Business wargaming for teaching strategy making

doi:10.1016/j.futures.2013.06.002

Futures

Volume 51, July 2013, Pages 59-66

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.futures.2013.06.002 Get rights and content

Highlights

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Complex and dynamic environments pose a challenge to teaching management students.
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Business wargaming, a dynamic strategic simulation, can address these challenges.
•
Reflections from classroom experiences explain the application.

Abstract

An increasingly complex and dynamic business environment requires new approaches to teaching strategy to management students. Business wargaming, a dynamic strategic simulation, is discussed as a management simulation which can respond to the contemporary challenges in management education. Reflecting on the practical use of business wargaming in the classroom, it is described how such simulations prepare management students for making strategic decisions in complex and dynamic environments characterised by high uncertainty concerning the future.

Introduction

Organisations have in the past been urged to develop foresight [1], [2] and accordingly a variety of approaches and concepts, such as futures studies, strategic, corporate or organisational foresight, trend research, strategic early warning systems, strategic issue management or scenario planning have emerged. In particular scenario planning [3], [4], [5], [6] has gained increasing recognition [7] in corporations as a tool to develop alternative pictures of the future.

However, how has this notion of developing foresight in order to deal with complexity and uncertainty, in particular in respect to the future, translated into the education of management students? Schoemaker [8, p. 119] argues: “The traditional paradigm of business schools, with its strong focus on analytical models and reductionism, is not well suited to handle the ambiguity and high rate of change facing many industries today”. Increasingly master programmes on futures studies or executive education on scenario planning or corporate foresight are offered at universities, the question remains how to further integrate futures thinking into the education of management students, besides only mentioning scenario planning as a relevant tool for strategy development.

While it has been argued that simulations have positive effects on learning [9], [10], it appears that simulations, in their various formats, are appropriate for educating management students, in particular if these simulations are future oriented and therefore expose management students to futures thinking. This paper introduces and discusses a specific from of simulations, which appears to be very well suited to familiarising management students with strategising in a dynamic and complex environment. This points to business wargaming, which can be perceived as a dynamic strategic simulation.

In the following, it will be demonstrated that an increasingly complex and dynamic business environment requires new approaches to teaching strategy to management students. The role of simulations in management education will be discussed, followed by an introduction to business wargaming. Experiences with the use of business wargaming in the classroom will then be presented.

Section snippets

Challenges for management education

The critics of MBA programmes [11], [12], [13], [14] have in return been criticised for not providing evidence to support their claim [15]. Schoemaker [8, p. 122] makes the point “that the MBA culture, includes a rational, reductionism mindset that serves business well in time of stability but not when discontinuity is upon us and entrepreneurship is called for”. Schoemaker [8], who has published widely on issues such as scenario planning [5], [6] and on Ansoff's [16] concept of “weak signals”

Simulations in management education

Why use simulations in management education? Simulations have been credited with having positive effects on learning [25]. The use of simulations in education, and especially in military training, has a long history [26]; the later discussion on the history of business wargaming will underline this. Faria et al. [27] state that in the past 40 years, simulations have proliferated in many areas. Simulations have been used in strategic management courses [28], but also in operations management

Introducing business wargaming

Business wargaming has been credited as a valuable approach in fields of applications, including the military, including a historic perspective [37], management [38], in developing strategies [39], [40], [41], [42], in competitive strategies [43], testing strategies [44], [45], [46], [47], public policy [41], or for instance transportation planning [48]. In addition to the few comprehensive accounts of the military application to wargaming [49], [50], [51], recent publications on the

Reflecting on the application of business wargaming in the classroom

The aim of this section is to reflect on the application of business wargaming in the classroom. On the one hand, the author will reflect on experiences derived from six years of teaching strategy to diverse group of students, including MBAs, bachelor and management students, design und cultural studies students, as well as part-time MBAs across Europe by applying business wargaming. On the other hand this reflection will describe how a business wargame can be carried out in a classroom.

Conclusion

Meeting contemporary challenges in management education is a difficult task. The purpose of this article was to describe how business wargaming could be used to meet these challenges. The main advantages of a business wargame are that it gives some structure, while leaving room for dynamics, creativity, and discussions among the participants. Above all, it actively engages the participants in a future-oriented learning experience. “Simulation brings learning from the third person to the first

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View full text

Business wargaming for teaching strategy making

Highlights

Abstract

Introduction

Section snippets

Challenges for management education

Simulations in management education

Introducing business wargaming

Reflecting on the application of business wargaming in the classroom

Conclusion

Technological Forecasting and Social Change

Long Range Planning

International Journal of Production Economics

Long Range Planning

Futures

Competing for the Future

20/20 Foresight: Crafting Strategy in an Uncertain World

Scenarios: shooting the rapids

Harvard Business Review

Scenarios: uncharted waters ahead

Harvard Business Review

Integrating scenarios into strategic planning at royal dutch/shell

Planning Review

Scenario planning: a tool for strategic thinking

MIT Sloan Management Review

Management Tools & Trends 2011

The future challenges of business: rethinking management education and research

California Management Review

Why wargaming works

Naval War College Review

Managers not MBAs

The business school ‘business’: some lessons from the US experience

Journal of Management Studies

Rethinking the business school

Journal of Management Studies

From Higher Aims to Hired Hands: The Social Transformation of American Business Schools and the Unfulfilled Promise of Management as a Profession

More success than meets the eye – a challenge to critiques of the mba: possibilities for critical management education?

Management Learning

Managing strategic surprise by response to weak signals

California Management Review

Scanning the periphery

Harvard Business Review

Peripheral Vision: Detecting the Weak Signals That Will Make or Break Your Company

Extended intelligence networks: minding and mining the periphery

How to make sense of weak signals

MIT Sloan Management Review

Critical management education and action-based learning: synergies and contradictions

Academy of Management Learning and Education

Three moves for engaging students in critical management studies

Management Learning

Enhancing the ability to think strategically: a learning model

Management Learning

Business simulations and cognitive learning

Simulation and Gaming

The long history of gaming in military training

Simulation and Gaming

Developments in business gaming

Simulation and Gaming

A constructivist approach to designing business simulations for strategic management

Simulation and Gaming

Teaching managerial economics with dynamic competitive simulations: wargaming in the classroom

Journal of Economics and Economic Education Research

Acting, knowing, learning, simulating, gaming

Simulation and Gaming

Experiential Learning: Experience as the Source of Learning and Development