|
Playing Across Three Continents
Last fall, Wharton MBA
students in the microeconomics
core course matched
wits with INSEAD MBA
students in France and
Singapore through a crosscontinent
computer simulation.
Playing the MGEC
Markets Games, students
tested their understanding
of how to build cooperation
and trust in business
relationships.
A total of 234 teams
(144 teams from Wharton,
60 teams from INSEAD
Fontainebleau and 30
teams from INSEAD
Singapore) played
four markets games—Product Quality, Quantity
Competition, Advertising,
and Spatial Location. Each
representing one firm, the
teams tried to maximize
their firms’ profits.
“The thing that I found
interesting was the intellectual
exchange that occurred
over each round,”
said Heeyoon Chang,
WG’09. “It was surreal to
think that there was another
group of four or five
‘friends’ who were sitting
in a group study room in
Fontainebleau or Singapore
strategizing as well, and the
only way we could get to
know them was through an
input of some numbers.”
Now in its second year
of play across the schools,
the game was rolled out as
a pilot program to a limited
number of teams last year.
The two professors who initiated
this collaboration—Wharton management
professor Keith Weigelt and
INSEAD economics professor
Tim Van Zandt—said that the simulation was
very effective this year, with
66 percent of the students
choosing the best performing
strategy.
“This teaching experiment
is a great example
of the innovation coming
out of this partnership,”
said Wharton management
professor and Wharton/
INSEAD Alliance
Executive Director John
Kimberly. The Wharton/
INSEAD Alliance is a
partnership that expands
the knowledge resources
and global reach of
both schools across their
four collective campuses
in the U.S. (Philadelphia
and San Francisco) Europe
(Fontainebleau), and
Asia (Singapore).
|
