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Extant research has identified the significance of technological affordances in computer-supported learning environments. However, until recently, there is scarcely empirical research on affordances for organizing collaboration in these learning environments. To address this gap, this study empirically examines affordances for organizing collaboration in a simulation-based learning environment. We focus, in particular on understanding how the organizing affordances of the learning environment are perceived and employed by the learners during a simulation-based learning task. The study was executed among 177 undergraduate higher education (HE) business students from 10 universities in Belgium, China, Estonia, New Zealand, the USA, Austria, and Finland. The data were obtained from the students' reflective essays, and analyzed with a qualitative content analytical approach. The results of our analyses yield in four types of organizing affordances: (1) organizing the division of work, (2) managing information and resources, (3) managing tasks, and (4) strategizing. Each type of organizing affordance was required in the joint learning task. The study offers an advanced understanding of affordances for organizing and of their use/nonuse in simulation-based learning environments. The findings of this study have theoretical and empirical implications and can contribute to both the development of pedagogic and educational practices as well as the design of learning tasks and environments.

The turbulent business environment requires business expertise from ever-larger personnel groups. The required business know-how is a combination of knowledge and several different skills, and it should provide the learners with an overall view of the functioning of a business organization as a whole. Moreover, while work is increasingly becoming a team and group effort, the potential strength of collaboration should also be presented in the learning environment. In this paper we first identify elements that advance the acquisition of relevant business know-how. Second, we describe how these elements can be embedded in a time intensive business simulation game, and present two simulation training sessions. Third, we analyze how the participants in the case trainings reflect on the elements that advance the acquisition of business knowledge. The analysis is qualitative by nature, utilizing simulation game participants' answers on questions concerning the different elements. Our results show that with dynamic simulations it is possible to support the team learning process, and enhance collaboration skills and overall understanding of the functioning of business organizations. (Contains 5 tables.)

Studies on students' perceptions of learning in business simulations often suggest that students like simulations and view them more positively than both lectures and case discussions. However, research on the actual learning outcomes deriving from participating in business simulations still needs to be pursued. Consequently, the purpose of this case-study article is to examine how a business simulation game contributes to the cognitive learning of novices in business studies. We describe the use of a clock-driven business simulation for teaching 133 novices in business studies at the University of Turku, Finland. The students' cognitive learning was evaluated based on data generated by pre- and post-game concept map tests designed to illustrate the formation and change of mental models during the simulation course. The results of this study suggest that simulation games can provide a solid basis for novice learning. They help to increase comprehension of the complexity of business organizations and the various processes, transactions, and operations involved.

The objective of this study is to elucidate new information on the possibility of leadership training through business computer-simulation gaming in a virtual working context. In the study, a business-simulation gaming session was organised for graduate students ("n"?=?26). The participants played the simulation game in virtual teams that were geographically dispersed and that were brought together by the use of technology. Before the gaming session, the team leaders were preselected and trained in how to operate the simulation game. Data consist of pre- and posttest questionnaires (the Multifactor Leadership Questionnaire measuring transformational, transactional and passive/avoidance leadership styles) and answers to open-ended questions. The results showed the difference in participants' opinions on leadership styles before and after the training. After the gaming sessions, team members scored lower in transformational and transactional scales than team leaders. Only team leaders' leadership styles correlated with game performance. However, shared leadership among team members was typical for most successful teams. Implications for leadership training are discussed.

In today's unstable market economy, individuals have to be skilled to work efficiently in constantly changing and complex situations. Thus, graduate students have to be trained to cope with unpredictable situations before they enter the workforce. They need to exercise occupational skills, such as leadership skills, during higher education. Simulation gaming opens up possibilities for active learning of the leadership and other occupational skills needed in complex work environments. The aim of this study is to explore if participation in business simulation gaming sessions can make different leadership types visible and if the simulation gaming sessions provide students with experiences beneficial for the development of leadership skills. In the experiment, a group of multicultural graduate business students (N = 41) participated in gaming sessions with a computerised business simulation game. The participants played the game in virtual teams; some teams had a "satellite member" geographically distant from the rest of the team members. Data consist of the teams' observations during the simulation game and students' reflective essays written after the gaming sessions. The results indicate that in the business simulation gaming environment, certain leadership characteristics emerged spontaneously. Experiences about leadership varied between the teams and were dependent on the role individual students had in their team. However, it can be concluded that simulation gaming environment has the potential to be used in higher education to exercise the leadership skills relevant in real-world work contexts. (Contains 2 figures.)

Power is an influential component of social interaction and there are reasons for thinking that it may have important effects both on decision-making and psychological and interpersonal processes. The aim of this paper was to study the relations between the feeling of power, decision-making and flow experience in a collaborative business simulation game. The participants of the study were mainly second and third year business school students (N = 98). The data from the simulation game sessions and the players' experiences were collected through the use of questionnaires. The results indicate that more powerful persons are more likely to experience flow in time-intensive collaborative games and are more goal-focused than less powerful persons. Furthermore, the ability to influence on game events as well as on other players were the major factors that enhanced flow experience. On the other hand, radical behaviour such as forcing others to accept certain opinions did not support flow, because it disturbed the progression of decision-making and game play. It seems that safe game environments can be used to inspire the less powerful persons to fight for their opinions and decisions, which can enhance their decision-making abilities also in real world situations. Based on that we argue that business simulation gaming is a reasonable way to teach business logics and decision-making. (Contains 5 figures and 3 tables.)

