Applying Knowledge Through Games
Business games (also called business simulation game) refer to simulation games that are used as an educational tool for teaching business. Business games may be carried out for various business training such as general management, finance, organizational behavior, and human resources. Often the term business simulation is used with the same meaning .
Business Game
Business game (also called business simulation game) refers to simulation games that are used as an educational tool for teaching business.
Business strategy games are intended to enhance the decision-making skills of students, especially under conditions defined by limited time and information. They vary in focus from how to undertake a corporate takeover to how to expand a company's share of the market. Typically, the player feeds information into a computer program and receives back a series of optional or additional data that are conditional upon the player's initial choices. The game proceeds through several series of these interactive, iterative steps. As can be noted, this definition does not consider continuous (real-time) processing an alternative.
In business simulation games, players receive a description of an imaginary business and an imaginary environment and make decisions – on price, advertising, production targets, and so on – about how their company should be run. A business game may have an industrial, commercial or financial background (Elgood, 1996). Ju and Wagner mention that the nature of business games can include decision-making tasks, which pit the player against a hostile environment or hostile opponents. These simulations have a nature of strategy or war games, but usually are very terse in their user interface. Other types of managerial simulations are resource allocation games, in which the player or players have to allocate resources to areas such as plant, production, marketing, and human resources, in order to produce and sell goods.
The Simulation Gaming Process
Business simulation game developers regard their artefacts to be learning environments. When arguing for this, they most often refer to David A. Kolb's influential work in the field of experiential learning. During the last decades, ideas from constructivism have influenced the learning discussion within the simulation gaming field. The activities carried out during a simulation game training session are:
- Theoretical instruction: The teacher goes through certain relevant aspects of a theory and participants can intervene with questions and comments.
- Introduction to the game: The participants are told how to operate the computer and how to play the game.
- Playing the game: Participants get the opportunity to practice their knowledge and skills by changing different parameters of the game and reflecting on the possible consequences of these changes. Permanent contact with the participants is advisable, as well as keeping the training going to maintain a positive atmosphere and to secure that the participants feel engaged.
- Group discussions: Each of the participants is given a possibility to present and compare their results from the game with the results of others. The participants are encouraged to present their results to others. The teacher should continually look for new ways of enriching the discussions and to help the participants find the connection between the game results and the problems in the real world. The quality of this group discussion plays a relevant role in the training as it will affect the participants' transfer of knowledge and skills into the real world.
The last phase in the list above is usually called debriefing. Debriefing is the most important part of the simulation and gaming experience. We all learn from experience, but without reflecting on this experience the learning potential may be lost. Simulation gaming needs to be seen as contrived experiences in the learning cycle, which require special attention at the stages of reflection and generalization.