Assessing Serious Games Within Purchasing and Supply Management Education: An In-class Experiment

Purchasing and supply management (PSM) is evolving with the introduction of new technologies. To benefit from purchasing activities and technological advancement, purchasing professionals need specific skills (Bats et al., 2019). Therefore, current study programs need to be adjusted, and educational methods need to be found (Pekkanen et al., 2020). An example of these educational methods is Serious games as the beer distribution game within the Supply Chain Management (SCM) context (Forrester, 1961). However, available games are not focused on purchasing. Thus, an online purchasing game has been developed, focusing on cost-reduction techniques and supplier relationship management. In the game, the students manage an organisation's purchasing department and progress from an operative buyer towards a chief purchasing officer. Since this game is a substitute for the existing traditional lectures, the usefulness of this is tested in a group comparison experiment. A group following the traditional lectures (N=66) was compared to the group of students learning through serious game lectures (N=105). For data collection, self-rated surveys, pre-and post-survey, and the exam scores have been analysed. Based on the experimental methodology applied, it has been observed that students who played the game, scored significantly higher in the exam. Further, the design of the game was evaluated based on various criteria, such as competitive and collaborative elements, game design, and understandability. It has been shown that serious games are useful to deepen the understanding of purchasing and develop purchasing skills.