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This paper aims to identify, through a literature review, key issues regarding how online role plays can be designed and to apply them when designing a role play on conflict management.

By drawing on the key issues identified in the literature review, a role play on conflict management was designed and evaluated. Data were collected by developing a survey that focused on perceived learning, participation and satisfaction.

Overall, a majority of the students felt that they learned and participated in the role play. The most positive finding was that the students were satisfied with their role play experience.

Researchers are urged to further develop the dimensions and measures of online role play success. The measures that were developed for evaluating perceived learning, participation and satisfaction with role plays can be further developed and tested. It is suggested that the effects on learning need to be further explored.

It is suggested that teachers take the identified key issues of online role play design into account. An important challenge seems to be to encourage students to reflect and do additional reading and research in relation with online role plays.

Online collaboration is commonly argued as beneficial from an e‐learning perspective. However, a challenge for research and practice is to learn how collaborative e‐learning activities may be developed. This paper contributes by focusing on how online role plays can be designed and evaluated.

As the need is rife for today's leaders to make swift and perfect decisions, they need to learn critical thinking and interpersonal skills as quickly as they can. The traditional pedagogical techniques of training lack the potentiality to make these happen. Not only are they rigorous, and less dynamic, but also they are less learner‐centered, less experiential, and often predispose learners to evaluation anxiety situations. The method of role‐playing differs in many unique ways. Its ability to induce participants to quick understanding notwithstanding, it also has the potential to transform theoretical concepts into an experiential format. In all the scenarios presented in this paper, role‐playing has presented itself as one of the most promising training techniques today. This paper attempts to reflect on the efficacy of role‐playing as an effective pedagogical technique. Implications for practice and research are also discussed.

Tabletop online role-playing games enable active learning appropriate for different ages and learner capabilities. They have also been implemented in computer and engineering ethics courses. The paper aims to discuss these issues.

This paper presents the experience of implementing role-playing in several courses embedded in Web 2.0 environment, with an intention to confront complex and sometimes mutually conflicting concepts, and integrate them into a whole.

Typical examples introducing two basic scenarios representing individual and collaborative learning scripts are presented together with the detailed analysis how the games were performed, the effort to participate in, and to maintain them. Particular attention is paid to student feedback.

The paper concludes with the basic findings of the effects of role-playing in current learning computer ethics and social responsibilities courses, and recommendations for future implementation of similar asynchronous learning online activities in order to increase their academic value and prepare students for their forthcoming professional integration.

The purpose of this paper is to examine the effect of team members’ composition on cost and time of completion of construction projects in selected higher institutions with a view to improving construction project delivery in Nigeria.

The study used the purposive sampling technique to select two higher institutions out of six in the study area, and census survey was used in selecting 35 completed construction projects executed by the institutions within the time frame 2000 to 2013. A total of 191 questionnaires were distributed to obtain information from construction team members (quantity surveyors, architects, structural/civil engineers, services engineers, contractors and clients) who participated in the selected construction projects. Mean item score and Kendall’s test were used in examining team members’ composition, while the relationship between team members’ composition and construction cost and time was tested using t-test and eta-squared.

The results revealed that construction team members’ composition has a significant impact on the completion time of construction projects, though with small magnitude, while the impact of construction team members’ composition on construction cost is not significant. Also, it was revealed that some team members did not play any team role due to the fact that the main criterion for team members’ composition was knowledge, skill and abilities (KSA).

The study finally recommended that a deliberate effort should be made in studying and ascertaining the team role every construction team member will play before appointing them to be member of a team, as improper team members’ composition could hamper effective construction project delivery in terms of completion time.

The study is an attempt to discourage the traditional construction team members’ selection system which was based on KSAs, which is deficient under team environment.

The paper aims to explore staff's experience with role‐plays using the example of training bank employees in Six Sigma as a major methodology for business process improvement.

The research is based on a case study. A role‐play, KreditSim, is used to simulate a loan approval process that has to be improved by the participants. KreditSim has been conducted many times with various groups in both academic and professional environments. The authors used five role‐play sessions to conduct a survey among the participants and questioned seven facilitators experienced in KreditSim to generate empirical evidence for the effectiveness of such role‐plays.

Role‐play based simulations complement training programs in terms of active participation and first‐hand experience. Not only methodological learning is achieved but social and communicative as well as affective learning are supported, too. The employed role‐play highlights the relevance and applicability of the Six Sigma methodology to staff's day‐to‐day responsibilities. Besides boosting awareness for process thinking, the role‐play also helps to engage staff members in process improvement efforts.

