Crisis Management Simulation with Undergraduate Business Students
How can college educators best work to prepare students to manage crises that they will encounter in the world of business?
This paper describes one approach to this goal that has been conducted over the past nine years by the Fisher College of Business at The Ohio State University.
Defining and Teaching Crisis Management
In the past two decades, considerable work in business literature has sought to define crisis and crisis management. While each situation is unique in nature and scope, crises have similar features. They disrupt the usual flow of operations with the potential for negative outcomes, for uncertainty, and for exerting psychological pressure on the people involved. They have a perceived beginning and end and extend in phases over a duration of time (Koch and Viererbl, 2026). The steps common to the management of crises also have been identified in the literature, including assessment and rapid response to the problem, reporting to individuals involved, containment to get the situation in hand, a phase of recovery, and planning for the future (McRaven, 2025; Pedersen, Ritter & Benedetto, 2020).
Given the frequency and complexity of crises, the teaching of crisis management is crucial to undergraduate business education, yet it presents challenges. The stress and anxiety inherent to a crisis are difficult to replicate as well as the multiple-party interactions and the ongoing changes and fluctuations in high-stakes events. Approaches to teaching crisis management courses are varied, widespread, and include traditional lectures in business and other academic areas, tabletop discussion groups with exercises, week-long special training classes, and on-line courses (TechTarget, 2026; Saetren, Vaag & Lund, 2024). Apps for use in training programs for businesses are available (e.g. Noggin, Everbridge, CrisisDriver) as well as resources from FEMA and from executive programs at Harvard, Stanford and MIT. The National Preparedness Leadership Initiative based at Harvard was developed after the 9/11 attacks in the early 2000’s and provides on-site programs for professionals with high-level responsibilities for dealing with high-stakes situations.
Development of the Crisis Management Case
At Ohio State’s Fisher College of Business, special challenges were faced in seeking to meet the goal of effectively teaching crisis management principles to students. The total number of students enrolled across the four-year undergraduate business degree program is approximately 8,500 students at any time, and needs for physical classrooms and teacher requirements for in-class teaching are extensive. Also, while the need for the experience was recognized by faculty and the administration, there was a scarcity of resources and funding to dedicate to the development of a crisis management program.
Beginning in 2015, however, Ty Shepfer joined the Fisher faculty and, having had experience with crisis management events at Shell Oil, as well as special training at Stanford University, he was willing to take on the challenge. A working team was formed with the Fisher Leadership Initiative staff. An initial case was developed by the group, tested in 2017 with a 30-student honors cohort, and then extended, in phases, to the larger group of Fisher undergraduates. The Fisher crisis management program went on to win the Business Education Innovations Award from LearnSpace in 2021. Over subsequent years, four hypothetical crisis management cases, each extending approximately three weeks, have been developed.
Program Structure
Each semester, one of the Fisher crisis management cases is included within the 16-week semester of a required introductory business course, with projects alternated to reduce drift across the semesters. Approximately 1,300 students, primarily freshmen and sophomores, each fall and spring semester, are divided into 40 student recitation sections for a total of approximately 32 student groups. Students view video lectures, conduct online exercises and readings, and participate in a two-hour in-class recitation session weekly. One online recitation section is also offered each semester. Group training sessions for each upcoming week’s course content are conducted by the course director with the recitation instructors.
Project Structure
The first week’s project content includes an introduction to the case. The second is ‘live’ work with the case and an oral presentation with Q&A to the “board of directors”. The third week includes debriefing the experience with the students.
The simulation includes hypothetical case study texts and video lectures by the course director to be studied by students during the week prior to the case, as well as an undisclosed series of crisis event prompts designed to require student interaction during the week the case is “live”. The text and video lectures include theoretical frameworks from the literature related to the goals and phases of the crisis management process and stakeholder identification. Case-specific text includes the hypothetical organization’s mission statement, leadership and management roles, products, and recent financial data. The undisclosed prompts for the subsequent week range from video news clips developed with broadcasters of a local TV news station to emails of various types to be delivered to and requiring actions by the students. The email prompts are delivered automatically to students at irregular times over a 7-day period, including evenings and weekends. Students are expected to react quickly and appropriately, providing actions and communications through a designated special inbox which is accessible to all course students and instructors.
Students are divided into five-person management teams and assume roles relevant to the hypothetical organization, such as President and CEO, CFO, Human Relations Director, Chief Operating Officer, and Chief Marketing Officer. Prompts delivered during the project are intentionally vague with incomplete information to challenge students’ creativity. However, each case requires teamwork for the following:
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Rapid response to a crisis
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Stakeholder identification and interaction
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Decision-making and strategizing
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Extensive and ongoing communication with employees of the parent organization
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Interaction with local news media
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Defense of team actions to the organization’s board of directors
Student Feedback
For this paper, students in a single section of the course were contacted via email two weeks following the completion of the spring 2026 semester with three key questions. This year’s simulation referred to a hypothetical organization called Momentum.
1. What value and benefits did you gain that will be helpful to you in the future not only in facing future crises, but in general?
