Discussion: View Thread

  • 1.  Simulations

    Posted 01-09-1997 06:19
    Greetings:

    One of our sponsors,Simulation Training Systems P.O. Box 910, Del
    Mar, California, 92014 Phone: 1 800-942-2900, Fax:(619) 792-9743 E-mail
    sts@cts.com offers some excellent simulations. If you contact them for
    information please let them know you heard of them through the PERC Network
    site. Thanks! To see their web site start at http://www.perc.net/Who.HTML

    Doug Kalish, President
    Positive Employee Relations Council
    E-mail address: dkalish@perc.net
    Homepage: <http://www.perc.net>


  • 2.  Simulations

    Posted 01-09-1997 07:15
    Are there recommendations for simulations or resources for simulations and
    case studies for organizational communication or group communication?

    How about a major problem-solving exercise that will take undergraduates a
    week or so to work through?

    ______________________
    Great Optimism,

    Dutch Driver
    Dept. of Communication
    McMurry University
    Abilene, TX
    ddriver@cs1.mcm.edu


  • 3.  Simulations

    Posted 01-09-1997 23:17
    >
    >Are there recommendations for simulations or resources for simulations and
    >case studies for organizational communication or group communication?
    >
    >How about a major problem-solving exercise that will take undergraduates a
    >week or so to work through?
    >
    >______________________
    >Great Optimism,
    >
    >Dutch Driver
    >Dept. of Communication
    >McMurry University
    >Abilene, TX
    >ddriver@cs1.mcm.edu
    >
    Are you kidding? I must not be understanding your question/request!
    I propose you venture over to your management division office and
    ask the same question (unless at MU, there is a no-share policy?)

    If they don't drown you with material, email me back and I'll help.
    ( I think your request defines their entire foundation!)

    K. Kemper

    --
    Talk entrepreneurshp with me
    entre@aztec.asu.edu
    602-279-0561 office fax 602-955-5459


  • 4.  Simulations

    Posted 08-21-2006 08:35

    Hi Anne:

    We shall using the ICONS simulation (International Communication and Negotiation Simulation) this fall in our four executive MBA cohorts in Beijing, Shanghai, Zurich, and College Park simultaneously. Developed by a center at the Government & Politics department, University of Maryland, the simulation has gone through a number of refinements over the last decade, and is now completely Web-based. You may want to check out their Website: http://www.icons.umd.edu/

    Best,

    Vinod

    Vinod K. Jain, Ph.D.
    Director, Center for International Business Education & Research
    Robert H. Smith School of Business
    University of Maryland
    2417 Van Munching Hall
    College Park, MD 20742-1815
    301-405-3256



    Anne Tsui <Anne.Tsui@ASU.EDU>
    Sent by: Management Education and Development Discussion <MG-ED-DV@AOMLISTS.PACE.EDU>

    08/20/2006 11:08 AM

    Please respond to
    Management Education and Development Discussion              <MG-ED-DV@AOMLISTS.PACE.EDU>
    To
    		MG-ED-DV@AOMLISTS.PACE.EDU
    cc
    Subject





    Hi, thanks for the interesting discussions on simulations. I used the ECOTONOS in my cross cultural mangement class and it is very good.  I am interested in finding an alternative cross cultural simulation, and would appreciate any suggestions.

    Thanks.

    Anne

    Anne S. Tsui
    Motorola Professor of International Management
    Editor in Chief, Management and Organization Review

    ________________________________

    From: Management Education and Development Discussion on behalf of Kim Warren
    Sent: Sat 8/19/2006 1:07 PM
    To: MG-ED-DV@AOMLISTS.PACE.EDU
    Subject: Re: Two excellent articles on shortcomings in teaching IB in this issue of AIB insights by Tipton and Dunning



    Simulation does not have to be 'exactly right' to be useful - and often exceedingly so.



    If we truly believe that simulation offers little useful insight, we would avoid flying in aircraft that had been designed with simulators, or were flown by pilots trained with simulators - and never drive a car whose chassis had been designed with simulators, or take drugs whose effect on our body had been tested with simulators, or take electricity from a power grid whose reliability had not been tested with simulation. We would do not believe any weather forecast we see, because these are produced from simulations [and if we don't believe them, there are plenty of others prepared to spend millions of dollars on them in order to improve planning for businesses as diverse as ice-cream sales and insurance]. In the financial markets, millions are spent, and billions made, by investing in simulations that deal with complexity orders of magnitude greater than those most managers have to deal with.



