CEO II: A GAMING SIMULATION FOR ASSESSMENT Development In Business Simulation & Experiential Exercises, Volume 21, 1994 173 CEO II: A GAMING SIMULATION FOR ASSESSMENT Precha Thavikulwat, Towson State University ABSTRACT Although gaming simulations have been criticized for lacking behavioral variables and being administratively time consuming, they are especially suited to assessing business learning because they give objective scores, and can be comprehensive, flexible, and easy to administer. CEO II overcomes the criticisms by gaming behavioral variables and automating decision processing. Notable features include progressive complexity, individual and team tracking and scoring, market-based scores, market analysis support, strategy decisions, network cognizance, and quality management. OVERVIEW Although assessment in higher education has been a widely discussed issue over the last decade (Boyer, 1990) the use of gaming simulations for assessing business learning has received scant attention. Yet, business gaming simulations are especially suited to this purpose because they give objective scores and can be comprehensive, flexible, and easy to administer. Even so, they have often been criticized for lacking behavioral variables and being administratively time-consuming (Keeffe, Dyson. & Edwards. 1993; Williams. 1993). Commonly, designers attempt to meet the criticisms by including descriptions of critical incidents and by making the administrative processing of decisions less time consuming. Still, these approaches can be unsatisfactory because descriptions merely disguise mathematical models without changing their quantitative nature, and because speeding administrative processing does not eliminate the concomitant need to manage the submitting, processing, and returning of decisions and results. CEO II takes different approaches. It includes behavioral variables not by describing them but by gaming them, thus making them genotypical to their counterparts in the everyday world. It eases administrative effort not by speeding the processing of decisions but by automating it, thus completely eliminating the administrative handling of decisions and results. CEO II games behavioral variables by gaming both product and stock markets (Thavikulwat, 1 990). Besides selling products to a traditionally modeled market, companies can sell them to individual participants, who receive income to enable their purchases. Besides borrowing funds from a traditionally modeled bank, companies can raise funds by selling stock to participants, whose investments are returned through dividend payments. CEO II automates decision processing by asynchronously matching companies and customers, and by allowing participants themselves to drive the competition forward (Thavikulwat, 1 994). The instructor regulates the competition’s progress merely by announcing continuation codes that the program requires from participants at preset intervals. NOTABLE FEATURES CEO II includes the usual comprehensiveness and ease-of-use features that would be expected of any total enterprise gaming simulation, and the following: • Progressive complexity. The number of decisions available to each company can range from 0 to 75; the number available to each individual consumer-investor can range from 0 to 10. As preconfigured companies start as single-participant, single-plant firms and expand to several-participant, three-plant firms, with the number of decisions increasing as the competition advances. • Individual and team tracking and scoring. Each participant is tracked and scored, in addition to each team. Each participant can make independent consumption and investment decisions. • Market-based scores. Because the individual and team scores result from the activities of gamed markets, which are genotypical to their counterparts in the everyday world, the scores are veridical measures of success under real-market conditions. No contention of verisimilitude is needed, for the markets are real. • Market analysis support. A program tabulates and plots gamed-market transactions to the participants’ selected level of aggregation. Product- portfolio matrices are included. • Strategy decisions. Companies make strategy decisions by changing gaming parameters at critical junctures. Executed without administrative mediation, the changes can affect cost, volume, quality, financial, or marketing constraints. • Network cognizance. When installed on a local area network, multiple participants can enter interdependent decisions virtually simultaneously. • Quality management. Products can be defective. Product defects have both assignable causes locatable by experiments and random causes controllable by inspection. EQUIPMENT REQUIREMENT Although CEO II will run on any IBM-compatible machine with at least 640 kilobytes of memory, it’s automated administration feature is best utilized on a local area network. Recommended system software are DOS 3.1 + and Novell NetWare. AVAILABILITY The original manuals and diskettes for CEO can be obtained from McGraw- Hill, Inc., phone 800-338-3987. Supplemental manuals and diskettes for CEO II, the upgrade, can be obtained from the author at the Dept. of Management. Towson State University, Towson, MD 21204-7097, phone 410-830-3230, fax 410-830-3236, e-mail thavikulwat-p@toe.towson.edu or thavikulwat-p@towsonvx.bitnet. REFERENCES Boyar E. L. (1990) Scholarship Reconsidered. Princeton, NJ: Carnegie Foundation Keeffe, M. J., Dyson, D. A., & Edwards, R. R. (1993) Strategic management simulations: A current assessment. Simulation & Gaming, 24, 363-368 Thavikulwat, P (1990) Consumption as the objective in computer-scored total enterprise simulations Developments in Business Simulation & Experiential Exercises, 17. 