Abstract:

This paper explores the performance and challenges of creating and maintaining global virtual teams among students from different nations. Working across international, cultural and organizational boundaries poses significant challenges due to many well-known cultural, organizational and language differences. As the world becomes a more global place, it becomes a challenge for business to make global virtual collaboration more effective, unlocking the creativity and innovation of multicultural teams. Our research attempts to contribute to the understanding the question of how learning and performance are enhanced among students via building virtual multicultural teams with a strategic management simulation software.
To transfer the real business scene into the teaching environment has led to the increasing use of simulation exercises as a means of student centred learning. Previous studies have pointed out that computer games could improve students’ motivation to learn, but these studies have mostly targeted to single classroom situations, we provide evidence on the performance of students collaborating online across time and space and draw general conclusions that may be of use in the development of similar exercises.
The goal of the research is to determine the performance of multicultural teams in a managed simulation exercise. Teams from Europe and the USA competed in a head-to head competition against the companies run by other class members in a global market arena. We measure how students craft and execute strategies, thus the business strategy game parallels the functioning of the real world of international business. We report on the activities and outcomes. The effects in learning of the students are tested via a 10 point likert scale questionnaire.
Students from UWS and the University of Kassel, Germany, formed joint teams in competing via a simulation in the worldwide camera industry. A control group of UWS students was used to gauge differences in performance which can be attributed to overcoming time, language, cultural barriers and/or diversity of group composition.
The subject selection is Strategic Management being taught at the UWS in the USA and at the University of Kassel, Germany. All subjects were over 18 years of age and were university students. The only determined factor relating all subjects was that they were all business majors and students of the two institutions involved in the study.
The information being collected is the results of the team simulation scores generated via the simulation software algorithms for the teams involved in the competition as well as the learning goals as encompassed via the likert scale questionnaire mentioned above. In this way we could ascertain differences in learning and/or perception of relevant business concepts within strategic management.

Keywords:

Virtual Team Building, Collaborative and Problem, based Learning, Business Simulation, E-Learning, Educational Software, Crosscultural Learning.