The effects of a positive reward system on student procrastination: Working paper series--02-08

The findings of this study support previous research indicating that procrastination tends to decrease with academic maturity and that procrastination is a good predictor of performance. However, this study adds to previous research in finding that, a positive reward system requiring minimal recordkeeping, can reduce or eliminate the incidence of fallacious excuses encountered with penalty-based systems. An effective positive reward system should: (1) encourage students to manage their own time by shifting the locus of control from the instructor onto the student, (2) be easy for the instructor to administer, (3) be simple enough for the students to understand, (4) provide rewards with known value that have minimal impact on the distribution of grades or that do not cause "grade inflation", (5) effectively reduce fictitious excuses that require subjective instructor evaluation, and (6) minimize the delay in returning graded work to students, e.g. assignments from all students must be turned in before and graded results can be distributed

Norchem drug testing: A small company's lean journey: Working paper series--13-02

In response to competitive pressures and business opportunities, Norchem Drug testing had committed to and successfully pursued a transition to lean thinking and processes. Norchem, a small, northern Arizona drugs of abuse testing laboratory served clients across the West and Midwest of the U.S. In business for approximately 15 years, Norchem had grown steadily and profitably due, in part, to its relentless application of lean. Initially starting with lab operations, it had begun to extend lean thinking into other functions of the company, notably the accounting/finance area. Bill Gibbs, the CEO, and some of his staff described the struggles and successes of implementing lean in a small, service-oriented company. While many in-house processes had achieved an enviable level of lean, there were still areas in which it was striving to reduce waste and improve processes. Of specific concern was its relationship with a major supplier. As a small customer of a larger supplier, Norchem was challenged to influence the supplier to better support Norchem's lean processes. In addition, the company was reconsidering its strategy of customer responsiveness due to a changing market that has again increased competitive price pressure

Brake lights at the border: Going international twenty-two miles away (an international marketing/management case): Working paper series--02-13

Russ Clark is a successful NAPA Auto Parts franchisee in Yuma County, Arizona. He sees opportunity in the neighboring Mexican city of San Luis Rio Colorado. But crossing the border with an after-market auto parts store will require building relationships with others, lots of learning to overcome the significant barriers, and some savvy decision-making, in addition to the usual evaluation of business opportunities. Clark must cope with the barriers to doing business in Mexico, a completely foreign environment, even though the projected location of his new store is only 22 miles away from home. Further, his mistrust of lawyers has thoroughly turned him off to the common practice of hiring a lawyer to intercede for him with the Mexican authorities, and he must consider some alternate plan to make the important contacts that could have been easily facilitated by the lawyer. Clark must consider a location decision, product mix, human resource issues, and how to promote the new business in an uncertain context. Clearly, his current American business model will require a great degree of adaptation to make the venture a success. Note: Teaching Notes for this case can be requested from the authors. For contact information, see case

Pecha Kucha for lean and sticky presentations in business classes: Working paper series--12-03

We incorporated Pecha Kucha presentations into three business classes helping students to achieve more focused and engaging presentations. Pecha Kucha is a highly structured yet flexible style of presentation which requires twenty visual slides with few words that are automatically displayed for twenty seconds. While the response of students as presenters and as audience members, and faculty was positive, presenters found the limited content and time challenging, suggesting the need for additional practice with this approach. Audiences found the presentations engaging. Professors found that Pecha Kucha requires students to focus on their message and visually engage the audience which are useful presentation skills

The Nerf ball: A useful technique for management education and practice: Working paper series--05-06

This paper describes a technique the first author imported from management practice to (a) develop students' meeting management skills, (b) improve students' listening skills and conflict management abilities and (c) encourage student participation and create a supportive learning environment. The technique uses a tangible prop (i.e., a Nerf ball) and is appropriate for use by individuals, classroom instructors, trainers and management professionals

The Nerf Ball: A Useful Technique For Management Education And Practice

This paper describes a technique the first author imported from management practice to (a) develop students’ meeting management skills, (b) improve students' listening skills and conflict management abilities and (c) encourage student participation and create a supportive learning environment. The technique uses a tangible prop (i.e., a Nerf ball) and is appropriate for use by individuals, classroom instructors, trainers and management professionals

