The School of Business honored four teams of students for their work in an online business simulation game as part of the required freshman course "The Business Environment."
In the game, students managed a fictitious public company called MikesBikes. Teams analyzed information, such as financial and accounting statements and competitor performance, to make decisions in four disciplines: management, marketing, accounting and finance. Teams made decisions about how much inventory to keep, factory size, paying dividends and how much to spend on marketing.
"We want students to see how these four disciplines are related," said Kathleen Simione, assistant professor of accounting. Professors from management, marketing, accounting and finance managed the 84 teams, each with four to six students.
Based on students' choices, the game determines a shareholder value or stock price for each company. The team with the highest shareholder value wins. This year, it was the "TopGear Cycles" team, supervised by Sean Reid, assistant professor of finance. The names of students on the top four teams were engraved on a plaque on display outside the dean's office.
Brian Jones, a marketing and advertising professor, said the game gives students practical experience in running a company while still in the classroom. "It's realistic, the students love it, it's an absolute high to teach and it's fun learning things from your colleagues down the hall," Jones said.
Meaghan Murray, a member of the winning team, said one of the most challenging aspects of the game was predicting what the other teams were going to do.
"We had to guess on many things regarding our competition's strategies, especially when it came to launching our new product and deciding which market to enter. Since this also happens in the real world, it gave us a good look at what we can expect to see in our future careers."
Aris Mantopoulos, Caryn Mitchell, Evelyn Sarra and assistant professor of finance Sean Reid.