Innovative Strategic Management Games as a teaching methodology for entrepreneurship and business education Erasmus Project

Project Title

Innovative Strategic Management Games as a teaching methodology for entrepreneurship and business education

Project Key Action

This project related with these key action: Cooperation for innovation and the exchange of good practices

Project Action Type

This project related with this action type : Strategic Partnerships for vocational education and training

Project Call Year

This project’s Call Year is 2015

Project Topics

This project is related with these Project Topics: Entrepreneurial learning – entrepreneurship education; New innovative curricula/educational methods/development of training courses

Project Summary

“BGame: Innovative Strategic Management Games as a teaching methodology for entrepreneurship and business education” aimed at creating a strategic management virtual game for SMEs to further improve the strategic management skills of SME employees and managers and extend the learning opportunities of individual adult learners in entrepreneurial contexts. As a complement to the virtual game, BGame also offered a set of training resources for business trainers to further improve their knowledge on topics related with strategic management, including human resource management, internationalisation, sales and finances, marketing and advertising.

Virtual games or business simulation games are designed to improve knowledge about business and to improve specific related-skills, which in turn leads to more efficient and effective organizations. For any employee to be (more) effective they need to understand how the business works, what it takes for the company to be successful and, more importantly, what contribution they need to make to ensure it is operating effectively and efficiently. A virtual game or simulation (that is built based on the reality and day-to-day functioning of a company, such as BGame) is one of the most effective learning processes there is. The experience develops participants’ business intelligence, helping them to understand and actually perceive the extent of their (day-to-day) contribution and the importance of their decisions and their attitudes. Through BGame and its resources, business owners and managers had the opportunity to learn to make better decisions for their organisation (namely Small and Medium Enterprises – SMEs) and form better relationships – allowing the SME to have a more effective, motivated and knowledgeable workforce.

The partnership was composed by a very good mix of professional partners, operating in the field of Vocational Education and Training – VET – (DieBerater and Fundación Equipo Humano), Business and Strategic Management (INOVA+, Instalofi and PEEP), Business Education (Poznan University). It also counted with the technical expertise of ASSIST Sotware. All partners accounted also with many years of experience in managing and/or implementing European Projects, designing and/or implementing VET courses, conducting training in and with businesses and networking with training actors.

The main steps of implementation of BGame were as follows: in IO1, partners started with an intensive desk/bibliographic research on the topic of gamification/virtual games for businesses in the countries of the partnership, which was followed by the design and application of a survey near company trainers (mostly with business background) and near business managers and entrepreneurs. The collected answers enabled the partnership to decide on the main scenarios that would be built and the main competences that would be approached in the training resources. This exercise resulted in the production of a Transnational Report on “Understanding the impact and use of virtual games in Small and Medium Enterprises”, where it presents the main findings of the analysis undertaken in Portugal, Spain, Romania, Austria and Poland. This outcome offered also a sample of best practices found in each of the surveyed countries and also a set of recommendations for partners regarding the development of the virtual game.

Part of the questions in the survey also aimed at identifying the main set of skills, which these trainers would like to further deepen in “Strategic Management” and, as a result, we have developed a training itinerary that later on, in IO2 become a training package composed by: 1. Trainer’s Guide and 2. PowerPoint resources. The Trainer’s Guide is a very complete book that explores contents related with the main decision-areas of the game and that are linked with the topic of Strategic Management. These include: 1. Strategic Management; 2. Human Resources; 3. Internationalisation; 4. Sales and Finances; 5. Marketing and Advertisement. The Guide also contains tips for trainers to implementing Training Sessions on Strategic Management in SME’s (and using the virtual game developed as a practical exploration of the topics). The PowerPoint resources are embedded in the game as they contain important information displayed in a way that, if deemed necessary the player can download and further learn about a topic that they have to make a decision on while playing the game. In any case, the package is available on the project website for download (www.bgame-project.eu).

EU Grant (Eur)

Funding of the project from EU: 264985 Eur

Project Coordinator

INOVA+ – INNOVATION SERVICES, SA & Country: PT

Project Partners

• INSTALOFI LEVANTE SL
• ASSIST SOFTWARE SRL
• DIE BERATER UNTERNEHMENSBERATUNGS GESELLSCHAFT MBH
• UNIWERSYTET EKONOMICZNY W POZNANIU
• PEEP – EDUCAR PARA EMPREENDER ASSOCIACAO
• FUNDACION EQUIPO HUMANO