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The purpose of this paper is to present a methodology for research through game design and discuss how simulation games can be used to bridge the gap between operational exercises and simulation or analytical modelling and to provide guidelines on how simulation games can be designed for different research purposes in the context of humanitarian logistics.

This paper combines a literature review on gaming as a research method with an analysis of requirements for humanitarian logistics research methods. Starting from this theoretical framework, the authors develop a design thinking approach that highlights how games can be used for different research purposes. To illustrate the approach, the authors develop two different game set-ups that are of increasing fidelity and complexity. Finally, the authors discuss the results of the evaluation of both approaches, reflect on the design choices and provide recommendations for research and practice.

Gaming is a suitable research method to explore and analyse behaviour and decisions in emergent settings that require team work and collaborative problem solving. Especially when safety and security concerns may hinder access and experimentation on site, gaming can offer a realistic and engaging quasi-experimental environment. The aspects of engagement and realism also make gaming a suitable tool to combine training and research.

Although the use of games has attracted some attention in commercial supply chain management and crisis response, there is no systematic overview of gaming as a research method in humanitarian logistics. This paper is set to make a headway in addressing this gap by proposing a concrete approach to design games for humanitarian logistics research.

Several freight operations rely on human cognition and behavior. Tackling these aspects, gamification transforms activities to resemble game-like experiences. Since the freight transportation sector is rapidly adopting gamification, the purpose of this study is to provide an overview that synthesizes the state-of-the-art and plot future directions for research and the practice of gamifying this area.

A systematic review of the gamification of freight transportation was conducted. After screening 691 studies, 40 relevant studies were analyzed.

Most studies found positive psychological and behavioral outcomes from gamification. Literature mainly focused on tackling the operational-level issues of road and maritime transportation modes by implementing simulation games.

Besides elaborating how gamification can improve freight transportation, the authors describe directions still uncovered by the current corpus, such as research design and temporality and the variety of modes and tasks.

Practical implications emerged from the studies, primarily focusing on understanding users, tasks and contexts, targeting different audiences and transportation modalities, and balancing motivational affordances, while considering the demands of the freight transportation domain, including dynamic, spatially dispersed environments and cooperation between multiple stakeholders.

The transportation of goods dominates much of the global economy and ecology. Therefore, gamifying this domain has a huge societal impact potential, especially related to issues of sharing economy, safety, environmental sustainability and social media.

Beyond providing an original overview of gamified freight transportation, this study maps current research gaps and describes practical recommendations.

The purpose of the article is (1) to find out whether students instructed with Computer-Assisted Simulation Learning Games (CASLGs) will improve in their scholarly learning outcomes and (2) to ascertain if the biological construct of sex will affect students scholarly learning outcomes.

The study was experimental. The study sample comprised 120 students from four schools. The study instrument was the Scholarly Learning Outcomes Test (SLOT), drawn from the school syllabus. The study lasted six weeks. Before the experimentation, the students were pre-tested using the Scholarly Learning Outcomes Test (SLOT. After which, students were posttested to ascertain students' scholarly learning outcomes. The statistical mean was employed to analyse data generated from the pretest and posttest to provide answers for the research questions, while analysis of covariance (ANCOVA) statistics was utilised to test the hypotheses.

The results show that CASLGs improved students' scholarly learning outcomes more than the face-to-face instructional approach and the biological construct of sex is of no effect on students' scholarly learning outcomes.

First, in performing the study, the regular instructors/teachers were utilized. The personalities of these instructors were not considered or scrutinized; this might have impacted the research outcomes.

Implications for future studies: One advantage is that it is part of a bigger initiative in which there are extra sources of data to study. This information or data from this study would help to throw further light on the predictors of student scholarly learning outcomes in the near future. One implication of this study rests on the confirmation that activity-based strategies such as CASLGs enhance students' scholarly learning outcomes.

This study is a product of the author’s doctoral thesis. It is the outcome of the investigation carried out by the author for the award of PhD; therefore, it is original. The study’s results are of immense value because they contributed to knowledge in the area of computer-based learning games.

Based on Behavioral Theory of Negotiations (Walton & McKersie, 1965), the purpose of this paper is to discuss the existing gap between negotiation theory and pedagogy and presents an experiential teaching tool that closes this gap. The tool is a ‘serious game’ (Abt, 1975) that reinforces all four core negotiation subprocesses while allowing students to practice their negotiation skills and several critical business competencies in a realistic and improvisational context.

After successfully using NegotioPoly for five years, qualitative and quantitative data were collected in three sections of negotiation classes to assess student learning and behaviors while playing NegotioPoly and to collect student feedback on the effectiveness of NegotioPoly in teaching and reinforcing key negotiation skills.

Findings support that NegotioPoly is highly effective in engaging students in a series of realistic negotiations, joint problem solving and strategic decision-making. Results show that, during the game, students demonstrate their negotiation skills and learnings, and they practice all four negotiation subprocesses of distributive, integrative and intraorganizational bargaining and attitudinal structuring.

NegotioPoly enables students to engage in distributive and integrative bargaining, multiple levels of negotiations and coalitions in quick succession. Students practice organizational politics and adjust their negotiations based on relationships and social realities, as they demonstrate advanced deal-making behaviors and core business competencies of problem solving, decision-making, analytical skills and ability to work with others.

NegotioPoly reinforces core business competencies such as negotiation, problem solving, analytical skills and the ability to work in teams that employers look for and, therefore, is a useful tool for preparing students for the business world.