Constructivism has recently gained popularity, although it is not a completely new learning paradigm. Much of the work within e-learning, for example, uses constructivism as a reference "discipline" (explicitly or implicitly). However, some of the work done within the simulation gaming (SG) community discusses what the basic assumptions and implications of constructivism for SG are. Constructivism provides one theoretical approach to the use of computer-based systems and, as such, deserves careful consideration. The author's view is that SG researchers--as SG is a transdisciplinary field--should seek to do research that is acceptable in terms of other disciplines and need to go back to the original texts in the reference discipline to gain genuine appreciation of the arguments being proposed. This is an aim of this article. Another aim of this article is to provide theoretical tools with which to enhance SG argumentation development and debriefing.

This study is part of an ongoing attempt to develop a usable and valid scale for assessing the flow experience in educational games. The purpose of the paper is to operationalize the dimensions of flow experience in an educational game context and to test a constructed GameFlow questionnaire. Furthermore, the study strives to validate flow antecedents, the factors contributing to flow experience, proposed in game design models such as the experiential gaming model. The flow antecedents and the GameFlow questionnaire were studied through a business simulation game, which was used in a university level course (N = 92). Results indicate that the flow antecedents studied contributed to the flow experience and should be considered in educational game design. Furthermore, the results provided some baseline evidence for the assumption that flow experience has a positive impact on learning. Overall, these results indicate that the experiential gaming model and the GameFlow questionnaire are useful tools for studying gaming experience and can be used in educational game design. (Contains 3 figures and 2 tables.)

This paper describes a dynamic computer-based business learning environment and the results from applying it in a real-world business organization. We argue for using learning tools, which not only provide realistic and complex models of reality, but are also are authentic, facilitate continuous problem solving and meaningful learning, and embed learning in social experience. We describe a continuously processed business simulation game, which differs from the majority of business games in the way it is processed. Two company in-house training sessions are then introduced. In these sessions the learning environment was configured to describe the real-world environment of the case company. The empirical part of the paper analyses the findings from these in-house training sessions. We conclude that dynamicity and interactivity of the business learning tool are valuable characteristics if we want to be able to authentically represent the complex, causal, time-bound nature of business organizations.

The constantly changing business environment has forced many organizations to move away from focusing on individual tasks and functions to focusing on more integrated and coordinated ways of work. Higher-level business and information systems (IS) education is also in a state of change, as the traditional curriculum does not coincide with business realities. The mission of IS is shifting from developing and supporting information processing applications to developing, managing and supporting the information technology infrastructure for the entire organization. This requires knowledge of business operations. As educators in universities we should take these changes into consideration when we plan IS curricula. This means critical examination of the content of teaching. On the basis of the evidence from some business school and IS education literature, the authors point out the need to teach the cross-functional nature of business operations. In this paper we present an example of a business learning environment that presents business organizations as dynamic, time dependent networks of business transactions. We aim at representing real world complexity and authenticity in the learning environment. This aim is justified by introducing the constructivist view of learning which supports the use of learning environments which capture the learning context as a whole. According to the constructivist principles learning tasks should also be relevant and the reason for solving problems must be authentic to the context in which the learning is to be applied. The learning environment introduced in this paper provides the learner with control over the learning activity and also enables the re-creation of highly realistic situations in which the learner personally experiences the content of instruction. We are challenging the dominating batch-processed method of running business games. Our proposition is based on continuous processing, which is relevant especially from the point of view of training causal, time-dependent cross-functional business operations. We also present some findings from using a dynamic and realistic business process learning environment in company in-house training sessions and argue the applicability of the learning environment in university settings. As a conclusion we note that continuous processing in simulation gaming environments reveals the natural complexity and process nature of business operations better than batch-processing. Along with the processes, the game participants can also draw conclusions about causal dependencies between decisions and their outcomes. With these kinds of dynamic models participants discover that in complex systems cause and effect are separated in time and place. Continuous processing presents authentic tasks rather than abstractive instructions. Also the process nature increases the realism of the gaming experience. Realism in the game model also increases the enjoyability of the gaming experience, and this probably further enhances learning. These findings speak for the use of learning tools that represent authentic tasks rather than abstractive instructions. (Contains 4 figures and 1 table.)

Byline: Timo Lainema, Olli-Pekka Hilmola Currently, companies operate on a global basis, emphasising horizontal integration, innovation and customer satisfaction, while just focusing on the small number of business areas. Therefore, continuous personnel training is a vital part of the competitiveness. In this paper, we will introduce how business game, operating in a real time, through local area networks, could be customised for industrial training purposes. Items/tools such as standardised databases, information exchange and object-oriented programming have enabled the development of this application. According to our empirical results, we argue that companies are not necessarily only interested in directly copying their operations in a form of a business game, but have an interest in the same type of decisions and problems to be dealt during the training sessions.

Byline: Timo Lainema, Olli-Pekka Hilmola In this paper, we highlight the need to provide education that represents a business process view of organisational functioning. Following three computer supported methodologies are evaluated first: traditional simulation; systems dynamics simulation; and business gaming. Operations management decisions usually deal simultaneously with multiple products and production capacity considerations, and issues related to successful sales and efficient purchasing. These are issues which are hard to capture with tools that present momentary, stagnant views of business circumstances. We reason that the potential in transparent business process simulation gaming is probably higher for production and operations management than what is the potential in traditional business games or other computer supported methodologies. This is because transparent and continuously evolving learning environments present the process view of business functioning. Furthermore, we shortly present this kind of continuously evolving business simulation game. This game works in a local area network, where participant groups with their own manufacturing companies can compete against each other in an imaginary market environment. We also analyse what kind of results continuous gaming has produced in two Production and Operations Management courses, given for the MSc students.

The computer-based business game is developed to train employees working in different organizations, to cope better with the different decision-making situations. The RealGame, a computer-based business game, aims at representing business processes by providing a natural representation of the real world.