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Name That Tune!
John Davies
This article describes an approach to enterprise learning which uses items of popular music in an attempt to engage final year BSc (Hons) Business and Management students at Salford Business School, University of Salford in the lecture programme of a multi-disciplinary Management Simulation module.
The aims of this module are:
1. To develop students’ ability to implement, review and appraise business strategy, objectives and management decisions within the context of a dynamic, competitive market environment.
2. To develop understanding of the complex interactions that characterise decision-making in organisations, and consequently the importance of thinking beyond a single functional perspective.
3. To develop understanding of the nature and use of planning in dynamic business environments.
4. To improve students’ employability through experience of real-time business decision-making in a simulated environment.
This module is very different to preceding modules on the programme, which predominantly deal with separate business functions.
The students, working in management teams of 5, develop a business plan for a Pizza Shop in semester 1, whilst taking into consideration strategic, operational, legal, financial, human resource and marketing issues, techniques and theories. Each team is given a unique, local, real location in which the business would be situated. They can visit it to assess, for instance, the potential customer base and competitors, amongst other considerations. A Pizza Shop was chosen to ensure that the students could easily understand the operations processes of the business.
In semester 2, they are given a range of scenarios of changes which might impact either positively or negatively upon their business plan in order to give them opportunities to deal with changes in the business environment, e.g. a new competitor setting up nearby, a key supplier going out of business, a large housing development being built in the neighbourhood or changes in employment legislation. As a team, they have to analyse the potential impacts, implications and consequences of the changes on their business plans and report back on what they plan to do in response to these changes.
The lectures for this module are delivered in a very large lecture theatre to around 240 students who are typically in their early twenties with little or no work experience. To add to the challenge of keeping these students engaged, the lectures were scheduled for 9:00 on Friday mornings! Student teams also work in 2 hour weekly workshops in computer suites with tutor support and extensive use is made of a virtual learning environment which provides supporting materials and links.
The author and his co-module leader (Alex Avramenko) wanted to emphasise to the students how different this module would be to previous modules and, at the same time, engage the large student group in a lecture theatre setting.
It was decided to use a multi-media approach to delivering the lectures as this age group of student is accustomed to multi-media communications. Previous experience had indicated that just “lecturing at them” would be unlikely to engage them. This multi-media approach included the use of costumes, role playing, video clips and items of popular music. This article highlights the use of the latter medium.
Two songs were used to help create the atmosphere of a Pizza Shop in the opening lecture when it was revealed to the students that their business plan would be based on a Pizza Shop; firstly, Dean Martin with That's Amore. This contains the line "When the moon hits your eye like a big Pizza Pie, that's Amore" and Rosemary Clooney’s song Mambo Italiano. Both songs have a very traditional Italian sound to them. The market context was reinforced in the next lecture with The Pizza Song by The Fast Food Rockers.
The students were encouraged to come along to each Friday’s lecture to see if they could "Name that Tune". Each one had a link, either through the song or the artist, to their simulated business and acted as a reminder to students to include various considerations into their Business Plans. The song was played as students entered the lecture theatre and the students were challenged by the tutor to “Name that Tune”.
When SWOT analysis was covered Opportunities (Let’s make lots of money) by the Pet Shop Boys was played. Students were asked to consider their product range and December ’63 (Oh what a Night) by The Four Seasons was played. Four Seasons translates to Quattro Stagioni in Italian, which is a popular type of pizza.
Students were reminded to budget for tax payments in their business plans by playing Taxman by the Beatles. Money, Money, Money by Abba was used to convey the message that efficient and effective operations management would help their business to make money.
At the beginning of semester 2, David Bowie’s song Changes was used to emphasise that they would be working on responding to changes in the business environment.
Observation of the group has revealed an increasing number of students attending the 9:00 lecture punctually. Informal feedback from students would indicate that they attend on time so as not to miss Name that Tune and that the learning points related to the items of music are more readily remembered by them. They appreciate the attempt to bring some fun to the module and to do something different in large lectures. The formal student feedback for the module has yet to be gathered; it will be interesting to see how students comment on this unusual approach.
Professor John Davies, Salford Business School