Professor Of Business Administration Research Articles

An Evaluation of a Business Game in an MBA Curriculum

T HIS article aims to provide evidence that a business game is a more effective method of teaching some aspects of planning than is a series of cases. The author describes an evaluation of the use of a business game as an adjunct to a case course by means of a comparative experiment with two graduate-level classes in production management. One might ask: Why seek experimental evidence of the effect of one pedagogic method when few other teaching methods have been explicitly evaluated? One reason is to gain acceptance within established curriculums that have been developed slowly by experience and proved by the quality of their graduates. Perhaps of greater importance, however, is the surprisingly rapid growth of the the use of games in management training in spite of the substantial resources required to develop a meaningful executive decision game. A recent article, for example, noted more than twenty-one different games in use as part of business curriculums, with more to be added in the future.' The amount of professional time such devices can absorb is exemplified by Cohen and colleagues, who has each spent from a third to all of their time during academic sessions over the past four or five years developing the Carnegie Game. Granted that this game is the most elegant in operation; nevertheless, even the development of such a relative straightforward model as the UCLA No. 3 game required more than three man-months' time of a professor, a programmer, and two research engineers. Until now, this commitment to develop games has been based upon the intuitive feelings of game advocates derived from the dynamic and flexible characteristics that the game or decision simulation possesses. This paper attempts to provide some experimental results to support this intuitive feeling as to the usefulness of gaming as a teaching device. In addition, a description of the game is provided to demonstrate how and where in the curriculum such an expensive methodology might be utilized. Finally, it should be noted that the game session was introduced and evaluated in an ongoing teaching situation where the learning potential of a given amount of available students' time is the main criterion. The pedagogical reasons for using a game in the production management course at the Harvard Business School were to provide production-planning decision experience and to demonstrate the interdependency of functional decisions within a firm. The game was used to stress the dimension of time in planning and to provide a realistic problem that would give the students some feedback to evaluate their own development. The UCLA Model No. 3 game was considered * Assistant professor of business administration, Graduate School of Business Administration, Harvard University.

Risk Handling in Drug Adoption: The Role of Company Preference

Until a new product has established a reputation based on experience in using it, consumers are likely to balance the attractiveness of a potentially superior product against the risk of adverse characteristics not apparent when it is introduced. Here is a study of physicians' choices of some newly introduced prescription drugs. Raymond A. Bauer is Professor of Business Administration in the Graduate School of Business Administration at Harvard University.

Contributions to Administration by Alfred P. Sloan, Jr., and GM

The first part of this article describes the contrast between W. C. Durant, the innovating genius who invented General Motors, and Alfred P. Sloan, Jr., the organizer who made it work by introducing a series of novel administrative skills in organization, forecasting, policymaking, controls, and human relations. The second part is an evaluation of Sloan's contributions to administrative thought through his administrative ideology and methodology. He is considered to have pioneered in applying scientific management at the very top levels. Finally, an attempt is made to assess the extent to which Sloan's system may be deterministic beyond the period of service of himself and his associates.' Dr. Dale is associate professor of business administration in the Graduate School of Business and Public Administration, Cornell University.

Drive-In Theaters: Rags to Riches in Five Years

RODNEY LUTHER is associate professor of business administration at Los Angeles State College. He has conducted extensive research into the problems of the motion picture industry, has contributed numerous articles to trade papers and professional journals, and is the author of a forthcoming book on the economic status of the postwar motion picture industry. His article Television and the Future of Motion Picture Exhibition appeared in Volume V, Number 2, of the Hollywood Quarterly.