Bridging Business Modeling and Case Method ―How to Solve "Presidents' Dilemma"―

Abstract

Both Gaming Simulation (GS) and Case Methods (CM) are traditional and powerful experiential learning methodologies for educating students at a business school. However, there have been few studies to integrate GS and CM methodology. This paper presents a new practical approach for this purpose. At the Graduate School of Systems Management, Tsukuba University, we have ten years experience on business modeling courses using BMDL/BMDS (Business Model Description Language/Business Model Development System) architecture. Based on this experience, in this paper, we have developed a business game: “President’s Dilemma (PD)”. The aim of the PD game is to explore managers’ decision making strategies in a quantitative business operation domain among competitive beer brewery companies. Using the developed model, we have carried out two series of experiments with both business students and top executives. The experimental results have suggested the benefits of the proposed approach.