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As a sector, higher education is at the low end of innovation rankings. The challenges we face – demographic, technological, political, and pedagogical – will require sustained innovation at a strategic level. Recent research with mature companies has identified exemplars in strategic innovation (e.g., O’Connor, Corbett, & Peters, 2018). This work explores whether – and how – higher education institutions might adapt insights from the corporate sector for strategic innovation in teaching and learning.

The introductory section provides an overview of the nature of strategic innovation (and why it is hard to sustain), strategic issues facing higher education, and the status and challenges of sustaining strategic innovation for teaching. The next two sections describe insights from research with corporate exemplars of sustaining strategic innovation. Each section uses a scenario from higher education as a proof-of-concept test to explore the application of the corporate sector insights for strategic innovation in higher education teaching and learning.

The final section of the chapter discusses the planned next steps to prototype and test adaptation of these corporate sector insights with institutional innovation leaders in higher education, as well as additional potential sources of insights (from other research in the corporate sector and from strategic innovation in the public sector).

The purpose of this paper is to explore: student perceptions of threshold concepts and capabilities in postgraduate business education, and the potential impacts of intensive modes of teaching on student understanding of threshold concepts and development of threshold capabilities.

The student experience of learning was studied in two business units: strategic management, and accounting. The method involved two phases. In the first, students and unit coordinators identified and justified potential threshold concepts and capabilities. In the second, themes were rationalized.

Significantly more so in intensive mode, the opportunity to ask questions was reported by student participants to support their development of the nominated threshold capabilities. This and other factors reported by students to support their learning in intensive mode are consistent with supporting students to traverse the liminal space within the limited time available in intensive mode.

Respondents from future cohorts will address the small participant numbers. Studies in only two units are reported. Studies in other disciplines are presented elsewhere.

The findings will be important to educators using intensive mode teaching in business, and researchers working within the framework.

This is the first study to explore the potential impacts of intensive modes of teaching on student understanding of threshold concepts and development of threshold capabilities.

The purpose of this paper is to explore the use of simulations in strategy teaching. The authors’ conceptualization is built upon the benefits and limitations of simulations by establishing a link between the skills required to be a competent manager and the capacity of simulations to develop them.

Using deductive theory building, the authors pinpoint the shortcomings of simulations, and offer a framework categorizing managerial skill development using simulations to teach strategic management.

The authors propose a new perspective on the use of simulations to teach strategic management by elaborating on their effectiveness in developing soft skills related to social issues often overlooked in simulations’ learning outcomes. The framework provides propositions concerning the ability of simulations to develop both soft (societal and human) and hard skills (technical and conceptual) needed by managers.

Literature shows that computer‐based platforms significantly increase the learning process. While such tools are widely used in teaching hard skills for decision making, they are relatively absent from teaching soft skills for decision making. Future studies should empirically explore the extent to which computer‐based platforms help cultivate soft skills.

Simulations are one of the most praised learning tools by management students. MBA administrators and strategy instructors would benefit from improved simulations that take into account the social environment surrounding managers. Expanded simulations, then, might lead to better preparation of management candidates for their tasks. In addition, simulation developers may find guidance in the authors’ conceptualizations to construct more effective teaching aids.

Contrary to the mainstream literature that focuses on hard‐skill development through simulations, this study calls attention to simulations’ capacity to foster the soft‐skills required to be a competent manager.

Reports the results of a survey of UK lecturers involved in teaching strategic management to postgraduate and post‐experience students. Identifies the lecturer’s objectives in using case studies and evaluates the effectiveness of the case method in achieving those objectives. Finds that the method is successful in achieving participation and in developing communication and interpersonal skills, but less successful in the development of strategic analysis. Finds that a wide range of other methods are used in the teaching of strategic management, and that these methods can be used partly to replace and also to complement the use of case.

The purpose of this paper is to contend that collegiate programs should carefully plan their capstone courses in light of the educational mission, pedagogical content knowledge, instructional techniques and delivery formats.

This is a concept paper with elements of theory building from the case of business strategy courses. After an overview of relevant research along with past and current practices, capstone course content projects and assignments are discussed in relation to delivery formats such as on-campus, hybrid partial online and full distance education.

Faculty and academic departments choosing project assignments should seek to create an integrative learning experience for students using carefully balanced delivery methods and content. Each of the instructional methods and delivery systems have certain advantages, and the use of these techniques is not mutually exclusive, in that some faculty members may choose to teach course sections using multiple learning systems.

As colleges and universities increase the range of instructional techniques and delivery formats, it is especially important to harmonize these methods with learning objectives for capstone learning experiences. Concepts for balanced integration and synthesis of topics are proposed for different instructional methods and delivery formats that can be applied in other disciplines. Using pedagogical content knowledge as a basis for improving teaching and learning is necessary to achieve balanced integration.

Courses in strategic management should teach future strategists how to react to unexpected strategic events such as the appearance of innovative technologies, proposed mergers, drastic changes in production costs, or major actions by competitors or customers. Strategic events often trigger important changes in strategies, and reactions to strategic events make the difference between long-run success and failure. Courses can teach students about the philosophical and psychological difficulties posed by complex environments and uncertain futures and teach some procedures that help to assure that important issues receive consideration. Research may be able to identify some decision-making heuristics that foster success.

