Introduction to Management

Introduction to Management is a first-year business course covering fundamental topics including organizational change, leadership, human resource management, ethics, and strategic management. The course is designed to introduce learners to management topics through the use of case studies which will be the focal point of discussions throughout the course.

Materials for this course include lesson plans, case studies, instructor guides, weekly readings from an open textbook, midterm and final assessments. The course is set up to cover one case study each week. The course materials can be used to deliver the course in person, online or in a blended format.

This course was developed to address two primary gaps present in many introductory management courses:

1. Immediate application of concepts rather than a focus on high level theory.
2. Examples and cases that are applicable on a smaller scale, where most students in decision-making roles are, rather than focusing on large Fortune 500 businesses with hundreds or thousands of employees.

The author teaches at Coast Mountain College in Terrace, British Columbia, which is a part of thriving Northwest BC. Many of the cases take place in northern regions of the province, but the principles of management remain the same everywhere. Northern BC has a rich Indigenous heritage, featuring a ground-breaking self-determining government in the Nisga’a Nation, in addition to many other Indigenous groups with unique cultures. The author has provided advice to and engaged with numerous Indigenous entrepreneurs across northern BC, and many of the cases contained in this package are drawn on those experiences.