On the other hand, the word game can imply time wasting, not taking things too seriously and engaging in an exercise designed purely for fun.
According to them this is unfortunate because the basis of any science is its ability to discriminate and classify phenomena within its purview, based on underlying theory and precepts.
Keys and Wolfe[14] define a management game as a simplified simulated experiential environment that contains enough verisimilitude, or illusion of reality, to include real world-like responses by those participating in the exercise.
Business strategy games are intended to enhance students' decision-making skills, especially under conditions defined by limited time and information.
According to Senge and Lannon[18] in managerial microworlds – like business simulation games – unlike in the actual world, managers are free to experiment with policies and strategies without fear of jeopardizing the company.
Each firm or team is allocated a specific amount of resources in the form of cash, inventories, raw materials, plant and equipment, and so forth.
Naylor mentions that these decisions can concern, e.g., price, output, advertising, marketing, raw material acquisition, changes in plant capacity, and wage rate.
[14] In the Western world, war games date back to at least the German Kriegspiel of the mid-nineteenth century (Faria and Dickinson).
[20] Greenlaw et al.[11] state that business simulation exercises may be considered an outgrowth of earlier developments in three fields: military war gaming, operations research, and educational role-playing.
Greenlaw et al. note that the Top Management Decision Simulation stimulated the design and use of dozens of other games.
Naylor[13] mentions already in 1971 that hundreds of management games have been developed by various universities, business firms, and research organizations.
McRaith and Goeldner[22] list 29 marketing games, of which 20 had been developed by business firms and nine by academians for university teaching.
They state that until the early 1980s simulation was used to forecast the behavior of a variety of sub-system level variables, ranging from the cash flow and financial performance of a company, to the inflation and unemployment rates of an economy.
Instead of focusing on predicting, simulation progressively became a tool to help management teams understand their company and industry's problems and opportunities.
Simulations could prepare for the future and reduce the sensitivity of possible strategies to changes in alternative frames of reference – or mental models.
The business simulations allowed participants to test their decision-making skills, make mistakes, and safely learn from their experience.
Often multiple choice alternatives are used and the scenario is played out following a branching tree based on which decisions the learner makes.
In a numeric simulation the learner or user makes decisions by pulling levers and dialers as well as through inputting numbers.
Many numeric business simulations include elements of competition against other participants or against computer generated competitors.
[30] During the last decades ideas from constructivism and authentic e-learning have also provided new perspectives for considering the role of business simulations in learning.
Increasing team size allows for practical lessons in leadership and collaboration and students delegate responsibilities, interpret data, and make decisions.
Simulation gaming needs to be seen as contrived experiences in the learning cycle, which require special attention at the stages of reflection and generalization.
[6] Thiagarajan[36] lists six phases of debriefing, presented as a flexible suggestion and not as rigid requirements: Van Ments[37] notes that the aim of debriefing is to: deal with factual errors and to tie up loose ends (including scoring); draw out general conclusions about the session; and deduce general lessons which can be extrapolated to the real world.
The importance of reflection, debriefing and feedback highlight the need for business simulations to supported by carefully considered learning outcomes, pedagogy and assessment tasks.
Student factors such as low motivation to engage and prior skill weaknesses can undermine the ability of authentic assessment regimes to achieve the purported learning benefits.
[1] A study in the Journal of Business Research[40] used a Marketplace Simulations game to explore the role of cognitive processes in team decision-making within the context of marketing.
The team gathered data from eight MBA programs across the United States that used Marketplace Simulations in their class.
Researchers controlled for how many years of real-world work experience each team member had, as well as how much time each one had spent in the simulation.