The purpose of this study is to examine the use of the strategic management tool, Strengths‐Weaknesses‐Opportunities‐Threats or SWOT analysis, and to assess how the methodology has been used as well as changes to the methodology. The findings both for and against SWOT analysis should lead to a balanced view of the technique as well as yield ideas for needed theory building.

Using the ABInform Global® database, academic peer‐reviewed articles were compiled indicating SWOT as one of the article's key index and search words.

The use of SWOT analysis continues to permeate the academic peer‐reviewed literature. Research supports SWOT analysis as a tool for planning purposes. Over the past decade, SWOT research has focused on analyzing organizations for recommended strategic actions. As a methodology for strategic positioning, SWOT analysis has been extended beyond companies to countries and industries and is used in virtually every published business case positioned for business student analysis. Additional use of SWOT is as teaching tools by consultants, trainers and educators. This paper provides a summary of the research studies and suggests paths for future research.

This paper is limited to analyzing reports found in a selection of academic peer‐reviewed business journals. However, research implications for applying SWOT analysis provides a broad spectrum of industry analysis in North America, Europe, and Asia. Additional limitations are the need to link SWOT analysis to other strategic tools and methodologies for further theory building, since past research continues to lack quantifiable findings on the success of the SWOT analysis.

A fresh view of new directions and implementations for SWOT analysis, as well as other strategic planning tools that can be combined with SWOT, provides guidance for practitioners and policy makers alike.

The article adds value to the existing literature as the first summary of SWOT research indicating its uses and limitations. Support of its usage and place in the strategic literature is validated. The SWOT methodology is pervasive, in large part, due to its simplicity. In addition, the use of SWOT as a proven developmental, results‐oriented strategic planning tool is also extended, although further research leading to theory building is warranted and recommended.

The purpose of this paper is to provide insights into the overarching role of learning capabilities by presenting a framework to describe how learning capability development is captured by combining the three main elements of internal marketing orientation, exploratory capabilities and resource recombination.

This is a conceptual paper building upon the theoretical integration approach of Mayer and Sparrowe (2013) to establish competitive empowerment through learning capability development, effective internal response and resources recombination.

The competitive learning capability model provides a firm’s foundation for theorizing organizational competitive models from an internal perspective, by mastering learning capability development at the centre of the model.

The paper emphasizes the competitive connotation of learning capabilities as a construct in strategic management. It shows the underlying role of learning across organizational processes; hence, its theoretical significance through the learning capabilities model.

This paper argues that learning is at the centre of organizational competitiveness. Firms can achieve more fruitful results by continuously implementing resource integration strategies built on their learned experiences.

The principal significance of this paper lies in the achievement of conceptualizing learning from a strategic management perspective. Insight in this area helps bridge organizational efforts in pursuit of competitive advantage by exploiting key core learning competencies embedded in a firm’s resources and capabilities.

This paper seeks to present a teaching tool (the Innovation Game) which aims to demonstrate the challenges of developing an effective innovation strategy in the context of new product development. The goal of the game is to enable participants to experience how strategic and operational choices made in relation to innovation strategy are interrelated and how these choices can impact on new product development success. Specifically the paper aims to explore the impact of choices made in relation to capability accumulation, capacity management and product‐portfolio management.

After presenting the learning objectives for the game with the support of relevant literature, the paper describes the design of the game and the context in which it was played. The paper reviews feedback (learning outcomes) from formal reflective post‐game sessions with participants. This feedback indicates that the learning objectives have been satisfied.

Through experiential learning and reflective practice participants learn, for example, that: capabilities need to match the intended strategy; investing in production capacity can be leveraged to aid negotiations with competitors, or it can be used as a bully tactic; and, it sometimes is better to be an R&D “follower” rather than a “leader”. The participants also learn that the alignment of operational and strategic choices is necessary in order to leverage success in developing new products but that the actions and strategies of competitors have a direct impact also and need to be considered carefully.

The teaching tool adopts a participative game playing and reflective learning approach to introduce into class some of the real‐life competitive dynamics of managing new product development and decision making normally confined to the boardroom. While it is argued that the game demonstrates the challenges of developing successful strategy, the game is set in a static context in which certain external contingencies are not accounted for.

Demonstration of the importance of strategy to new product development is particularly difficult because of the longitudinal nature of product development and the tacit nature of the decision making process which often transpires long after projects are completed. The paper posits that the value of the Innovation Game is in reflecting on it as a practical, interactive tool that helps participants appreciate the challenges inherent in strategic and operational decision making related to innovation strategy and new product development success.

Considers the research and writing of strategic management cases which are intended to develop student’s problem‐solving abilities. Identifies a number of benefits associated with the writing of teaching cases. Proposes that the concepts and techniques of strategic management are consistent with a systems perspective and that strategic situations can be modelled as systems. Develops a systems ‐based method for the research and writing of case studies and examines its application to a particular case study. The method may be transferable to other management disciplines.