1 67-1 69. Thavikulwat, P. (1994) Activity-driven time in computerized gaming simulations. Developments in Business Simulation & Experiential Exercises, this issue. Williams, E. L. (1993) Computerized simulation in the policy course. Simulation & Gaming, 24, 230-239 Table of Contents Volume 21, 1994 ABSEL: The Way We Were and Need to Be The Intellectual Structure of ABSEL: A Bibliometeic Study of Author Cocitatons Over Time Activity-Driven Time in Computerized Gaming Simulations An Assessment Framework for Determing the Effectiveness of Total Enterprise Simulations Attributes of Learning Organizations: Simulating the Relationships Business Policy/Strategy Case Extension using Pro-Forma Planning: A Computer Based Model Complexity: Is it really that Simple? A Random-Strategy Criterion for Validity of Simulation Game Participation Enhancing a Computer Simulation with a Structured Reporting Environment Experiencing a Foreign Culture: A Cross-Cultural Simulation Group Cognitive Style and Computerphobia in Functional Business Simulations Human Issues in Technology Implementation Management Simulator Incorporating Advertising Strategy into Computer-Based Business Simulations: A Validation Study Increasing the Effectiveness of Performance Evaluation Through the Design and Development of Realistic Finance Algorithms The Packer-Feeder Game: A Commodity Market Simulator Relationships Between R&D and Profitability: An Exploratory Comparison of Two Business Simulations with Two Real-World, Technology Intensive Industries Simulation of the Predictive Value of Mammography Simulation Performance and Learning Revisited Strange Bedfellows: Competency Models and ACBSP Accreditation Standards Using a Business Simulation to Study the Determinants of Ethical Behavior What Simulation Users Think Players Should be Learning from the Simulations ADA and its Implications for Experiential Training Boss/ Subordinate Perceptions of Instrumental and Supportive Leadership Behaviors in Relation to Myers-Briggs Thinking Type Cluster Analyses of American Universities' Business Core Curricula Structures Utilized to Satisfy Fifteen Curriculum Areas Cooperative Learning or Learning to Cooperate Experiential Learning: Constraining Students with Time Budgets How Different Workplace Experiences Affect Different Worker Values Implications of the Trend Toward Relationship Marketing for Experiential Learning The Increasing Cultural Diversity of the American Workforce: Management's Challenge of the 21st Century Information and Uncertainty as Strange Bedfellows: A Model and Experiential Exercises Leadership as a Medium: It's Emergence and Effect on Performance in Small Leaderless Groups Speed, Depth, and Breadth: Assessing Learning in Learning Organizations Teaching Strategic Planning, Problem Solving, and Decision Making with Envisionary Experiential Exercises Validating an Instrument for Student Evaluation of Teachers: Some Noteworthy By-Products Don't Teach Ethics to Business Students Emotional Reactions Toward a Simulated Layoff: Before and After the Manipulation Enhancing Communication Using a Presentation Package Implementing Marketing Policies through a Business Management Simulation Integrating Action-Based Learning into Executive Development Programs On the validity of using the Microsegmentation Principle in Media Simulationsm Participatory Systems Analysis Some Relationships between Cultural, Organizational, and Educational Experience and Perceptions of Influence The Use of Decision Support Systems with a Marketing Simulation: The Future is Now Astute Business Policy: A Simulation of the Automobile Industry The Business Policy Game CEO II: A Gaming Simulation for Assessment Computer Paced Project Management Simulation Computerized Tutor Support Systems DEAL & GEO: Progressively Integrating Gaming Simulations for Entrepreneurship and International Business An Interactive Simulation Game for Competitive Decision-Making International Operations Simulation/Mark 2000 (INTOPIA) Multimedia Simulation Cuts Training Costs for Anderson Consulting Concepts of Total Quality Management: An Active Learning Exercise Cooperative Learning: The Extended Jigsaw Managing Diversity--Values and Attitudes: An Experiential Exercise in Awareness Navigating the Shoals of International Management Development Evaluating Student Performance in the Use of Computer Simulation Entrepreneurial Simulation Program