Sensory profiling, Kaffee; Coffee; sensory experience, product scent

Sensory turn in in management education

Some insights from our recent sensory turn in management education:

Based on our research projects we have been working on developing new teaching offerings from early on. A first attempt was the class Jimmy Schmid invited me to teach in his program on Environmental Communication Design. At this time we were happy to involve Ashraf Osman on this journey. Since 2015, the course on smell culture has been part of the contextual studies at the University of St.Gallen.  

More recently we have even been working on contributions to postgraduate management education. Last fall Bettina Rychener and Claus Noppeney have had the chance to develop and test courses (1-2 days) on leadership and team dynamics for Bern University of Applied Sciences. Smell & Leadership? How? Why? In fact, part of the session deals with the olfactory dimension at the workplace. This theme has recently also been explored by Samantha Warren und Cathleen Riach. The most recent publication on this theme is actually part of the edited volume: Designing with smell! But smell is also used as a perspective on leadership & management issues. Claus Noppeney shared some experiences at the IAO #ExperimentalScentSummit in Berlin in May 2017.

More recently, we have once again expanded the scope of our topics. This time we provided an alternative view on scent marketing that goes beyond the common “success stories” and prejudices. In fact, we took a consumer culture (CCT) approach and share numerous cases. In particular, we explored the potential one product and one olfactory note. Even this limitation allows the students to go on a journey crossing the boundaries of diverse products, services, failures and successes. 

Is there a role for scent in management education? We reflect in this interview on the approach and one specific case. The feedback is pretty encouraging:

Bildschirmfoto 2017-10-20 um 20.53.16

Thank a lot for the valuable feedback!