Study: MMORPGs Critical in Developing Tomorrow’s Business Leaders

One of the neat things about educational videogames is the vast multitude of angles the research can take. Whether it is military/industrial applications, classroom adaptations, or medical appropriations, videogames can be used and studied in a wide variety of educational settings. Matthew Kirdahy has a nice article over at Sify.com on how playing MMORPGs can lead to enhanced business skills. Kirdahy gives a nod to another article appearing in the May issue of Harvard Business Review that marks the culmination of considerable research on the topic.

The article’s authors, Byron Reeves (Stanford University), Thomas W. Malone (Massachusetts Institute of Technology) and Tony O’Driscoll (North Carolina State), found that leadership in online games offers a sneak preview of tomorrow’s business world. In fact, they said these games exhibit leadership abilities crucial to the future of business.

Here is the key paragraph from the HBR article regarding the sometimes serendipitous but always interesting findings:

A number of our conclusions about the future of business leadership were unanticipated. For one, individuals you’d never expect to identify—and who’d never expect to be identified—as “high potentials” for real-world management training end up taking on significant leadership roles in games. Even more provocative was our finding that successful leadership in online games has less to do with the attributes of individual leaders than with the game environment, as created by the developer and enhanced by the gamers themselves. Furthermore, some characteristics of that environment—for example, immediate compensation for successful completion of a project with nonmonetary incentives, such as points for commitment and game performance—represent more than mere foreshadowing of how leadership might evolve.

Fortunately, of the article’s authors, Dr. O’Driscoll (now at Duke) has blogged extensively about the research behind the paper. You can find his most recent entry regarding what resulted in the HBR product here. A thorough write-up, with lots of links to articles, podcasts and work leading up to the findings can be found here.

Harvard Business School is no stranger to publishing research on video gaming and business applications. Beck and Wade published Got Game way back in 2004.

References:
Beck, J. C., & Wade, M. (2004). Got game: How the gamer generation is reshaping business forever. Boston: Harvard Business School Press.

Kirdahy, M. (2008). How online videogames can help groom biz leaders. [Online]. Available: http://sify.com/finance/fullstory.php?id=14721468

Reeves, B., Malone, T. W., & O’Driscoll, T. (2008, May). Leadership’s online labs. Harvard Business Review. [Online]. Available: http://www.hbsp.harvard.edu/hbsp/hbr/articles/article.jsp;jsessionid=
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articleID=R0805C&ml_page=1&ml_subscriber=true