Simulations for Strategy Courses: Comparing Online and on-Campus Courses

Abstract

Simulations are an important part of capstone strategy course - they facilitate transfer of learning by providing “learning-by-doing” opportunities to the students. Simulations also allow instructors to provide authentic activities that enable students to go beyond just studying “textbook” cases. Simulations have become an accepted part of most strategy classes at both the undergraduate and graduate levels. One area that has not been fully explored is how well the typical simulation used in on-campus strategy courses translates to strategy courses taught online. The purpose of this paper is to compare executive MBA on-campus strategy courses with identical online executive MBA courses to determine how effective the simulations were in both settings.