THE BANKING BUSINESS IN A MULTI-INDUSTRY GAME: SHOULD COMPLEXITY BE ADDRESSED BY SEQUENTIAL ELABORATION?
Keywords:
bank, computer assisted, interest rate, model, multi-industry, sequential elaborationAbstract
We address the issue of simulating the banking business in a multi-industry game from the standpoint of both the game designer and the game administrator. For the game designer, we apply classical equilibrium arguments to formulate a mathematical model of the interbank interest rate. For the game administrator, we lay out the options for participant involvement, considering particularly if participants should be involved with businesses that are not banks before they can be involved with banks, the sequential-elaboration method of addressing game complexity. The results of our study using a semester-long computer-assisted business game that involved at its peak 152 students who by the end of the semester had founded 439 firms in the banking industry and five nonbanking industries suggest that sequential-elaboration habituates participants to a way of thinking that blinds them to new conditions that requires new thinking. The issues addressed are meant for business games designed to give participants practice in business administration, rather than for games designed to indoctrinate participants in business concepts.
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