Smith Management Game (BUSOP)

Abstract

"Business ethics and social responsibility are two of the latest buzz words in management academia. An effective methodology for teaching these two topics is needed. A separate class in either business ethics or social responsibility will introduce the student to the subject matter, but the student is not really involved in decision-making which carries real economic costs to the firm. Experience with the case method indicates this method is not as effective as one might think, in that students write what they think the instructor wants to read. Thus, a business game in which socially responsible and ethical decisions are required by the student team seems to offer an effective method of impressing the student with the real-world costs of such decisions. The Smith Management Game is fairly straightforward, with the usual variables of price, marketing, production engineering, research and development, plant size, capital procurement, and dividend decisions. In addition, the student team is given a different situation each period which describes a business responsibility- or ethical-problem with several alternatives. The team’s choice of an alternative is entered as a decision into the game with resultant consequences becoming output in the succeeding periods. Thus, the students are forced to “live with” the decisions they have made. This approach should add a real-world dimension to present gaming methods. The game is designed for use in a junior college Management or Introduction to Business course, or a Principles of Management course on the junior level."