The Case Approach Versus Gaming in the Teaching of Business Policy: An Experimental Evaluation

Background The role assigned to management games in the teaching of business policy has changed considerably since Gordon and Howell opined that business policy course had to be taught via the case approach.1 From the genesis of management simulations in 1956, those who flailed against the comfortable orthodoxy of the case approach advanced their case for gaming on the basis of faith alone. As stated by Cohen et al. in 1960, it was, in fact, basic article of faith of the development group of the Carnegie game that if the realism of business games could be increased, more effective educational and research tool than previously existed would be created.2 Four years later, without proof but with the same unswerving faith, Cohen et al. wrote that their game was better than cases for providing realism, sense of urgency, and comprehensiveness to the process of making and executing policy.3 This is the stuff from which academic heroes are made. Against such forces as Gordon and Howell and the Harvard case approach4 faith was certainly needed, for the evangelistic fervor for gaming was based on little more than its high face validity. Disquiet did exist within the gaming ranks, however. The 1961 Tulane Conference on Business Games, a get-together of business game enthusiasts,5 was generally dissatisfied with the existing evidence supporting the educational virtues of business gaming;6 the con-