Developments in Business Simulation and Experiential Learning(Texas Digital Library - TDL E-Journals)
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Those Who Do and Those That Don’t: A Study of Engaged and Disengaged Business Game Players
No full text"The “free rider” syndrome plagues many group efforts. This is an especially harmful phenomenon for those using business games as team-based learning experiences. Be-cause of this lack of engagement naturally associated with players in groups, this paper tested a set of predictors of a player’s engagement or unengagement in the simulation being played. Engagement varied widely when measured by the proportion of online screen visits made by each team’s members. Of the study’s 76 subjects, 18.4% were highly engaged with 38.2% of them being almost completely unengaged. Those who actively participated had significantly higher pre-college aptitude scores and cumulative college grade-point-averages. Despite the group’s bi-modal nature, there were weak but significant predictive relationships between player aptitudes and collegiate grade-point-averages and engagement levels. These weak correlations indicate there are other more important factors associated with a player’s level of game engagement. Educators, and especially those preparing students for business careers, have endorsed the use of active group learning environments (Becker and Dwyer, 1998). More importantly, there has been an increase in their use (Brooks and Ammons, 2003; Lejk and Wyvill, 2001) based on their sup-posed ability to deliver the benefits of high cognitive in-volvement and greater activation and motivational levels for the materials and tasks being presented (Peterson and Miller, 2004). For those being trained for the business world, whose practitioners must bring about instrumental effects, group-learning methods help the student to learn about group dynamics, develop their interpersonal skills, expose them to diverse perspectives and produces more well-rounded assignments and other task-related outputs (Mello, 1993). Despite these often-documented benefits, there are still factors that make many group-learning efforts frustrating to their participants and sub-optimal in the results they produce (Ashraf, 2004; Gatfield, 1999; Kerr, 1983). One of these factors is the presence of “free riders” or those who engage in social loafing (Williams and Karau, 1991). These individuals do not bear their fair share of the group’s work while obtaining all of its benefits (Albanese and Van Fleet, 1985; Jones, 1984). This imbalance frequently leads to dominance by a few and less learning for others, bitterness, claims of prejudice by those negatively evaluated and a lowering of the quantity and quality of the group’s output (Brooks and Ammons, 2003; McElhinney and Murk, 1994; Schoenecker, Martell and Michlitch, 1997). The problem of getting the free rider to put forth a requisite level of effort is exacerbated in student-related projects. In the workplace, employees are more-directly rewarded for their efforts with paychecks, promotions and other entitlements such as employee benefits (Piezon and Donaldson, 2004). Students, however, do not have these rewards and punishments at their disposal other than by awarding group-dispensed grades and peer evaluations. These may not be meaningful given the rewards of free-ridership (Murphy, Wane, Liden and Erdogan, 2003). Because of the presence of social loafing in all group projects, and possibly those associated with business games that depend on the joint efforts of their players, this paper attempts to quantitatively document its presence. It does so by not relying on anecdotal and post hoc player evaluations that may not capture the amount of free ridership manifested on their teams. In doing so, the paper will at-tempt to identify the degree a player’s pre-game scholastic aptitudes and academic achievement levels are associated with their degree of engagement in a business game learning environment.
If the Games Work, Why Aren\u27t More Faculty Willing To Play?
