Sorting It Out: Identifying and Addressing Conflicts and Business Ethics in Global Value Networks

Global value networks are often large, complex, and opaque. Understanding the relationships among stakeholders involved in these networks or organizations can be challenging. This card sort task provides an interactive way to engage participants in questioning the roles of stakeholders who are involved in a business ethics dilemma or an organizational product failure. This card sort task and discussion activity encourages participants to recognize that stakeholders may hold different knowledge, responsibility, or power; identify competing, conflicting, or complementary interests across stakeholders; articulate logical arguments; and engage in debate, compromise, and critical evaluation. This technique has been used successfully with undergraduate and postgraduate business, management, and social science students and is suitable for in-person and remote classes.