Beyond Names: A Multi-Session Activity for Building Empathy and Peer Support Networks in Management Education

Building genuine peer relationships is essential to student success, yet management education rarely provides structured opportunities to develop empathy, trust, and collaborative support skills over time. This article introduces Beyond Names, a multi-session activity for management courses that uses a recurring 5-min icebreaker at the start of each class as the engine of a semester-long, three-phase process. Students rotate seats and hold brief conversations (Phase 1), select one peer to support through a structured action plan (Phase 2), and submit a reflection on impact and lessons learned (Phase 3). Grounded in social capital theory, effectuation theory and design thinking pedagogy, the activity offers a structured approach to building lasting peer support networks in diverse classrooms, and it adapts across the management curriculum. Self-reported survey and reflection data from three undergraduate cohorts ( N = 45) are encouraging, with most students reporting gains in empathy, networking confidence, and collaborative problem-solving.