The role of video games in enhancing managers' strategic thinking and cognitive abilities: An experiential survey

Abstract

Using gamification and video games is one of the modern approaches to cognitive enhancement and improving the abilities and competencies of managers, including strategic thinking skills. Many organizations use video games in the fields of education, marketing, business, and entrepreneurship. This research aimed to investigate the role of video games in enhancing managers' strategic thinking and their potential contribution to developing cognitive capabilities. The sample included 30 students actively involved in the innovation and entrepreneurship ecosystem. To measure the strategic thinking of the participants, Pisapia’s strategic thinking questionnaire was used, and the CANTAB test was employed to measure their cognitive capabilities. To identify the individuals’ game-playing styles, indicators of micro-management, planning, plan recognition, predictions, gathering resources, partial observability, and damage avoidance were designed. The findings indicated that 53.3 percent of the participants had reflective thinking, 30 percent had systems thinking, and the rest had a reframing thinking style as their strategic thinking dominant dimension. On the other hand, given the identified correlation between the damage avoidance criteria with the thinking and reflective style, as well as the inverse and significant correlation of the gathering resources criteria with the results of the PRM test, it seems that strategic games have the potential to change and even develop some cognitive functions such as attention, reaction, and memory, and can be considered as tools to improve cognitive ability. These games can be used to design tasks to enhance managers' cognitive abilities and subsequently promote their strategic thinking and decision-making skills.