The Business Game: A New Approach to Managerial Accounting

Authors

  • Kenneth R. Goosen

Abstract

"The use of business games in marketing, management, and finance has grown tremendously, however, very little interest has been shown in business games on the part of accounting instructors. A recent study in accounting revealed that only 8 schools out of 88 surveyed were using games in elementary accounting.1 The lack of interest in games by accounting instructors is supported by the fact that very few accounting games have been published. The basic reason for the lack of interest in business games in accounting is that accounting instructors for the most part are committed to the traditional approach of teaching accounting by requiring students to work many problems. Also, until the development of managerial accounting courses in the late fifties and early sixties most courses in accounting did not lend themselves to the use of games. However, managerial accounting with its emphasis on planning and control techniques is an ideal course for the effective use of properly prepared business games. The emphasis on planning and control techniques such as budgeting, performance evaluation, incremental analyses, cost-volume profit analysis, etc. have an obvious direct tie-in to the decision-making process. And decision-making, of course, is the central feature of business games. For the past two years I have used in my managerial accounting classes a business game which I developed myself.2 To my knowledge this game represents the first significant attempt to use game approach as the full basis of a course in managerial accounting.3 My basic objectives here are to (1) describe the nature and philosophy of my game approach to managerial accounting, and (2) give an evaluation of its actual use in the classroom."

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Published

1974-03-13