NegotioPoly is an experiential learning tool that closes the gap between negotiation theory and pedagogy while providing deep learning and realistic practice opportunities for students where they can use their negotiation skills in a gaming environment that uses multi-party and multi-round negotiations.

The purpose of this paper is to explore how gamification may be used for project stakeholder engagement.

The paper presents the results of a systematic literature review of extant research concerning the gamification of projects. Based on this, an agenda for future studies is outlined.

Extant research on the gamification of projects is scarce and scattered among various disciplines, but the engineering fields dominate. The research performed does indicate that gamification may be used for involving stakeholders in projects, primarily by promoting learning, but also by engaging them, motivating action and solving problems.

In several cases, extant research display poor quality in research design and a lack in cross-disciplinary perspectives, which means that more research is needed. The users’ perspective is often lacking. Furthermore, the ideas gamification might be “hidden” within other technologies.

The findings of this research may assist project management practitioners in the endeavor of adopting gamification principles to better involve stakeholders.

The study fills a gap in summarizing the research on how gamification may be used to promote project stakeholder engagement. Based on this, it proposes a research agenda for future research on the use of gamification to promote project stakeholder engagement.

COVID-19, by all accounts, forced higher education to shift to distance delivery. As a result, faculty attempted to innovate and integrate new teaching methods as courses moved online. We utilized an online, virtual reality game to teach team decision-making as a function of leadership. In teams, learners worked cooperatively, making decisions and solving progressive parts of a mystery to advance through an escape room activity. Following the activity, learners independently completed a structured written reflection designed to guide them through the experiential learning cycle. Additionally, learners’ perceptions of the learning activity were measured using a short quantitative survey. Results were mixed, with learners indicating that the activity was engaging, but also suggesting that their team could have worked better in a less virtual immersive experience. Learners’ written reflections indicated they successfully applied their knowledge of decision-making during the activity, along with other teamwork and leadership competencies. Recommendations include providing more time to complete the escape room game and incorporating more robust team debriefing to support reflection and learning transference. Virtual reality may provide effective leadership learning experiences, particularly for groups of learners who are geographically dispersed or participating in online education.

Keep Talking and Nobody Explodes is a puzzle-based video game that allows Leadership educators to facilitate a highly interactive and behaviorally intense experience within a traditional classroom environment. In this manuscript, we discuss appropriate use cases, curricular alignments and provide a sample lesson plan outlining one way of using the game.

The cooperative and team-based nature of this game provides opportunities to create interactive lessons on a variety of topics, such as communication, group dynamics, leadership, conflict strategies and cognitive load.

Our primary reflection is that this game provides a good balance between fun engagement and rigorous learning. While deploying this game in several leadership and psychology courses, students have shown excitement and enthusiasm about playing the game, especially when we have built up some anticipation for it while discussing cognitive load theory (CLT) or other content in the classes leading up to the experience.

The game provides a unique behavioral experience that is useful in several different educational outlets. Fundamentally, the game provides the opportunity for creating three dynamics among small groups of students: cognitive overload, intergroup stress and conflict and communication in stressful environments. Each of these three could be applicable in various courses and curriculum.

This research examines the use simulation, StarPower, as an instrument to teach students about ethics in management and leadership. The paper begins with an overview of sources of learning in leadership and management development and later focuses specifically on the use of simulations. This is followed by a brief explanation of the StarPower simulation and the results of an exploratory study conducted. It was determined that 100% of participants found the activity educational and would recommend using it again in the future. In addition, 96% of the participants responded that StarPower is an effective activity for teaching students about ethical behavior.

While scholars recognize that digital technology is a major tool employed by contemporary learners to access knowledge, its full capacity is yet to be utilized. This paper investigates opportunities to increase individual learning engagement and knowledge retention in higher education and corporate environments through integrating educational content with innovative digital technology. Currently, within commonly adopted e-learning platforms, the most utilized online content delivery and student progress assessment tools in leadership education appear to be discussion-based instruction, along with written assignments, and research projects (Jenkins, 2016). To inform leadership educators’ choice in innovative tools for increased effectiveness of instruction, this paper shares an experience of delivering integrated global leadership education pedagogical content (i.e., cross-cultural competency instruction for graduate management class at a U.S.-based public university) within a gamified real-time multiuser learning platform—MyAltis—and discusses implications for leadership education.

Students completing their tertiary education at a university may be equipped with theoretical knowledge with little to no practical experience. In order to bridge this gap in practical skills, a computer simulation was developed based on the e-filing platform of the South African Revenue Services (SARS). Students were exposed to this self-developed computer simulation to answer the question: to what extent will the e-filing simulation improve students' confidence to practically apply their theoretical knowledge?

The research applied a pre–post questionnaire research method to gauge the students' ability to apply their theoretical knowledge to a practical scenario before and after the simulation.

From the results, it is apparent that the students were inspired with confidence in getting to terms with the application of their theoretical knowledge in a real-life scenario. The computer simulation provided the platform for learning to take place in a practical environment without the risk of errors that would translate into real financial consequences.

The contribution of this research can be found in a teaching intervention that may support the training of future tax professionals in practical application skills. The contribution can be extended to the enhancement of education in the field of taxation, particularly with the results' showing that the students experienced high levels of increased confidence in their application of theoretical knowledge to real-life scenarios.