A limitation to the results might be the small number of facilitators that supervised the role‐play sessions so far. Thus, results may not be representative in a statistical sense. Moreover, the design of KreditSim could be modified in different ways for future seminars. Using software to automate certain activities is one possible modification. Ongoing research investigates in how far such modifications influence the effectiveness and the participant's perception of the role‐play.

The present study reveals that role‐plays can be effectively used for staff training. The results show that staff are strongly receptive to role‐plays in the context of business process improvement. Furthermore, several objectives such as methodological or social learning can be pursued and combined by this type of training instrument.

This article contributes to existing research in analyzing the effectiveness of role‐plays in a workplace setting. The paper is based on a number of professional role‐play sessions within the financial services sector. The survey comprises multiple dimensions of learning and supports that staff appreciate the usage of role‐play based simulation in a workplace environment.

The purpose of this paper is to present an alternative way of using focus groups in research – a role‐play‐enhanced focus group method – in which participants are presented with the challenge of dealing with a specific task while playing a familiar but nevertheless fictive role.

The research is performed through an experimental approach in which a focus group of small business owner‐managers are assembled and presented with a prepared case exercise. The design is a role‐play‐like setting in which the participants are to act as the board of a company.

Carefully designed, well‐prepared role‐play‐like activities can add substantially to focus‐groups.

Adding an experimental dimension to focus groups offers the possibility of addressing topics indirectly and thus increases their usefulness.

In this chapter, I utilize insights from symbolic interaction to analyze the identity work processes of larp subculture participants to construct and perform their in-game identities. I extend the research on larp subcultures in two ways. First, I place larping within the larger context of leisure subcultures and society by arguing that larping is representative of changes in leisure and subcultures in postmodern society. Second, I draw upon ethnographic data collected among the New England Role-playing Organization (NERO) to analyze larpers character identity performances. RPG and Larp researchers have developed several theories about the relationship between larp participants and their character performances. While these concepts provide a helpful framework for understanding the participant-character relationship, they undertheorize the in-game constructed performance of identity. Using symbolic interaction theory, I analyze the identity work processes larpers use to construct and perform their larp identities extending our understanding of the similarities between everyday identity and larpers' character identity performances.

Purposes – The overall aim of the chapter is to explore children's acting and disputing within a family role-play and highlight how different roles are argued upon and negotiated by the participants, both verbally and nonverbally.

Methodology – The chapter is drawn from a single play episode between five 6-year-old girls at a Swedish preschool. The analytical framework of the study is influenced by ethnomethodological work on social action focusing in particular on participants’ methodical ways of accomplishing and making sense of social activities.

Findings – The analyses show that the girls use a range of verbal and nonverbal resources to argue and accomplish the social order of the play (i) using past tense to display the factual past event status, and present tense to bid for upcoming events, (ii) building a mutual pretend understanding of places and objects that were used to configure nearness as well as distance in the girls’ interaction and relationship. Finally, the analyses clearly show that the significance of a pretend role is situated and depends on the social context in which it is negotiated.

Practical implications – To get acquainted with detailed analyses of children's pretend play can be useful for preschool teachers’ understanding of how children build relationships within the play, and hopefully awaken their interest to study children's play in depth in everyday practice.

Value of chapter – The present chapter contributes to a wider understanding of how social relationships are argued and negotiated by preschool girls within pretend family role-play.

This paper describes the implementation of a role-play exercise to illustrate the influence of followership styles and effective communication on leader-follower relationship formation and development. We provide the pedagogical theory and evidence behind using role-plays in classroom settings, followed by a literature review pertaining to leader-member relations and followership on which this role-play is based. The activity aims to fulfill multiple objectives: (a) to explain the importance of effectively managing-up the hierarchy, (b) to use effective communication skills in challenging and conflict laden situations, and (c) to expand self- awareness and explore own implicit assumptions. We further provide the session plan for using the role-play including the instructions, timing, and role handouts, and discuss potential outcomes.

This paper introduces an alternative use of an existing learning mechanism to aid in gaining acceptance of others' roles within a supply chain. This view places an emphasis on role‐playing as a means to improve supply chain integration.

This paper is conceptual and introduces a learning technique to enable both “hard” and “soft” systems orientated participants to be better understood between chain partners.

The findings presented in this paper are conceptual. However, the technique offered has partially proven success in other management scenarios and yet to be tested in supply chain management.

By embracing role‐playing, practitioners have opportunities to develop a deeper understanding and appreciation about other roles that participate in the same supply chain as themselves, creating an opportunity for enhanced integration between roles within their supply chain.

The value of this paper is to invite the reader to consider role‐playing as a mechanism to encourage and educate supply chain participants in the roles of others who participant in the same chain from another perspective. This learning technique will contribute towards integration internally between functions of the organization and in an inter‐organizational capacity along the supply chain.