SWOSU’s Todd Wiggen Wins Best-in-Track Paper at SMA National Conference
Co-authors Dr. Todd Wiggen and Chantal van Esch (middle) were recently awarded the
Best-in-Track paper for the Innovative Teaching/Management Education track at the
Southern Management Association (SMA) annual conference held in Norfolk (VA). Presenting
the award were (left) Sohrab Soleimanof of Mississippi State University and (right)
Lance Frazier of Creighton University, both co-chairs of the track.
Dr. Todd Wiggen, assistant professor in Southwestern Oklahoma State University’s Everett Dobson School of Business and Technology in Weatherford, was recently awarded the Best-in-Track paper for the Innovative Teaching/Management Education track at the Southern Management Association (SMA) annual conference held in Norfolk (VA).
Wiggen and co-author Chantal van Esch, assistant professor at California Polytechnic University, won the award for their paper titled “Can your students save the world? Utilizing Pandemic, a cooperative board game, to teach management.”
The SMA is an affiliate of the Academy of Management. Its primary mission is to advance the research, teaching, learning and practice of management. SMA membership consists of over 1,000 management professors, doctoral students, and professionals representing more than 200 colleges, universities and business firms in 43 states and several foreign countries.
The winning paper focused on the use of a board game to facilitate the teaching of management, organizational behavior, and leadership in a classroom setting. The game assists students to learn how to reflect and put into practice leadership, teamwork, goal setting, decision-making and ethical theories. Wiggen has used the game in both graduate and undergraduate courses as an experiential learning exercise.