughout the country. He felt that eventually the federal government would be
throwing a lot of money at road construction and so he bought a small construction
company. The first thing he did was go to the city council and request permission to
build an improved road from his factory to the railroad terminal. The council agreed as
long as he would maintain it and the public would be allowed to use it and John agreed.
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It was only 3/4 of a mile long but in 1915 it was the first road with a cement base and an
asphalt top in that part of Alabama and was quite a hit. When the Federal-Aid Road Act
of 1916 was passed, which provided funds to the states to build roads, John quickly found
himself with several state contracts for road improvement and construction and the
construction company flourished.
Thus the Hargis Brothers Co. became a diversified company, not by plan but by seeing
opportunities as they occurred. Over the years Hargis Brothers have been in a variety of
businesses including financial, manufacturing for original equipment manufacturers
(OEM), chemical, construction, textiles, baked goods and aviation. It also maintained a
remnant of the original company and manufactures high-quality whips in a small portion
of the original Hargis Brothers’ building. The company changed its’ name in 1952 to
Grace Industries after a company it bought. The then company president John’s son
Ralph felt that Hargis Brothers sounded too plain besides there had not been any
“brothers” for years. Grace has prospered through the years and is now into the third
generation of Hargis family members with Ralph’s daughter Faith as CEO and her
brother Mark running the financial end.
Today
The company operates from a basic philosophy of buying undervalued companies,
cleaning them up, running them and either keeping them or selling them when the price is
right. They let most of the companies retain their original name and continue to operate
as separate companies. This makes it much easier to sell them later. After buying a
company, Grace Industries sends in a team to institute standardized stand-alone systems
that Grace has developed over the years. This includes marketing, financial, personnel,
purchasing and safety, health and environmental. Although Grace does not believe in
wholesale “upsetting the apple cart” when they “clean-up” a company, sometimes it is
necessary and frequently the new company’s personnel believes it is happening even if it
isn’t. People don’t always like change.
Before Grace acquires a new company they do a complete review of the company and its’
operations. Normally, representatives from Human Resources, Finance, Procurement,
Marketing, Manufacturing and the SHE office will visit all or a reasonable sample of the
companies facilities to get an estimate of how much work will be required to bring the
company up to Grace’s standards. After these trips a meeting is held with Grace’s
negotiating team and with Faith and Mark and everything is gone over in detail. In this
meeting, if it looks like a purchase will be likely, they make preliminary decisions on
how to approach the transition and if any of the new companies’ key personnel will need
to be immediately replaced. Replacement is usually recommended if any of the team
feels that an individual is resistant to change or has major issues that will just get in the
way.
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Grace only had a rudimentary safety program until 1939 when the government, because
of a government war-time contract, required a safety manager position and active
accident prevention program. After the war Grace decided to keep the corporate safety
director position and placed safety managers at all plants unless the plant was too small to
justify a position. At corporate level Grace now has a 5 person SHE office. This office is
responsible for all SHE-related activities including helping new acquisitions come into
compliance with Grace’s policies and procedures. Most of the time, at least one of the
office associates is traveling and assisting one of the subordinate operations.
The Director of Safety, Health and Environment, Ryan Watkins, has been with Grace for
10 years. Prior to working at the corporate level he was the safety manager for a
manufacturing company that Grace purchased. He saw first-hand how Grace handles an
acquisition and came to appreciate Grace’s approach to SHE activities. Faith also saw
Ryan’s abilities under pressure and asked him to head up the corporate SHE office when
the previous director retired. Ryan has been a part of 8 acquisitions since moving to
corporate. He has recommended removing safety managers 3 times immediately upon
acquiring the company and one more later, after the individual consistently underperformed. All SHE managers at subordinate companies and facilities have a dual
reporting responsibility, to the chief executive where they work and to Ryan. Ryan must
approve any new hires, although normally the chief executive of the activity performs the
initial hiring search.
