MARCH ISSUE

The Teamwork in Action portfolio offers a set of experiential, team-based teaching materials that bring principles of collaboration and organizational behavior into focus through active learning. Designed for use in management, communication, and leadership courses, these modules immerse students in realistic scenarios that test their ability to lead, negotiate, and innovate within diverse and dynamic teams.

The portfolio includes:

• Perils and Pitfalls of Leading Change: A Young Manager's Turnaround Journey

A managerial case from Brazil illustrating challenges in leading diverse teams through organizational change.

• A-Space

A cross-cultural, remote collaboration simulation centered on an international space project.

• Managing Innovation Task

A structured exercise comparing individual and team performance in sequencing innovation processes.

• Family Face-Off

An exercise that explores metastereotypes and perceived intergroup perceptions in the workplace.

• No-E-I

A short team-on-team exercise highlighting barriers and adaptation in cross-cultural negotiation.

• Oceanwide Shipping

An advanced, multiparty negotiation exercise integrating hierarchy, trust, and team strategy.

These materials provide instructors with flexible tools for cultivating reflective, engaged, and practice-oriented learning around teamwork and organizational dynamics.

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Best Selling Negotiation Exercises in Q1

A1.Training

A1.Training is an international, scoreable, two-party, six-issue negotiation exercise with integrative potential. One party is a Romanian energy company seeking to purchase consulting services and worker training from a large US-based technical training and consulting company. The six issues of A1.Training represent all three types of negotiation issues: distributive (zero-sum); compatible (shared); and integrative (tradeable).

The twist here is that the payoff matrix is asymmetric: One party has more upside potential from this deal. Thus, the negotiation is ideal as an early exercise to teach basic integrative techniques for identifying compatible issues and trading off priorities. It clearly demonstrates to students the folly of comparing their outcome with those of their counterpart and/or worrying about ensuring that both parties get equal results.

This exercise is also useful in a negotiations course if New Recruit has already been used in a previous core management course.

Deep Space

Deep Space is a multi-issue negotiation exercise between two cross-cultural tech companies negotiating a partnership to marry cutting-edge technology with an established distribution network. Deep Space can be taught in a variety of classes, including negotiations, organizational behavior, and international management.

Key concepts include learning to challenge beliefs about compromise, to recognize mixed-motive negotiation contexts as opportunities for creative collaboration, to distinguish between distributive and integrative issues in a multi-issue negotiation, and to exchange information about priorities and interests.

Philip Morris International's Business Transformation: Building Credibility for Smoke-Free Tobacco

This case explores Philip Morris International’s effort to shift from traditional cigarettes to smoke-free products (SFPs). Since launching its first SFPs in 2016, PMI has invested heavily in innovation and technology, with SFPs now accounting for nearly 40% of net revenues—surpassing Marlboro as the companies top brand.

The case examines how PMI uses cigarette revenues to fund this transition and the challenges of sustaining growth amid regulatory uncertainty, public mistrust, and ESG scrutiny. Students analyze what it takes for a company with a controversial legacy to transform credibly and sustainably.

Maziwa and Workplace Breastfeeding for Kenyan Mothers

Maziwa, a Kenya-based social enterprise, helps low-income mothers balance breastfeeding and work through a community breastfeeding ambassador program and Wema, an affordable breast pump designed for local needs. As the organization considers expanding into maternal health products, introducing a premium pump, and restructuring its nonprofit and for-profit activities, students explore frameworks for product development, innovation diffusion, and market strategy.

The case offers insights into how social enterprises can scale sustainably while advancing maternal health and economic empowerment.

VectorTech: Managing a Product Crisis

The four-part fictional case VectorTech Quantum processor, presents a comprehensive crisis scenario in the tech industry.

Beginning with an outside expert's discovery, in Part (A), a calculation error in the Quantum processor, the narrative unfolds over three more case parts and through various stages of the company's response.

Part (B) delves into the initial public revelation of the issue and the varied internal and external reactions.

As the situation escalates, part (C) captures VectorTech's delayed but formal acknowledgment of the problem.

Finally, part (D) illustrates the ramifications of VectorTech's handling of the crisis, including public backlash, stock price impact, legal repercussions, and a belated comprehensive response strategy.

Throughout the four case parts, the evolving nature of the crisis and VectorTech's responses underscore the importance of timely, transparent, and empathetic crisis management and customer communication.

All of these case parts can be distributed, read, and analyzed in a single 90-minute class period.

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