Reviewing an integrated MBA core course: Working paper series--03-16

Entering the new century, business education must respond to changes in the work environment. The traditional job as we have known it is rapidly becoming rarer, and students find themselves in an environment of higher complexity, more competition, and faster change. Employers state that students are often unprepared to meet challenges of the new work environment. In response to these influences, a team of educators at Northern Arizona University's College of Business Administration redesigned their MBA program. Based on surveys of employers, alumni and others, core courses of the MBA program became functionally integrated, cross-disciplinary, more outcome-oriented, and more rigorous. The program core was integrated in its entirety; then, components of the core were "chunked" to fit traditional time slots for administrative reasons. This paper describes design and implementation efforts for one MBA core component: Individuals, Teams, and Careers. This component presents students with an integrated view of their own strengths and weaknesses as they relate to personal, team, and career issues for students' pursuit of careers after graduation. Course content is strongly based on self-evaluations by students, then moves into group interaction strategies and skills, and finally focuses on reciprocal interactions of the person and the work environment. The multiple foci of this component include students' careers as future managers, management of their own careers and career mentorship of subordinates. Content development for the MBA program core, and thus for this component was a team effort, negotiated among the MBA redesign team. Six team members represented traditional functional areas of economics, finance, accounting, marketing, management, and computer information systems. Development and implementation of Individuals, Teams, and Careers fell to the authors as members of the MBA core faculty representing the management area. Course topics were team-taught by two management faculty members, as well as by economics, marketing, business law, and human resources faculty. In addition, guest presenters included specialists in leadership, arbitration, and a retired career manager who had been President of IBM's General Products Division. In its first iteration, the Individuals, Teams, and Careers component was presented during semester break between the first and second semesters of the MBA program. With this medial position in the core, much of the team content was based on students' retrospective views of team interaction and performance during the first half of the program. The course has since been moved to the beginning of the course sequence. In this current position, this "chunk" appears as one of two initial program components and fulfills the socialization and expectations-setting function for individual and team performance in the program, as well as addressing career management at the start of the program. This paper describes the integrated content of this MBA program component, including its multiple focus and its outcome orientation. In addition, dimensions of the team-teaching experience in this course component are examined. Finally, students' responses to this component are reported, relative to content and pedagogy. We expect other educators will benefit from seeing Northern Arizona University's response to the dramatically changing environment of the 21st century

Using Toyota's A3 thinking for analyzing MBA business cases: Working paper series--10-02

In order to actualize some of the concepts that students read and discussed from The Toyota Way by Jeffrey Liker, we incorporated A3 Thinking and A3 Reports into the case analysis dimension of our MBA core, team-taught class, Managing People and Processes. The class developed an A3 report format that is a variation of that given in Sobek and Smalley (2009). In addition to actualizing these concepts, several other advantages were experienced. Both students and faculty have found that A3 thinking added value to case analysis, class discussion, and student presentations because it pushed student thinking and the focus of analysis into key issues and root causes which might be overlooked in a more intuitive problem-solving approach. In addition, the A3 process added transparency to the students' analysis and discouraged them from obfuscating to cover a lack of or weakness in cogent thinking. Further, A3 thinking provided a mechanism to help student groups structure their collaboration. Finally, emphasis on the conciseness and graphics comprising leaner communication helped students improve the "stickiness" (Heath & Heath, 2007) of their communications

Re-branding the leper colony: Challenges of changing culture and managing difficult people: Working paper series--09-10

Anika, a new manager, is confronted by a dysfunctional organizational culture characterized by employee disrespect, insubordination, and low performance. Her charge is to "to turn the place around". The case takes place in a service organization, a testing range run by the US Department of Defense. The staff is a combination of federal and contract employees who test clients' high-tech systems in a sometimes dangerous, desert environment. In addition, there are three vignettes that give a portrait of dysfunctional individual behaviors. Frequently, the response students want to make is "I'd just fire the guy." Unfortunately, it is not so simple

TASER International, Inc. - Grappling with growth: Working paper series--05-01

TASER International, Inc. is one of the world's leading less-lethal weapons manufacturers and distributors. The case begins with a dramatic moment, as the brothers who run the company become aware of a highly critical article in Barron's which questions the legitimacy of their high stock price and casts doubt on their continued ability to grow. The case presents the company's counterarguments to the critical Barron's article. (Note that both the Barron's article in its entirety and the response document from the company's website are included with the case as appendices.) Students are shown TASER's powerful and effective marketing strategy to police and military, and then asked to consider whether and how to approach the potentially huge, lucrative consumer market. The case resulted from lengthy in-person, email, and phone interviews with TASER's President, Tom Smith. In addition, the company and its products have been well publicized in the national business press and in the local newspapers. Further, product details and other information on TASERs and other less-lethal weapons have been published in numerous police and military sources. Finally, TASER International's website has been a rich source of supplemental information to support the writing of the case