Aston Business School is among the 69 institutions worldwide and the first institution in the UK to be granted triple accreditation by AMBA, AACSB and EQUIS.
With an ambitious goal of achieving the perfect placement rate, the role of the Business Game Module has become more prominent at Aston, as the module offering is set to expand from undergraduate to postgraduate programs in the coming academic year. How did Aston establish this module and what did the staff do to ensure the successful outcomes of the module?
As a Curriculum Developer who is responsible for an undergraduate module consisting of at least 800 students every year, the biggest question that is always at the forefront of Manisha's mind is, "How can students experience the real world of business?"
How did it all begin?
When Manisha was a student at Aston University, studying business and mathematics, one of her second year core module was business strategy game. "From my student experience, I realized there are a lot of bugs and issues and problems with the current simulation, which is why part of my placement was to redesign the business game, find a new simulation that is a bit more modern and up-to-date."
Having embarked on a mission to find the best simulation, Manisha narrated her journey, "It was my responsibility to have a look at the simulations that are currently being offered. I found the top 100 simulations, and started to filter it down to see which ones are used for education purposes, as some are not suitable for education." She carried on to describe the most important factor that determined Cesim to be the best business simulation for Aston Business School, "In the end, Cesim was among the top 5 that were chosen, and it was between Cesim and another simulation, but one of the great things about Cesim is that it does have a much more friendlier user interface, and Cesim offers that customization into having certain key areas that we could look out."
Why is Aston interested in the customization that Cesim provides? "Because a lot of Aston students are Aston Business School students, they come from a lot of courses, so they may be studying business and management, accounting and management, so there are a lot of key business areas that they may not necessarily look out, which is why we went for Cesim Global Challenge."
Manisha went on to explain how the customization of Cesim Global Challenge suits the teaching need of Aston. "The problem we have with different simulations is that we may not be able to touch upon key areas, such as corporate social responsibility, ethics, or the importance of human resources, which is why the many scenarios and challenges that we implement into the Cesim simulation are key topic areas that we can concentrate on in classroom, like finance, marketing, human resources and transfer pricing."
The Business Game Module at Aston is designed with an employability focus with aims to develop career skills, such as developing proposals, working in teams, problem solving and conflict resolution, as well as to help students to obtain placement and graduate positions. As a result of the integration of a professional presentation at the end of the module, Manisha has a great achievement of having 10% of students secure placements.
Assessment Type | Details | Assignment Category | Weight |
---|---|---|---|
Portfolio | Up to 12 entries and a reflective account | Individual | 30% |
Report | Consultancy report detailing the group's response to a problem that arises during the simulation game | Group | 15% |
Group Work | Performance in the simulation game and the way in which the team played | Group | 10% |
Log Book | Group engagement activities | Group | 5% |
Log Book | Individual engagement activities | Individual | 5% |
Report | Business plan written and presented to a professional standard | Group | 20% |
Presentation | Presentation delivered to a professional standard to a panel made up of academics, industry experts and others | Group | 15% |
In an effort to connect the simulation learning with the corporate world, Manisha recruited employers and professionals from a wide variety of major companies to voluntarily deliver workshops, participate as an assessor on the panel for the presentation and offer prizes for business simulator games winners. The regular corporate participants include Enterprise Rent-A-Car, Nestle, Unilever, Viva Aspire and Pinewood Technologies, while Ernst & Young provides prizes for both the best presentation and the overall winner of the business simulation game.
At the end of the module, even for students who fall a bit short in securing a position, they still walk away with better presentation skills, an awareness of ethics and sustainability and a keen entrepreneurial spirit which will lead them to brighter career prospects. Upon completing the module, students will also have kept a portfolio as a proof of business management simulation experience for job interviews, which, according to Aston, often impress the employers.
Despite the achievements accomplished and being ranked 11th in the UK for student experience and having the overall student satisfaction levels up to 90%, Manisha is constantly evaluating the module and looking for improvements. "It is a learning curve for everyone. In terms of feedback, it varies from people who get really into it, it can be quite technical, you can get a lot of technical feedback and then you realize students are more of a simulation expert than you are. We normally ask for feedback in relation to the overall module. When we ask certain students, 'What are the three best things about the module?', they do sometimes comment that the simulation is one of them."
On a final note, concerning tips for instructors who are new to simulation games, Manisha believes having that student experience with previous simulations helped her the most. "My advice would be, try and get a student in access, see what it is like from the students' opinion, have some time to actually play with the game yourself to get that experience as a student, to see what decisions they would make. Then when you are an instructor, you have all these questions coming, you are more familiar with it. Have a look at the videos and webinars that Cesim offers and try to read the manual if you can."
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