Redesigning the Traditional Business Gaming Process – Aiming to Capture Business Process Authenticity

Abstract

Background Higher-level business and information systems (IS) education is in a state of change, as the curriculum does not coincide with business realities. There is a clear move in business schools away from viewing programs as solely concerned with the transmission of content, knowledge and skills, towards developing deeper intellectual skills and the capacity to think independently (Prince & Steward, 2000). There is also a lack of integration of all the traditional functional areas (e.g. accounting/finance, marketing, operations, management) in relation to evolving overall business models and strategies (Selen, 2001). Business schools and faculties have a linear, disciplinary focus on business education, which neglects the introduction of process perspective needed in the business curriculum (Walker & Black, 2000). The range of teaching techniques must be extended to include process-oriented approaches (Leitch & Harrison, 1999). This development also has some implications for IS education. Within IS the major debate about technical versus managerial and business skills started during the late 1960s and early 1970s. During this mainframe era the IT organization was a reactive, cost-control enabler, not an initiator of strategic efforts. As personal computers and local area networks were introduced during the 1980s, the IT organization had to adapt to a more business-responsive environment, characterized by shorter software development cycle times and the need to satisfy user clients (Byrd & Turner, 2001). The studies in the 1990s reported that today's IT professionals need a combination of managerial, business, interpersonal, and technical skills to service their organizations. The IS organization has begun to play a service role by providing training, consulting, and trouble-shooting (Gupta & Wachter, 1998). The most important IS activity in the future is to analyze business problems and IS solutions (Lee, Trauth, & Farwell, 1995). The mission of IS is shifting from developing and supporting information processing applications to developing, managing and supporting the information technology infrastructure for the entire organization. Thus, in-depth knowledge of business operations is a prerequisite. Trauth, Farwell, and Lee (1993) describe the employers' vision of the future IS professional as an integrator devoting as much effort to analyzing business problems as to developing technical solutions. Professionals will possess IS skills but will be focused on integration of applications and business functions rather than systems development. In their study, Lee et al. (1995) found out that among the highest rated skills of IS professionals in the future are: ability to learn about business functions, ability to interpret business problems and develop appropriate technical solutions, ability to understand the business environment, and knowledge of business functions (these four skills were among the seven most needed skills). Work (1997), when citing some studies about whether IT projects live up to their expectations, notes that the causes of failure in unsuccessful projects are primarily human, not technical: poor management, inadequate training of users, ignorance of the need to revise processes and procedures, organizational politics. Work (p. 334) argues: Unfortunately, the misconception that technology, particularly information technology, is an end, rather than a means to an end, permeates government, business education, and the mind of the public. All this has made it necessary to rethink the IS education paradigm. Work (1997) discusses the findings of Lee et al. (1995). He claims that there is little that is unique to an IS curriculum. The skills in demand are features of general education. He notes that business knowledge hardly differentiates an IS education. The same is true of technical management. …