The Grace Industries executive team consists of Faith, Mark, Ryan, and the head of
human resources, engineering development, procurement, manufacturing, and marketing.
Mark likes working with this group and Faith really stresses that they are a team and
insists that everyone work together. She is very intolerant of anyone who appears to
favor their operation over another part of the company. Although sometimes the
discussions during meetings can sound rather heated, especially to an outsider, Faith
encourages that in order to get things out in the open. Because of the trust that exists
between everyone, in the end everyone comes together and endorses the final decision
that is made. Mark feels that Faith supports his efforts and has never said no to a
necessary request. She does lean heavily upon her brother Mark’s opinions. Mark is a
harder sell than Faith but can usually be brought around, especially if Ryan can show a
cost savings within a reasonable period of time. Overall Ryan feels he gets excellent
senior executive support and feels like an equal and valued member of the executive
team.
Ryan considers his operations’ mission to be three-fold. To monitor and assist field SHE
activities, to support the corporate mission of company acquisition and clean-up, and to
insure that Grace’s SHE activities and costs are appropriate and meet regulatory
requirements. Over the years Grace has developed a philosophy of being a good
corporate citizen and treating employees fairly. This philosophy is reflected in the SHE
activities because they don’t just do what is required by government mandate but try to
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do the right things, including considering what would be best for the community and for
workers.
One of Ryan’s best staff persons is Sheila. She has worked at corporate for 5 years also
being moved up from a subordinate operation. She has 17 years experience in SHE
activities and has been the SHE point person for 3 acquisitions. Ryan has found her work
ethic to be excellent and her opinions well-founded. Ryan has found that she is
particularly good at “putting out fires” at subordinate plants. She seems to have a knack
for calming people and getting directly to the root problems. Ryan considers her a very
important member of the SHE team.
The situation
Grace spent about 9 months looking into and purchasing the Éclair Corporation. Éclair
had automotive parts manufacturing facilities that Grace thought would fit in well with
other parts manufacturing operations that Grace operated. Éclair’s had 3 plants in the US
but most importantly they had 5 unionized plants in Europe at Porcuna, Spain,
Mondragon, France, Horseleap, Ireland, Bad Orb, Germany, and Gdansk, Poland. Grace
was interested in this company because it would give them an entry into Europe and
automotive companies that they currently did not serve. Faith saw this acquisition as
critical to expand Grace’s market share in the very competitive automotive parts industry.
As was normal procedure, Ryan went to Europe with other members of Grace’s preacquisition team and visited all the plants but the one in Gdansk. Time and hassle about
getting a visa prevented him from going there. Only a couple members of the team went
to Gdansk and they reported an old facility but one that was doing quality work and most
importantly one that had a major contract with BMW, a contract that Grace wanted.
Everyone was very excited about “going international” and knew this would be a major
breakthrough for Grace, so the deal was approved and signed.
Faith, Mark, Ryan and the other people responsible for cleaning-up acquisitions are
beginning to realize that this acquisition is different from all the others they have done.
Éclair Corporation’s culture is very different. The French corporation headquarters has
generally stone-walled changes that have been requested and Faith finally fired the head
of Éclair after getting frustrated with the non-action. The firing has made relations
between the Grace and Éclair even more icy and Mark, who spent about a month in
Europe, right after the acquisition, was very frustrated with the general attitude of the
corporation executives and management. US operations have not been too difficult to
deal with and Faith made the decision to move them under another of Grace’s companies.
All 3 plant managers welcomed the news although Éclair headquarters made it plain that
they were not happy about it.
