Innovation in Business Education Through Partnership: A Case Study of Madam Mon's Farm

Abstract

This case study of collaborative effort is one of several cases under taken from real business practices in an attempt to use real business situations and practices for classroom project in Production and Operations Management and Strategic Management and Business Policy courses at Bangkok University. The cases adapted as class project are focused on Thailand's small (with tangible assets no more than 50 million bahts) and medium size enterprises (with tangible assets with no more than 1000 million bahts). The aims of using real cases would be to enhance students' experience, skills and most of all it gives students a chance to apply theory into practice. To achieve the aims, students would have to develop a model solving realistic problems given by an instructor, Excel is then used as a tool to create application software simulating the model. The outcomes of the project are submitted to the instructor and entrepreneurs in a form of report and decision making problem solving software. Based on two semesters of experimenting by using adapted cases (see appendix A) from Weida, Nancy C., Richardson, Ronny, Vazsonyi, and Andrew, responses from students very positive. The major obstacle was many students' lack of advanced skills of many functions in Excel and time conflict in arranging meeting between instructor and business owners.