    In none of these cases are the simulators precisely replicating every circumstance of the real world - nor would their developers or users claim them to do so. But they are close enough to be exceedingly useful.



    Whilst it may be a good sound-bite to claim that management has to cope with 'infinite complexity', it simply isn't true. If it were, no-one could manage anything. There are considerable degrees of certainty in management. Leading organisations do not even accept the limited uncertainty and complexity that might be claimed, but make the future the way they want it to be [think SouthWest airlines, Microsoft, Walmart, etc etc].



    Simulation has a huge role to play, both in management education and strategic and operational planning, and the alternative of merely discussing or debating insights and alternative policy responses has long been rejected in most other fields of human endeavour. We may carry on rejecting the usefulness of simulation in the classroom, but meanwhile large corporations are making huge sums, and avoiding huge losses, by simulating their organisations' situation and their management options. If we turn out graduates who exhibit an allergic response whenever the idea of simulation is raised, they will be destroyed by those who are prepared to use such tools to explore the future and its alternatives.



    Kim Warren - London Business School







    ________________________________

    From: Romie Littrell [mailto:littrellaom@YAHOO.CO.NZ]
    Sent: 19 August 2006 00:33
    To: MG-ED-DV@AOMLISTS.PACE.EDU
    Subject: Re: Two excellent articles on shortcomings in teaching IB in this issue of AIB insights by Tipton and Dunning



    I'm missing the point of simulations? My life is full of missed points, but not in this case.

    Virtual reality is the simulation of a real or imagined environment; as you state your simulation does not accurately represent reality, then you have an imagined environment. And as a simulation is a representation of the operation or features of one process or system through the use of another, we see how easily we can drift away from reality. A simulation is a fun game, representing an artificial ecology; students and lecturers should understand that a simulation doesn't provide any accurate approximation of real-world experience, but can teach processes of analysis and synthesis (though synthesis is rarely taught anywhere) that might be a starting point for decision-making in the real world.

    Whose "universal" variables are you using? Hofstede? Schwartz? Inglehart? The GLOBE study? (They're all a bit different.) Geert Hofstede is fond of stating that the economic model of the "rational man" is ethnocentric. "Nationality constrains rationality." in "Blind Spots in Economic Reasoning": http://center.uvt.nl/sem/facsem/hofstede.pdf#search=%22%2Bhofstede%20%2Beconomic%20%2Brationality%22

    As an international management educator, I reject the attitude, opinion, belief that education should not attempt to copy reality, with the excuse that reality is too complex. Aren't we trying to educate students to operate successfully in an apparently infinitely complex environment?

    "Copy" reality is not a word I would have chosen, nor "mirror" reality, every time I hear "mirror" reality I'm reminded of the hall of mirrors side shows at carnivals, and mirrors show images reversed. In my philosophy, effective education must be based to the greatest extent possible on reality; otherwise, of what value is it? Given that statement, I do realise that simulations have real constraints in terms of resource availability. An interesting simulation I sometimes use is CHARMS ( http://charms99.tripod.com/ ) which is a 4.5 day service industry simulation process that requires two or three simulation leaders reviewing and scoring the team output each evening,  and generating results and input for the next day. Resource intensive, but more realistic than computer generated evaluations.

    Are you representing your simulation as teaching "if you do this, that will happen"? Could be misleading. I cannot recall the name of the simulation, but one business simulator I investigated had a Monte Carlo simulation added, a random number generator that randomly added, subtracted, or left the same an amount of the proper order of magnitude to the calculated values based on the students' decisions. I like that.

    To engage in a favourite academic past time, arguing over definitions, real virtual reality systems require  extremely expensive hardware and software and are confined mostly to research laboratories.  To use the phrase to refer to  any virtual world represented on a computer  is misleading in my mind.


    "Thorelli, Hans B." <thorelli@INDIANA.EDU> wrote:

    Dear Dr Littrel,



    I am afraid you are missing the point of simulations. They are not purporting to copy reality, precisely because it

    is endless in its variations, as your several artful examples illustrate. The typical sim presents the dynamic interaction of key universal (to its purpose) variables in the "world" being emulated. To the extent that the effects of, say, fixed vs variable cost in production, or varying degrees of price elasticity affect sales, has been established in economics, we are on safe theoretical ground. In a sim like INTOPIA B2B  which incorporates over a hundred of these kinds of "proven" relationships the interactions have to be credible to participants for designers to be able to talk of virtual reality.