Gdansk is a heavy industrialized city and has a strong union movement. The union runs
the company more than the company does. The fall of communism, while bring political
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freedom, also brought with it dramatic changes in the economic and cultural status quo
and life has been difficult and all the changes hard for many individuals to accept. Polish
workers were long used to following orders that came from above, not questioning the
wisdom of an action nor worrying about quality execution. When Éclair acquired the
plant 5 years ago the plant has slowly changed. The workers at first resisted working for
a French company but when they finally realized that the plant would be shut down if
they did not produce what was desired, they reluctantly changed their ways. The
workforce at its’ peak was 2,500 workers, many of whom did nothing. When Éclair took
over, employment was down to 1,800 and within a year it was down to 600. These were
hard times with management and union relations extremely strained. After new
equipment was brought in and with the new contract employment has risen to 1,200. The
workers now realized that Éclair saved their jobs and are proud of what they do.
Shelia has spent the last month bouncing around Europe from plant to plant. She reports
that the Irish and German operations are the best and she expects them to cause the
fewest problems with bringing them into compliance with Grace’s SHE systems. She
thinks Spain will take longer and France is being obstinate much like their corporate
headquarters. She has spent 2 weeks in Poland and is about to throw up her hands. The
language problem is only the start. The country is so different from what she has known
before she is not even sure they understand what she is trying to tell them. At least in
France they understand, they just refuse to make changes, in Poland they just tell her it is
“impossible” or that they “will see.” Frustrating her efforts in Poland and the other
countries, she has also run up against individual country and European Union
requirements that are different from US requirements and she is having a hard time
reconciling US, European Union and individual country regulatory requirements. Every
time she thinks she has figured something out someone points out another local or
European Union requirement that seems to contradict what she wants to do. She thought
working with differing state rules was hard, that was nothing compared to what she is
encountering now.
Sheila has also told Ryan that in Spain, Poland and somewhat in Germany she has been
having trouble getting management personnel to talk to her. She said at first she just
thought, because she was a foreigner and from the new unknown parent company, that
they were afraid of her. She has spent enough time at all the places now that she believes
that it is probably more than just that but she is having trouble putting her finger on what
it is. She does know that the management personnel in those companies do not seem to
take her seriously and it is very frustrating.
Faith called a meeting of the executive team right after lunch and everyone is there
including Ryan. Mark just flew in that morning and has been with Faith ever since.
Mark looks really tired as Faith opens the meeting and hands it to Mark to give a status
report. Mark goes through Éclair starting with the corporate headquarters and then each
plant. He emphasizes the dollars and cents aspects, as he always does, but also discusses
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the leadership challenges that he sees. After about 40 minutes he finishes and hands the
meeting back to Faith. She looks around the room and states, “You have heard the
report, I assume that all of your direct reports that are over there have filled you in on
what is going on in your particular areas. Although some things are going OK the
problems we are having cannot continue.” She continued, “We have been doing
acquisitions since my grandfather’s days and I thought we were pretty good at it, but in
this case we are falling on our faces.” “Something needs to be done and done quickly or
as Mark said, it will only get worse.” She emphasized, “Getting into these European auto
companies is essential for our growth and we cannot fail.” “If we do fail it will likely be
many years before we will even be able to talk to any of these companies and I should not
have to remind you that they are building more and more of their product in this country
and we need to do business with them over here too.” “I have already received calls from
BMW and DaimlerChrysler, concerned about the negative rumors they are hearing about
our overseas production facilities.” “I have placated them for now, but they are paying
attention and we have to get this fixed and fixed NOW!” Ryan was surprised by the
sudden rise in Faith’s voice, as that was not normal for her but he knew she was dead
serious. Faith then said to the group, “I have told Mark to go home and get some sleep.”
With a very serious tone and look on her face she continued, “I don’t want any of the rest
of you to sleep until you come up with a plan on how to fix OUR and YOUR problem!”
