The Strategic Management Society always has excellent teaching sessions incorporated in their conferences. 
Here are some sessions to check out at the Madrid conference September 20-23, 2014:
- Sat, 9/20 @ 13-16:00. Competitive Strategy Interest Group Teaching Workshop. Building on last year’s workshop on innovation & education, the 2014 theme is “The Impact of New Technologies on Teaching and Higher Education.” The education industry is abuzz with talk of MOOCs, distance learning, computer-based instruction, and other innovations. How are these best incorporated into the curriculum? (Co-sponsored by the Teaching Community).
- Sun 9/21 @ 8-9:15. Teaching Corporate Strategy: Insights & Opportunities. Panelists will share experiences teaching corporate strategy topics related to their research: vertical integration, M&A, industry consolidation, and diversification.
- Sun 9/21 @ 9:15-10:45. Researchers Hooked on Teaching / Teachers Hooked on Research. Most academics polarize teaching and research into separate worlds. Building on last year’s very popular session we bring together world-class scholars who have successfully bridged this apparent divide. This engaging session will showcase their experiences in “translating” their research into teachable moments and their teachable moments into research.
- Sun 9/21 @ 15:45-17:00. Alternatives Takes on Teaching Strategy: Balancing the (ex)Tensions. Strategy is a complex subject with multiple teaching approaches. This interactive session will provide insights from experienced educators on the methods that work, as well as addressing moves to online content.
- Mon 9/22 @ 11:00-12:15. Challenging the Way We Teach and Practice Strategy. This is a common ground session comprised of submissions to the teaching community track.
- Mon 9/22 @ 14:45 – 16:00. Teaching Strategy Philosophically. Ethics applies different theories to address Socrates’s question of how we should act. The application of philosophical principles in teaching strategy has multiple advantages including a better appreciation of underlying values and motivation, and increasing tolerance of ambiguity. Join us in this highly interactive session in how great scholars teach strategy philosophically.
Contributed by Russ Coff
here are lots of cases, exercises, & simulations dealing with making strategic decisions, but few that deal with execution. Since implementation is a major hurdle for achieving a successful strategy, this can leave an important gap in the traditional strategy course. 
This is especially revealing given self reports of 4 to 5 minutes per resume. Online profiles get about the same amount of scrutiny with almost 20% of the time spent on the picture — of course this has the potential to introduce significant bias. The other few seconds is spent scanning the current and prior work experience, dates, and education. They do report that well-organized resumes, with clear headers marking the critical information, are rated significantly better. So you teach a strategy class, why should you care? First of all, this is an insight into how imperfect strategic factor markets actually are. In this context, you might ask, how can a firm gain an advantage in hiring talent. A key reason to use this example is that your students will tend to care about the job market and this will instantly get their attention. You could couple this with an exercise where teams of students rank a stack of resumes to identify candidates who might have critical capabilities for a company you are doing a case on (could work with any case where human capital is critical).
Gourmet adventures
Here are excepts from the abstract: Despite its ubiquity, many students struggle to understand and apply value chain concepts. JetFighter uses a complex manufacturing process (intricate paper planes) to enhance students’ value chain competencies. Teams are use value chain concepts to develop innovative strategies to fulfill customer requirements and outperform rivals. The exercise involves two production periods with a brief value chain lecture occurring after the first period. Given that teams typically lose money in the first round, their motivation to learn is enhanced as they are immediately provided an opportunity to apply this knowledge in the second period. Here are materials for the exercise:
Elisa Operti has taken this a step further. She writes: “I love using the Gourmet Adventures exercise in my Corporate Strategy course. I have been teaching in France and Italy in recent years. Thus, I developed a European version of the game (see the 
The main difference is that groups get unequal resource endowments (one group gets tape and paper, while the rest get paper clips, elastic bands and paper) and are asked to build the highest paper tower. The results lead to a discussion of how superior resources (tape) can lead to better performance if they are organized properly. The takeaway is that students need to see if their focal firm has a tape-like resource. If so, they need to make it the cornerstone of their strategy. If the focal case firm lacks a tape-like resource, then it needs to be excellent at execution if it is to have any chance at having above average performance. Students love the exercise and it is a great way to teach students why they should look for VRIO resources when doing a case analysis. A related exercise, the 
Here is the setting: A pharmaceutical firm’s board must decide what to do with its best selling drug, Dekanor, in light of research that suggests that the drug may be causing serious harm. This reflects the ambiguity and choices Merck’s and Pfizer’s boards may have experienced in the years before they knew if their “blockbuster” drugs, Vioxx, Bextra and Celebrex, were harming patients. For example, the role play includes the impact of social media, pressure from rivals, and tactics sometimes used by pharmaceutical companies to discredit negative research studies. Board members are asked to choose between options including: 1) preemptively remove Dekanor from the market, 2) continue selling Dekanor but add additional product warnings and stop actively marketing the drug, or 3) continue to aggressively market the drug and fight to keep the FDA from banning it. The 14 roles include Jensen’s Chairperson and CEO, its five board members, and eight managers (click here for the 
Michael Ryan’s 
We often try to convey to students how value can be created in social networks as actors gain access to more resources and knowledge. This exercise is a simple game of bingo where players have a list of resources they need to find to win the game (4 boxes in a row). To play, they simply find people in the room with specific attributes or knowledge and have them sign their card. I have added a simple twist that they can complete one box using an indirect tie (e.g., a friend of a friend). This teaches the very basics of social networks and serves as a nice ice breaker as well. Here are two Bingo card created for: 1) 
He suggests applying his 
Here is an excerpt: “In this exercise, student volunteers blindly taste three different soft drinks: Coke, Pepsi, and a store brand. The student then tries to assess which one each drink is. Across several years of performing this, in every semester a majority cannot identify their preferred drink, nor can many identify any of them correctly. After several volunteers make the attempt, the class engages in meaningful conversation about how and why Coke and Pepsi capture so much market share, when their products cost 50% more than store brands.” What, then, is the basis for competitive advantage when imitation is so evident? It’s worth noting that Pepsi did not include generics in the original challenge — why might that be?
Carpenter Strategy Toolbox 