Business simulation

Business simulation is simulation used for business training, education or analysis. It can be scenario-based or numeric-based.

Most business simulations are used for business acumen training and development. Learning objectives include: strategic thinking, decision making, problem solving, financial analysis, market analysis, operations, teamwork and leadership.

The business gaming community seems lately to have adopted the term business simulation game instead of just gaming or just simulation. The word simulation is sometimes considered too mechanistic for educational purposes. Simulation also refers to activities where an optimum for some problem is searched for, while this is not usually the aim of an educational game. 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. The concept of simulation gaming seems to offer the right combination and balance between the two. Simulation gaming is also the term that the educational gaming community has adopted.

Partly, the terminology of business simulation games is not well established. The most common term used is business game but several other terms are also in use. Here we will define the most common terms used in context of (computer-based) business learning environments.

Klabbers (1999) notes that gaming is sometimes associated with something that is frivolous, just for the fun of it. This hampers its scientific endeavor and the more serious connotations of gaming in the scientific arena. The term game is used to describe activities in which some or all of these characteristics are prominent:

Games are played when one or more players compete or cooperate for payoffs, according to an agreed set of rules. Players behave as themselves though they may well display exceptional behavior. Games are social systems and they include actors (players), rules and resources, which are the basic building blocks of social systems. In each game, the players (actors) interact with one another, while applying different rules, and utilizing different resources.

Tsuchiya and Tsuchiya note that the simulation gaming community is still struggling to establish itself as a discipline, although 35 years have passed since the International Simulation and Gaming Association (ISAGA) was established. To be a discipline, simulation gaming needs a theory, methodology, and application and validation. Of these, forming a theory is the most difficult challenge. Similar comments come from Wolfe and Crookall. Referring to prior research they conclude that the educational simulation gaming field has been unable to create a generally accepted typology, let alone taxonomy, of the nature of simulation gaming. 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. Without this, the field has been stuck, despite its age, at a relatively low level of development.

...
Wikipedia