She said this without smiling and slowly looked at each person in the room. Then she
smiled and said “I’m not getting any sleep these days so I want lots of company!” There
was a little nervous laughter around the room and Faith finished the meeting by standing
and then stating, “I know this is the roughest challenge we as a group have faced,
probably the roughest challenge since my Grandfather’s days.” She resolutely added
“but I believe we can do it!” “We will have another meeting in 48 hours and I want
definite recommendations from everyone about what we need to do. Don’t limit your
thoughts to just your area, if you have an idea of where we have gone wrong and a better
approach I want to hear it.” She stood there several seconds then added, “OK, let’s get to
it,” and she walked out of the room. Everyone just sat in their chair, for what seemed an
eternity, then slowly everyone started gathering their things and standing up to leave.
Mark who had remained slumped in his chair quietly said to no one in particular, “I will
be in tomorrow and will brief each of you about particulars in your area.” Then even
more quietly he said, “I didn’t want to be too negative earlier but Faith has read it
correctly, our position is even worse than I indicated.” Then looking down he said in an
exhausted voice “We are failing.” Not a single word was spoken as everyone shuffled
out of the conference room.
As Ryan returned to his office he thought about what had just happened and what he
needed to do. His first thought was, “we have tried everything” it just isn’t working.
After a few minutes of feeling sorry for himself , he straighten himself up and decided
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that getting depressed wasn’t going to help and that he need to get to work. He asked his
secretary to do whatever she had to do to get Elaine on the phone as soon as possible and
while that was happening Ryan sat back and started thinking about how to approach this
problem. Ryan thought to himself “Europe is a long way from Alabama.” Ryan was right
and not just geographically but culturally and in many other ways.”
The Challenge
Entrepreneurs in Action! cases are written to be open-ended, flexible learning
experiences. The case provides an introduction and a learning vignette to set the stage for
the students. The student groups should carefully read the introduction and the learning
vignette. After reading these areas, students should discuss the major issues outlined in
the introduction and learning vignette. The students are then faced with the opportunity to
develop possible solutions to the problems and opportunities outlined in the case.
Students may find it necessary to seek information from some of the resources listed in
the case and to lookup additional information. There are no right or wrong answers in
these exercises and it is expected that multiple solutions will be developed by different
groups. It is also suggested that students not only look at the leadership, political,
economic and social issues, but to dream about future business opportunities that can
derive from the case. The challenge begins with the following questions:
1) What do you think?
2) What solutions would you recommend if you were on Grace’s executive team?
3) Are there any new business ventures or ways to improve existing business that
could be developed from this case?
After raising these questions, the students are free to begin deliberations on possible
solutions to the case.
Core Concepts
Some of the concepts to be covered in this case are as follows:
1. International relations
2. Cultural & generational differences
3. Corporate and international politics
4. Social expectations
5. Leadership approaches
6. Team development
7. Managing change
8. Communication
9. GroupThink
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Learning Objectives
1. Students will have the opportunity to think creatively about a problem
solution.
2. Students will gain an understanding of the issues surrounding corporate and
societal culture.
3. Students will learn how to develop a plan for the leadership of Grace Corp. to
implement.
4. Students will apply theories of leadership, culture, teams, communication and
power to a real problem.
Guiding Questions
1. Are there any cultural or social issues, in this problem? What are they?
2. What is the best approach toward getting the European operations on-board?
3. How can Grace Industries get the European employees to work with them
instead of against them?
4. What strategies can Grace use to find out exactly what sort of problems they
face?
Resources
Articles & Sources
Article on occupational safety in Poland from the Warsaw Voice
http://www.warsawvoice.pl/archiwum.phtml/2784/
Warsaw Voice newspaper
http://www.warsawvoice.pl/
Links for European Newspapers and News Magazines
http://www.world-newspapers.com/europe.html
Web Sites
European Community Safety & Health
http://europe.osha.eu.int/
This is the general site for the European Community (EU) safety and health program.
From here you can access individual sites for each member of the community.
International Occupational Safety & Health Information Centre
http://www.ilo.org/public/english/protection/safework/cis/
This site is run by the International Labour Association which is a union group and some
partners. A lot of information regarding unions and safety.
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European Health Alliance
http://www.epha.org/a/1593
This is the EU site about occupational health issues. It gives information regarding
alliances, programs and strategy.
