Teaching Complex Management Challenges

Starting in March 2020, Amazon branding became an ever-more ubiquitous sight. For many sheltering in place from the COVID-19 pandemic, the brand’s instantly recognizable delivery boxes became a virtual lifeline to the outside world. A year later, the company is again omnipresent—this time, in news coverage and online chatter. Such is the footprint of Amazon that the vote on a first-of-its-kind union in an Amazon warehouse in Bessemer, Alabama is being closely watched the world over. Devoting such attention to a single large firm makes intuitive sense to Sarah Kaplan, Professor of Strategic Management at the Rotman School of Business at the University of Toronto. Kaplan won an Aspen Institute Ideas Worth Teaching Award for her course, The 360º Corporation, which investigates a single firm from a full spectrum of economic and social perspectives. The most recent company of focus? None other than Amazon itself. We spoke with Professor Kaplan about her course, and what else may be in store for Amazon in a year where the company will see a major leadership change at the top.

📖 Read the full interview here: Teaching Complex Management Challenges