Abstract

The trend in business today is undoubtedly toward flatter, more efficient team-based international organizations. The executives in these organizations must make decisions rapidly and must often coordinate their decisions and actions with those of their fellow executives scattered all over the globe. Limited time and financial resources have created the fast-growing need to be able to do this efficiently through a computer-supported system. United States business schools, the training grounds for many of these executives, are attempting to address this new challenge. This paper presents an innovation in teaching that is on the cutting edge of business education. CATT, a groupware-based system for business case discussions breaks through existing geographic technological and mental barriers. It simulates the actual high stress environment executives face by allowing for on-going international discussions aimed at formulating a plan of action in a given business situation. Structured argumentation provides the framework for the description of all the facts and nuances of the case and the discussion as well as the later evaluation of student performance. The multi-media input and the feedback of both fellow students and instructors guide the discussion toward its ultimate conclusion, keeping in mind the specifics of the situation as well as experience gained from past case discussions. This paper outlines the present barriers to effective case discussions, the key design objectives of CAIT, the system's major characteristics and the future directions of this field of research. The word education means, literally, the process of leading out. Thus we are talking of the way in which all your faculties and capacities should be encouraged to expand and unfold themselves. Alfred North Whitehead in Essays in Science and Philosophy (194D

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