Preparing for tomorrow's supply chain leaders today in the Industry 4.0 era: Student perceptions on learning modes

Preparing for tomorrow's supply chain leaders today involves an understanding of how students perceive the educational value of classroom learning approaches. To better understand how to prepare our students for the Industry 4.0 era, we surveyed current and former students on their perceptions of pedagogical methods that contributed to their learning and preparation to enter the workforce as supply chain management professionals. Results from former students, who are working in the supply chain management field, indicate that real‐world teaching methods have a higher impact on learning than methods that are not as real‐world. However, both groups rated guest speakers as the most effective learning method and lectures as the least effective. We offer an exploratory study motivated by students’ informal post‐discussion of learning via Zoom during COVID‐19. This article offers insights into how teachers should deliver supply chain content based on the student's perception of learning, an approach that will prepare students for supply chain management careers in the Industry 4.0 era.