Individual Achievement Does Not Guarantee Team Performance: An Evidence of Organizational Learning with Business Games

Abstract

The premise here adopted was that students who obtained higher academic marks in business courses would perform better managing simulated companies. Two groups of Brazilian graduate students were ranked in descending order according to the average of their individual grades and arranged in teams to compete in a Total Enterprise business game. The results after running 8 quarters showed that teams formed by high achievers did not necessarily produce the best performance during the first 4 quarters, being possibly surpassed by low achiever teams that seem to learn faster the game rules. Surprisingly in the first replication there is significant evidence of individual knowledge producing superior performance in the second half of the experiment, as the trivial problems become more complex and demand long-term orientation instead of short-term focus. Results indicate that it is too naive for both, companies and business schools, to assess competencies based only on individual achievement. Organizational learning skills should be seriously taken into account as well.