Developments in Business Simulation and Experiential Learning(Texas Digital Library - TDL E-Journals)
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Do First Mover Advantages Exist In Competitive Board Games: The Importance of Zugzwang
No full textThe ability to move first in competitive games is thought to be the sole determinant on who wins the game. This study attempts to show other factors which contribute and have a non-linear effect on the game’s outcome. These factors, although shown to be not statistically significant, because of their non-linear relationship have some positive correlations to helping determine the winner of the game
Cooperative Business Game with Framing Effect
No full textCooperation between economic entities is necessary for economic activities. For example, supply chain needs cooperation between more than one company. When the firms cooperate enough to build appropriate cooperative relationship, profit is provided mutually. The cooperation is not enough, however, all the firms under cooperation cannot profit and other company may gain profits, or suffer a loss. In such a situation, there can be a same structure as the social problems such as the environmental pollution and an economic problem. In particular, environmental problems become more serious for the firms’ economic activities. For the corporate social responsibility issue, firms must tackle with environmental problems and such a cooperative business situation increases in real world. We introduce design and implementation of cooperative business gaming simulation in which the framing effect is critically appeared. Framing effects is one of the psychological problems argued in economics. Learning by framing effect encourages objective decision for cooperation. The game we proposed here provides students deeper understanding of the importance of appropriate cooperation
Class Size and Game Design
No full textThis paper reviews five games that have been used in small classes (30 or fewer students) and in large classes (more than 50 students). The types of games and the characteristics of their use in different size classes provide insight for game developers. Analysis suggests that larger class size seems to increase the difficulty of managing games at a non-linear rate. Developers of games designed for large classes must spend extra effort to design control processes that will facilitate management of the game or simulation
ABSEL Redux: Reflections after a 25 Year Hiatus
No full textThis paper is a collection of personalized reflections and observations about ABSEL and simulation and experiential learning after a 25 year hiatus. I begin by examining the genesis of ABSEL in its early years 1974 to 1982. Contrasts between ABSEL “then and now” are made relative to faculty, administration, students and ABSEL scholarship. The paper concludes with a celebration of “the ABSEL Style” as the factor that not only separated us from rest of the pack at ABSEL’s inception, but also gives us a competitive advantage going forward
Does Learning Occur In One-Shot, Non-Cooperative Games?
No full textLearning to learn is a basic foundation of life and necessary for evolution. The ability to show the existence of learning can at times be difficult in one-shot, non-cooperative games. The ability to transfer knowledge from one situation to another is an indication of how much one actually learns and how it is applied. The purpose of this paper is to show the existence of learning in this type of game by using the vertical checkers game “Connect 4”. By looking at the difference in won-loss records between two tournaments and the distribution of the scores, we can show that learning has occurred when teams have a greater degree of parity and that average number of wins increases as the range of wins decreases
Developing Enterprise Culture among the Students through Intercollegiate Competitions: A Case of Student Enterprise Competition (SEC) 2007
No full text"Developing an eco system which can promote entrepreneurial orientations among the people is widely discussed issue among the entrepreneurship educators. This paper focuses on the concept of student enterprises and its importance and implications in entrepreneurship education. The paper explores the possibility of creating intercollegiate competition as a platform to cultivate enterprise culture among the students. An ounce of action is better than tonnes of planning – Anonymous
Are the Business Simulations we Play too Complex?
No full text"U. S. Business games were born as small, experiential exercises in the 1940s and 50s, but with the advent of electronic computers and the birth of the American Management Association’s GENERAL MANAGEMENT BUSINESS SIMULATION (THE MOSE COMPANY) in 1957, these games became computerized and evolved very large and large and complex. That is, the simulations were designed modeling oligopolies with only a few identical competing firms that required making many decisions regarding the finance, marketing, production, and managing of a firm selling a product or set of products over a few (6 to 12) rounds of play. The players (managers) were to make decisions and establish a set of overall corporate strategies to guide their decision making for the relatively few rounds that were to be completed. When the decisions and strategies included many of the functional areas of a firm, the games were deemed: “Total Enterprise Simulations.” As mainframe computers became more sophisticated and faster, the business simulations were saddled with more and more decisions, but the teams still made decisions using the same number of rounds of play. While there were a few gamers who saw the limitations of large business simulations, in general this concept was little noticed until the advent of the microcomputer with its limited memory and speed of calculations. However, one particular professor, Dr. Ronald Frazer, presented a number of papers at ABSEL supporting the concept of small business simulations. He thought that students would learn more by participating in several, limited purpose games, each of which would only require from one to a few days of effort to play, than when they played a total enterprise simulation that requires an entire semester of effort. This paper re-explores the logic of Professor Frazer’s premise in the light of still newer technologies, the current reliance on very large and complex total enterprise business simulations and recent research findings regarding the relative outcome evaluations of teams that play these oligopoly type total enterprise simulations.
Evaluation Model of the Global Performance of a Management Simulation for the Academic Environment
No full textThis paper proposes and tests an evaluation model of performance in an exercise of management simulation taking into account the indicators identified by the ones involved in the process, i.e., professor and students. For the construction of the model the Multiple Criteria Decision Aid (MCDA) method was used in a management simulation course. Seventeen (17) criteria were identified in order to be used for the evaluation of the performance of the simulation. The methodology demonstrated what would be considered in such criteria and their relative importance. Once the evaluation model was created, it was tested in the same class that conceived it. As a result, the application of the exercise of management simulation pointed to a global performance of 88 points out of 100, the number considered by the professor as a good score. It involved not only traditional evaluation criteria of students and teams, but also the characteristics of the professor, the students, the simulator and the simulated environment
Should Business Game Players Choose Their Teammates: A Study with Pedagogical Implications
No full textMost top management business games have been designed to be team experiences. Despite the ramifications of this mandate, little research has been conducted on how the team’s members should be selected. The company staffing method may have severe ramifications as a major part of the learning anticipated by this experiential approach comes from the team’s interpersonal relations as they relate to the game’s model. An examination of two diametrically opposed methods for creating game teams was conducted. Randomly staffed versus self-staffed teams played a rela-tively complex computer-driven game for eight decision rounds. It was found self-selected teams were not more co-hesive than randomly staffed firms were and their ending-state cohesion levels were no better than those of the ran-domly staffed firms. They were, however, more profitable and less anxious about playing the game. Both groups were favorably disposed regarding this teaching technique after the simulation had ended
Active Learning 2.0 or Wiki is not a 4-Letter Word
No full textThis paper describes a project where open source wiki software was used to replace a course textbook. The setting is a senior course in management information systems at a mid-sized regional comprehensive university in the southeastern United States. Through a process of collaborative, active learning assignments, students in the class used the wiki software to facilitate the process of allocating topics, researching the topics, and then creating articles (e.g. web pages) on the class wiki. Using the tools available with the wiki software, the students integrated, categorized, and indexed the course content articles into a cohesive body of material that served the same purpose as a standard textbook. Because the students are working on the content for the wiki on a weekly basis, there is no opportunity to leave studying till the day before an exam. Plus the students like learning a new software system that is often in the news