No full textIf you are an academic-type that likes to see theories that truly help solve real problems, this workshop is for you. We will initially use several motivation theories to clarify why our colleagues are resistant to using business games and simulations. Second, we will brainstorm numerous tactics to overcome the many barriers identified; finally, from these various tactics, you will develop a set of activities and an action plan tailored to your situation
Issues in Simulation Implementation: Lessons from a Freshman Seminar
No full textBusiness simulations are a widely used educational strategy. Although simulations are generally considered an effective tool in creating innovative and successful learning environments, not everyone is convinced. There are many risks in undertaking simulations which can impact on their success. There are risks for students and faculty alike. It is important to understand these hazards in order to effectively implement simulations in a classroom setting. This article reviews important implementation concerns, presents qualitative data from a new simulation implementation and develops important implications and considerations for effectively implementing simulations in the business classroom
Another Look at the Use of Forecasting Accuracy on the Assessment of Management Performance in Business Simulation Games
No full textResearch in business games show that the reduction in forecast error can be used as a predictor of team performance. The objective of this study was to evaluate these findings with respect to high- versus low-level individual management functions. Using multiple linear regression, the study found that the set of independent variables (prediction error for indicators relevant to each management function) explained 40.75% of the overall company performance, while another portion is explained by external factors. As expected, the study found that the forecast accuracy for high-level functions (general management) had the greatest predictive impact and lowlevel functions (sales, human resources, and finance) the lowest. This supports the notion that Teach’s (1990) forecast-accuracy approach to performance evaluation can be used in top-level strategic management simulations as well as lower-level functional simulations rather than limiting it functional simulations only, as Wolfe (1993a) suggests
The Effect of Advertising on Demand in Business Simulations
No full text"Advertising in virtually all business enterprise simulations is an important marketing decision. The purpose of this paper is to explore the nature of advertising and its effect on demand as used within a business simulation. In addition, the nature of the advertising function will be analyzed and a discussion presented on how to create an advertising function. Because business simulations are based on market conditions of an oligopoly, the nature and purpose of advertising within this type of industry must be examined also. The effect of advertising on both firm demand and industry demand is important. The key to modeling the effect of advertising on demand in a business simulation is to create an advertising function for both firm demand and industry demand. The shape of the advertising function still remains an unresolved issue. Also, how the advertising function shifts the demand curve also remains an open question. The advertising function can change the elasticity of demand or leave it unchanged. Also, the advertising function can leave the slope of the demand curve unchanged. How the advertising function changes both firm demand and industry demand are explored. In addition, some detail is given on how to construct an advertising function.
Checking Financial Balance of Target Brand Portfolio with the Strategic Market Plan Cash Flow Package
No full textThe Online Strategic Market Plan (SMP) Cash Flow Package is used to assess the viability of a SMP. Based on a strategic analysis of the brand portfolio, participants develop a target brand portfolio with associated strategies for their nine strategic business units (SBUs). They enter the estimated annual sources and uses of cash associated with these strategies. The annual sources and uses of cash for the prior three years of operation are computed from quarterly sources and uses of cash accounts extracted from the simulation results and serve as benchmarks. Based on their preview of the projected cash surplus or deficit, the SMP can be adjusted to optimize the performance of the overall brand portfolio while maintaining cash in balance
Linking Stories with On-Line Threaded Discussions for Critical Thinking in Management Curriculum
No full textThis paper discusses two school’s integrated attempt at increasing student learning, critical thinking, and participation through the use of on-line threaded discussion stories in the classroom for management courses. Every week the students were required to read a story posted by the instructors on an on-line site and post a comment to the story itself or to a comment by another student from either of the two universities. The stories varied depending on the course material and yielded some powerful comments by the students. This paper highlights some of the sample stories and student comments. In addition, it identifies and explains the outcome for using storytelling through on-line threaded discussions in the classroom and the implication for the future
Using Portfolio Theory in a General Management Simulation
No full textThis article describes a use of portfolio theory to select stocks in a general management simulation used in an international business strategy competition. The competition and the nature of a stock market competition within the general competition are briefly described. The analysis suggests that portfolio theory models can useful for selecting stocks in this competition. Some suggestions are made for using a simulated stock market from a business strategy class to further engage students in the that class and to engage students from other classes as well
The Relationship Between Goal Orientation and Simulation Performance with Attitude Change and Perceived Learning
No full textThis study explored the relationship between the students’ goal orientation, their success on a simulation exercise, and their perceptions of its value. This study found the relationships between financial performance on the simulation and student perceptions of its attractiveness as an educational pedagogy were not significantly moderated by the goal orientation of the student. Limitations and directions for future research are explored
Computerized Business Simulations: A Systems Dynamics Process
No full textComputerized Business Simulations involve a feedback process that parallels that of Industrial Dynamics and Servomechanisms. This paper suggests that the servomechanism’s dynamics in real and imaginary space are paralleled by the business simulation’s cognition, affection and workload dynamics. The paper explores these dynamics in terms of their patterns, problems and interactions. The paper then discusses how to overcome these problems and improve learning through the natural and managed responses of the business simulation system