The State of Occupational Safety and Health in the Member States of the European
Union http://www.unionnetwork.org/uniindep.nsf/0/6440cab149c09f04c1256a760033b526?OpenDocument
This is a report done by the EU.
Proceedings for EU 2004 Safety & Health Conference
http://www.arbo.nl/news/conference_docs/proceedings/GBI/dagkrantje1.pdf
http://www.arbo.nl/news/conference_docs/proceedings/GBI/dagkrantje2.pdf
http://www.arbo.nl/news/conference_docs/proceedings/GBIII/dagkrantje3.pdf
Implementation
This case is intended to be used at the Graduate level although advanced undergraduate
classes may be appropriate. Recommend that the class be divided up into teams of 3-4
people, who are given an opportunity to review the Entrepreneurs in Action! exercise and
to develop strategies for solving the situation. Thus, students work together in small
groups and learn a wide variety of skills related to leadership, teamwork development,
problem identification, research, resource analysis and synthesis, product or process
identification, potential market development, the application of cross-disciplinary
thinking, product and process cost analysis, and written and verbal presentation skills. In
this model, the case presents the students with an unresolved issue, provides some
resources and permits the students to take charge of their own learning and to develop
solutions and/or a new business venture out of the given situation.
Introducing Cases
Several methods may be used to introduce the Entrepreneurs in Action! cases to the class,
as follows:
1. Divide the class into groups and present the case to each group and permit limited
discussions between groups.
2. Permit a selected number of students to role-play the scenario as a way of
introducing the case.
3. Fishbowl. A small group of students may be requested to sit in the middle of the
room and to discuss topics related to the case. The other students would observe
and would synthesize the events afterwards.
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4. Students may also be shown selected video clips to start the entrepreneurial
thinking process. Some video clips are "The Triumph of the Nerds" series, the
"Apprentice" TV show, the "October Sky" movie, "Pirates of Silicon Valley"
movie, the "Seabiscuit" movie, or the Public TV version.
Student Activities
Students are expected to participate actively in their groups and to contribute to
developing creative ideas for possible business ventures. In doing so, students may be
required to learn through reflections. Students can be required to keep a journal of the
activities of each group meeting and to record his or her thoughts and comments about
the process. Students may also use concept mapping to study the issues and track
progress development. IHMConcept Map Software is available free at
http://cmap.coginst.uwf.edu/docs/.
Products
The final products to the cases are usually either a written business plan or written plan of
action and a final oral presentation. The oral presentation can be given to different
groups, such as the local Chamber of Commerce, other business and civic groups, a panel
of Online Experts and/or to the class. A rubric is used to judge the creative and
entrepreneurial ventures and grades are assigned based on the rubric evaluation. The
development of the final product usually follows the outline below.
Phase One – Doing the Research
Research European business culture, the EU and occupational safety, health and
environmental issues in Europe and how these areas are managed. Based upon the
research and the case study information write a summary of what you found and the
major issues that need to be addressed.
Phase Two – Find a Solution
Working in your group, come up with a written action plan. Explore that area and
determine the course of action you would like to see taken, taking into account the steps
necessary to insure success.
Phase Three – Taking it Public
Present your group's solution to a team of peers, educators and experts in the field You
will submit to their evaluation, just as you would do so in actual practice. You should
employ a variety of presentation techniques, including a written business plan, handouts,
and a computer-based presentation.
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Assessments
Formative
In-class observations
1. Instructors will observe group work and interact in the role of facilitator as
needed
2. Teams of peers and visiting experts will evaluate the final presentation for
content and appearance of the final product.
Summative
1. Action/Business Plan Evaluations
Instructors will evaluate the completed action or business plans for accuracy, content,
breadth, depth, and professional appearance.
2. Presentation Evaluation
Instructors will assess the professionalism of the final presentation, taking into account
the content and appearance of the final product.