A Game-Based Learning Approach for Enterprise Organization

Amidst a thriving entrepreneurial culture, understanding business organization is vital for emerging professionals. Practical implications of corporate structures and processes are hard to convey and must thus be experientially understood. The required knowledge is predominantly imparted in education through theoretical classes, in which participants often find themselves in a passive learning mode. Game-based learning approaches have demonstrated their efficacy in enhancing the understanding of intricate interrelationships present in both theoretical and application-based educational content. They thus provide a didactic supplement to foster holistic educational concepts in learning factories. This contribution proposes a game-based learning approach for application in lectures and courses with reference to enterprise organization. In the game, participants form start-up groups that follow the pathway of competing virtual companies that grow towards large companies. The companies’ representatives face several organizational crises that are translated into team work tasks. Along the crises, companies merge according to participants’ performance on the respective tasks. This realistically represents the communication and leadership challenges of growing companies. The approach has received positive feedback in a first trial and will be further extended.