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“Given the nature of a crisis, I had accepted the notion that solving a crisis is hectic, circumstantial, and does not have much structure. Once I finished the Momentum Crisis Case, however, I realized the opposite was true, and I enjoyed seeing the meticulous, proven processes that real companies go through to deal with major crises as well as how disastrous a short-coming in communications or rash decision-making can be during the early stages of a crisis.”
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“I learned the value of fast responses even when you don’t have full information. I learned that it’s important to think broadly and address as many stakeholders as you can and that over communicating is necessary in a crisis situation.”
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“I believe that this case and the project in general gave me, along with other students, more confidence while presenting and standing by our decisions. When you were questioned, you needed to stay strong to the choices you made and why you did that. In the face of nerves, anxiety and unpredictability of questions we needed to stay calm and collected to explain our thought processes. Along with communication, the buildup of confidence is truly transformative for students, and I definitely will remember to stay calm and be sure of myself when presenting my ideas or speaking up for myself in the future.”
2. What was most helpful to you in doing the project?
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“Having a team was very helpful during this project. Being able to bounce ideas off one another and having both similar and differing ideas put actions into perspective as each team member had different rationales.”
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“Past precedent was most helpful. Learning from the mistakes of others, as well as your own mistakes, is the best guidance for crisis management.”
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“I think this class and this project in general gave each group a chance to highlight each person’s strengths. For example, some students are more creative than others so they can think of out-of-the box ideas while others’ strength lies in presenting so they could take on a bigger role in answering questions.”
3. Please provide other comments that you would like to share.
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“The project was challenging and difficult, but it was beneficial to work to combat a crisis in a safe and teaching environment for the first time rather than in the work world.”
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“The assignment was like no other assignment I have ever done. It was not only beneficial to learn the lessons I did from the assignment, but it was also cool to have my learning be completed in a more abstract and different way.”
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“Overall, this was the most real-world adjacent activity that I have been a part of at The Ohio State University, and I have already reaped benefits during stock pitches in clubs, interviews for internships, and I am sure that this will be relevant in the work setting as well.”
Instructor Observations
Students were intrigued by the requirement for ongoing communications during the live week of the project and receptive to the irregular schedule of this aspect of the class. The need for consideration of views of a wide range of stakeholders within the organization, within the community, and related regulatory agencies also brought a broader perspective to their thinking.
The students showed considerable empathy toward people experiencing problems resulting from the crisis and were very creative in showing support. For example, teams planned to set up programs of medical, financial, and emotional support for those affected, and wrote letters of condolence to families experiencing injuries and deaths. Awareness of the impact of the crisis on communities was shown through the development of video clips by several teams of apologies to be released by local media to affected communities. Multiple press releases and letters of apology to various stakeholder groups were drafted. Business-related stakeholders affected by interferences with product delivery were contacted, and plans for reduction of supply chain interferences proposed.
Issues of ongoing operational needs and financial effects of the crisis for the organization were less likely to be recognized and addressed than those issues impacting individuals. Consideration of the root causes of the crisis within the organization was generally present, however, and teams proposed and enacted changes in staff and dismissals. Financial issues were less extensively addressed as teams were constrained by the minimal information on organizational finances provided in the case. Students were initially not likely to consider employee dissatisfaction and potential strikes. However, as the potential for walk-offs was recognized, they planned such actions as employee group meetings, information sessions, and employee surveys. Possibilities for reaching out for expert assistance from external companies for assistance with various issues were not generally considered.
Overall, student creativity in recognizing issues, developing potential solutions, and designing related approaches and materials was impressive. Students were focused and challenged by the various dimensions of this project, and views of the experience were widely affirmative. Plans for additional crisis case studies are currently underway within Fisher to reflect more recent crisis issues and possible uses of AI in interventions.
Crisis Project Developers & Collaborators:
Ty Shepfer, Senior Lecturer & Director, Honors Cohort & Academic Director, Experiential Learning, Fisher College of Business
Dylan Williams, Business Operations Manager, Fisher Leadership Initiative
Jen Knox Shanahan, Academic Programs Manager, Fisher Leadership Initiative
Chloe Smith, Administrative Assistant, Fisher Leadership Initiative
Sarah Mangia, Former Senior Director, Fisher Leadership Initiative
References
Fisher College of Business. (September 2 ,2021). Leadership exercise tests students’ crisis skills | Fisher College of Business
Koch, T. & Viererbl, B. (2026). What constitutes an organizational crisis? A scoping review and a conceptual model of crises as stakeholder perceptions (CASPER Model). Public Relations Review, 52(2). https://doi.org/10.1016/j.pubrev.2026.102681
McRaven, W.H. (2025). Conquering Crisis: Ten Lessons to Learn Before You Need Them. Grand Central Publishing, New York.
Pedersen, C., Lund, T. & Benedetto, A. (2020). Managing through a crisis: Managerial implications for business-to-business firms. Industrial Marketing Management, 88 (July), 314-322. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.indmarman.2020.05.034
Saetren, G.B., Vang, J.R., & Lund, M.S. (2024). What and how to train for strategic crisis management: A systematic literature review. Journal of Contingencies and Crisis Management, 32(2). https://doi.org/10.1111/1468-5973.12568
TechTarget Search Disaster Recovery. (2026). Complete Crisis Management Guide and Free Template. Complete crisis management guide and free template | TechTarget