    To attain this status, we have described for participants our perception of cultural and economic differences between EU, Brazil and the US. Participants know that we may be mistaken in over- or underestimating

    some of these differences, but they invariably good-humoredly accept our concepts as a reasonable approximation  of reality.



    I do feel we are entitled to claim that we offer practice based learning about multinational business in action.

    Best, hans











    Dr Hans B Thorelli
    Distinguished Professor of Bus.Admin. Em.
    Kelley School of Business, Indiana University
    Bloomington, IN 47405-1701  USA
    Phone:+1 (812) 333-3174   Fax: +1 (812) 855-6440
    INTOPIA Home Page: http://www.intopiainc.com <http://www.intopiainc.com>
    Email: thorelli@indiana.edu

    ________________________________

    From: Management Education and Development Discussion [mailto:MG-ED-DV@AOMLISTS.PACE.EDU] On Behalf Of Romie Littrell
    Sent: Thursday, August 17, 2006 11:47 PM
    To: MG-ED-DV@AOMLISTS.PACE.EDU
    Subject: Re: Two excellent articles on shortcomings in teaching IB in this issue of AIB insights by Tipton and Dunning



    C: Prof. Dunning, Prof. Tipton
    I don't know. I'll ask them. Prof. Dunning, Prof. Tipton? Are you blissfully unaware of IB simulations?

    I think what Dunning and Tipton are questioning are the validity of the theoretical, empirical, and experience-based underpinnings of things such as simulations and textbooks. I unfortunately have not personally used INTOPIA B2B, however, were the particular modules relating to national cultures and practises developed by resident natives of the cultures? If not, then we have another northern North American (i.e., north of Mexico) product purporting to be universal. Does it accurately simulate cultures under Shariah law? How about a business with employees all from one of the 206 major tribal cultures in Uganda? Are the economic underpinnings the typical 19th century Northern Europe white men's rules, or do they work in Muslim and highly colletive socities? What about places where organised crime is more powerful than the Government?

    Regards,
    Romie

    "Thorelli, Hans B." <thorelli@INDIANA.EDU> wrote:

    Dear Dr Litrell,



    Authors Tipton and Dunning are apparently blissfully unaware of IB simulations, providing reality based learning of the

    multinational corporation in action. The home page of internet-based INTOPIA B2B (below) provides an example; the game has been, or is used by some 150 universities in 48 countries around the globe.

    Regards,

    Dr Hans B Thorelli
    Distinguished Professor of Bus.Admin. Em.
    Kelley School of Business, Indiana University
    Bloomington, IN 47405-1701  USA
    Phone:+1 (812) 333-3174   Fax: +1 (812) 855-6440
    INTOPIA Home Page: http://www.intopiainc.com <http://www.intopiainc.com>
    Email: thorelli@indiana.edu

    ________________________________

    From: Management Education and Development Discussion [mailto:MG-ED-DV@AOMLISTS.PACE.EDU] On Behalf Of Romie Littrell
    Sent: Wednesday, August 16, 2006 7:00 PM
    To: MG-ED-DV@AOMLISTS.PACE.EDU
    Subject: Two excellent articles on shortcomings in teaching IB in this issue of AIB insights by Tipton and Dunning



    Two excellent articles on shortcomings in
    teaching international business in this issue of
    AIB Insights by Dunning and Tipton, available at http://aib.msu.edu/publications/aibinsights.asp


    "Who dare to teach must never cease to learn."-John Cotton Dana
    Romie F. Littrell, BA, MBA,PhD, FIAIR, An fánaí fiáin
    Faculty of Business, Auckland University of Technology, N.Z.
    http://www.romielittrellpubs.homestead.com/
    http://www.crossculturalcentre.homestead.com/
    PARTICIPATE in a study of leadership & values:
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    "Who dare to teach must never cease to learn."-John Cotton Dana
    Romie F. Littrell, BA, MBA,PhD, FIAIR, An fánaí fiáin
    Faculty of Business, Auckland University of Technology, N.Z.
    http://www.romielittrellpubs.homestead.com/
    http://www.crossculturalcentre.homestead.com/
    PARTICIPATE in a study of leadership & values:
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    "Who dare to teach must never cease to learn."-John Cotton Dana
    Romie F. Littrell, BA, MBA,PhD, FIAIR, An fánaí fiáin
    Faculty of Business, Auckland University of Technology, N.Z.
    http://www.romielittrellpubs.homestead.com/
    http://www.crossculturalcentre.homestead.com/
    PARTICIPATE in a study of leadership & values:
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