Mission & Vision

The Department of Management at Appalachian State University prepares future leaders who will help their organizations thrive, their communities prosper, and our society flourish. We are an interdisciplinary and diverse faculty who prepare leaders to address the complex global challenges of our time with empathy, vision, integrity, innovativeness, and perseverance.

In pursuing our mission, we espouse the following values:

  • Connection – We connect our students to the world through experiential learning, internships, cultural immersion, and industry collaboration. Through these connections and a commitment to ongoing reflection, our programs are dynamic and constantly adapt to the changing needs of the world.
  • Integration – We emphasize relationships across disciplines, preparing students to be future collaborators who act as boundary spanners to break down functional silos and enhance communication within and across organizations.
  • Innovation – We nurture the relationship between analysis, creativity, and action, because all are crucial for challenging the status quo, developing resilient organizations, and discovering novel solutions to our most pressing global challenges.
  • Engagement – We are guided by and invested in our mission, leading to course offerings that are relevant, interesting, and that unlock energy and enthusiasm in our students. In doing so, our offerings unleash optimism and hope, emphasizing the powerful role of business in a productive society, if practiced well.
  • Sustainability – We are guided by the belief that profitability and multi-stakeholder value creation are not mutually exclusive. People, profit, and planet are central to everything that we do. To achieve such results, our programs develop future leaders who are collaborative, communicative, and skilled problem solvers.

[Approved by the Department of Management, February 24, 2017]