IN-PERSON: Applying Education

Abstract

Strategic issues are societal, technological, political, environmental, and economic issues that exist beyond the conventionally conceived competitive arena of business and that can impact an organization’s ability to pursue its strategy. Strategic issues can compromise or give advantage to a particular business and/or industry, depending on how prepared organizations are and well they can adjust. Often, strategic issues and how they relate to one specific industry or organization are not obvious. For example, most business managers were not predicting the 2019/20 global pandemic, and were not prepared for it; business managers had no idea that an event in the summer of 2020, specifically the murder of George Floyd, would energize the Black Lives Matters movement in ways not yet seen; and still, although climate change, and global heating can hardly be denied, most business operate as if there were little to no connection between their operations, or product, and the most significant challenge that humanity faces. The ability for organizations to effectively respond to strategic issues is largely dependent on how the managers and owners conceive of and articulate:
• the purpose of their organization • their unique vision of organizational success • the understanding of the role of business/organizations in society • their own personal moral compass and how that translates across the organization. This paper describes a course I have been teaching for 20 years. It has always had the same goal, although it has evolved significantly over the years. I use open source information (podcasts, reports, newspaper articles) to help students understand the gravity of many strategic issues, and the role business plays in either making these issues worse or better for society. Students examine one industry of particular interest to them, and examine that industry in relation to three of the strategic issues covered. This course uses the practice of “un-grading”.