This single-class activity augments the popular desert island activity to include a secret insider who aims to influence their group covertly. The motivation for this augmented activity is twofold: (1) to highlight and dispel notions of invulnerability to groupthink and (2) to provide an opportunity to engage in small-group decision making. To…

This is a reflective Account of Practice paper that delves into the author's role as an Action Learning coach, emphasizing the crucial role of intuition in facilitating breakthroughs and creating an environment conducive to problem-solving. It narrates a transformative 2019 coaching session where the author used unconventional techniques to…

Collaboration analytics often focuses on assessing and monitoring individuals during collaborative problem-solving (CPS). A defining feature of CPS is the interdependence that exists between individuals when they work together -- that is, how they respond to and influence one another over time. While models that account for the impact of…

Three staples of management and organizational behavior classes are units on creativity, problem solving, and group decision making. This article presents an experiential exercise in creative problem solving in which the participants attempt to create a cartoon caption both individually and in small groups. The cartoons all come from "The New…

Purpose: Data was obtained from students from 39 universities in 24 countries, part of a large experiential exercise, X-Culture, who worked remotely in cross-cultural teams to solve business problems. The purpose of this study is to develop and test, using structural equation modeling, a conceptual model that identifies the determinants of…

This original teaching idea uses an adaption of the STEM activity the Paper Tower Challenge to have students examine task and maintenance roles as well as non-functioning behaviors in small groups. While problem solving as a small group, students navigate conflict and frustration, assume various small-group roles, and then reflect on their own and…

Collaborative problem solving (CPS) is considered a necessary skill for students and workers in the 21st century as the advent of technology requires more and more people to frequently work in teams. In the current study, we employed theoretically-grounded data mining techniques to identify four profiles of collaborative problem solvers…

Purpose: The purpose of this paper is two-fold: first, to demonstrate that learning occurs as a collective process in addition to traditional individual learning and second, to identify its antecedents and consequences at the team level. Design/methodology/approach: Data were gathered using questionnaires answered by 356 participants organized in…

This study contributes to team science and competency development by comparing demonstrated teamwork skills by engineering students participating in disciplinary and cross-disciplinary team projects. Teamwork skills are key competencies necessary to solve complex technical challenges in the workplace. Despite prior efforts to enhance these…

Design Thinking (DT) has recently been adopted in some higher education disciplines as an effective pedagogical approach to enable students to acquire the skills needed for solving real world problems. As a human-centered, iterative process, design thinking is characterized by working with others to understand, define and solve problems using…

New challenges in today's world have contributed to increased attention toward evaluating individuals' collaborative problem solving (CPS) skills. One difficulty with this work is identifying evidence of individuals' CPS capabilities, particularly when interacting in digital spaces. Often human-driven approaches are used but are limited in scale.…

Responding to change is a critical workforce competency and an essential skill for effective leadership and management along with abilities to work in a group, problem solve, and demonstrate critical thinking capabilities. In this experiential exercise, students collaborate in groups, think critically, and respond to customer demands in a…

Geocapabilities developed during team project-based fieldwork add value to Tourism Geography service modules in professional Tourism and Hospitality Management curricula. This article is based on a case-study in Turkish Higher Education. Here, variations on the Prisoner's Dilemma were used to confront learners with some 'wicked problems' they may…

Problem solving follows a cycle of inquiry where the individual iterates between finding possible paths and exploring their likely effectiveness before selecting one as a possible solution. The cycle is enhanced through proximal processes because the number of paths that can be explored in depth are greater when more people work on the same…

Collaborative problem solving (CPS) is a 21st-century skill essential for learning gains, workplace success, and tackling increasingly complicated global problems. Group diversity plays a vital role during collaborative activities, especially in a digital space. Although CPS involves dynamic communication behaviors, few studies have considered the…