BUSINESS SIMULATION GAMES DURING THE SUMMER SCHOOLS – THE CASE STUDY

Decision simulation games are an effective method of learning how to manage the business processes in a modern enterprise. They can play a role of virtual laboratories to test and to fix the theoretical knowledge. Games give a student a possibility to be a business manager, to make decisions in the conditions of market competition, to earn virtual money and to have responsibility for a firm. No seminar or case study can teach a student the practice of making decisions under the stress, lack of time, without full or proper recognition of the situation. Games give them the opportunity to test them in practice without any financial risks. Making mistakes repeatedly, analysing and correcting them are the only way to gain practical abilities. Starting to work as a manager, the graduate finds himself/herself in a situation, in which it is necessary to take the financial risk of own decisions. This is why it seems so important to use different forms of training for future managers.

The game “Construction Services Market” was used during the Business Summer Schools in Celje (Slovenia) in summers 2010 and 2011. This paper includes the information about game scenario, technical layer and organisation of workshop for students from didactical point of view.
Decision simulation games as a teaching method have many strengths as well as weaknesses. After each of Summer Schools surveys were conducted among students. This paper includes results of this surveys and students’ opinion about the simulation games as a teaching method. The analysis of advantage and disadvantage of game using in education of the entrepreneurship is presented in this paper.