Playing to Learn: Business Simulation Games as Leadership Learning Environments

摘要

The aim of this dissertation is to investigate if participation in business simulation gamingsessions can make different leadership styles visible and provide students with experiencesbeneficial for the development of leadership skills. Particularly, the focus is to describe thedevelopment of leadership styles when leading virtual teams in computer-­supportedcollaborative game settings and to identify the outcomes of using computer simulation gamesas leadership training tools.To answer to the objectives of the study, three empirical experiments were conducted toexplore if participation in business simulation gaming sessions (Study I and II), whichintegrate face-­to-­face and virtual communication (Study III and IV), can make differentleadership styles visible and provide students with experiences beneficial for the developmentof leadership skills. In the first experiment, a group of multicultural graduate businessstudents (N=41) participated in gaming sessions with a computerized business simulationgame (Study III). In the second experiment, a group of graduate students (N=9) participated inthe training with a ‘real estate’ computer game (Study I and II). In the third experiment, abusiness simulation gaming session was organized for graduate students group (N=26) and theparticipants played the simulation game in virtual teams, which were organizationally andgeographically dispersed but connected via technology (Study IV). Each team in allexperiments had three to four students and students were between 22 and 25 years old. Thebusiness computer games used for the empirical experiments presented an enormous numberof complex operations in which a team leader needed to make the final decisions involved inleading the team to win the game. These gaming environments were interactive;; participantsinteracted by solving the given tasks in the game. Thus, strategy and appropriate leadershipwere needed to be successful. The training was competition-­based and requiredimplementation of leadership skills.The data of these studies consist of observations, participants’ reflective essays written afterthe gaming sessions, pre-­ and post-­tests questionnaires and participants’ answers to open-­ended questions. Participants’ interactions and collaboration were observed when they playedthe computer games. The transcripts of notes from observations and students dialogs werecoded in terms of transactional, transformational, heroic and post-­heroic leadership styles. Forthe data analysis of the transcribed notes from observations, content analysis and discourseanalysis was implemented. The Multifactor Leadership Questionnaire (MLQ) was alsoutilized in the study to measure transformational and transactional leadership styles;; inaddition, quantitative (one-­way repeated measures ANOVA) and qualitative data analyseshave been performed.The results of this study indicate that in the business simulation gaming environment, certainleadership characteristics emerged spontaneously. Experiences about leadership variedbetween the teams and were dependent on the role individual students had in their team.These four studies showed that simulation gaming environment has the potential to be used inhigher education to exercise the leadership styles relevant in real-­world work contexts.Further, the study indicated that given debriefing sessions, the simulation game context hasmuch potential to benefit learning. The participants who showed interest in leadership roleswere given the opportunity of developing leadership skills in practice.The study also provides evidence of unpredictable situations that participants can experienceand learn from during the gaming sessions. The study illustrates the complex nature ofexperiences from the gaming environments and the need for the team leader and role divisionsduring the gaming sessions. It could be concluded that the experience of simulation gametraining illustrated the complexity of real life situations and provided participants with thechallenges of virtual leadership experiences and the difficulties of using leadership styles inpractice. As a result, the study offers playing computer simulation games in small teams asone way to exercise leadership styles in practice.