Group Competitiveness and Cohesion in a Business Simulation

This study investigates the relationship between the groups' competitive disposition, group cohesion, learning, and economic performance within the MARKSTRAT2 simulation. To investigate the role of competitive disposition, the methodology required that the industries be created with a specific structure rather than the more commonly adopted random formation approach. The results show that individual competitive disposition is not significant in explaining the economic performance. However; a strong correlation was found between the level of group cohesion and economic performance. The impact of this factor could be detected early in the simulation, and in 80% of cases, the team leading its industry in the simulation at the halfway stage was able to maintain the advantage until the end of the simulation. A positive association was also established between levels of individual self-assessed learning and economic performance.