JSBP9190 Understanding and managing a business as a dynamic whole – business simulation game (LITO) (5 cr)

• The foundation for this course is a decentralised and collaborative business simulation exercise in which students work in teams and collaborate with other teams. Besides engaging in real-time decision-making during the simulation days, the students will complete assignments that relate to various business sciences and analyse the actions taken in the simulation outside the simulation days.
• Participation takes place in small virtual groups, the members of which come from different universities.
• The thematic core for the simulation is the entity formed by the different functions of a company and the responsible agency of the company in a network of enterprises. The relevant themes include several areas of cross-company functions (purchasing, project management, distribution and customer relationships) and the reporting related to these topics. The course emphasises the entity of business operations from the perspective of responsible management.
• During the course, students are introduced to the dynamics of business networks where the students’ company is part of a network of competitors, suppliers and customers.
• The theoretical material and the exercises distributed on the course are related to the thematic core for the simulation and for other LITO learning themes.

After completing the course, students will be able to:

• describe how different areas in business studies are connected in the entity of enterprise functions and in making a profit
• apply various methods of collaboration in a virtual team and to become aware of the key regularities in the collaborative business environment
• apply different business analysis tools in planning and managing a business and understand the essential role of strategy in the process.

A central part of the course is the optimisation of a business as a whole with respect to both various business functions and goals; students will understand why it is not practical to optimise single functions separately and why the management needs to have a holistic perspective of the company that simultaneously takes into account social, ecological and financial responsibility.

The language of instruction is English, but a student may return individual assignments in Finnish if she/he so wishes. The simulation teams may speak Finnish if there are no non-Finnish-speaking members in the team.

The latest information about the course is updated and published at www.lito.fi.

Transfer of student information

LITO courses are organised in co-operation with multiple universities. To receive credits for the courses, students must be granted the right to attend the courses for which they have registered from the host university. To grant the right to attend a course (or courses), the home university will transfer personal student information to the host university responsible for organising the course. The data to be transferred includes the student’s surname, first name, possible middle name(s), gender, nationality, e-mail address, personal identification number and home university. If a student does not have a Finnish personal identification number, his/her date of birth will be transferred. Data classified as secret will not be transferred. Receiving credit for the course(s) is not possible without transferring personal student information.

The course serves as a capstone, bridging together the other modules in the LITO entity. The course provides an overall picture of business dynamics and explains how the different fields of business studies are related to it. Various tools and services outside the LITO learning platform may be used in the analyses during the course.

It is recommended that before taking this course, the student has taken at least the following LITO courses: ‘Introduction to Accounting and Financial Management’ and ‘Basics of Management and Organisations’. Alternatively, the student must possess sufficient previous knowledge in these fields in order to be able to analyse a business as a whole.

The literature includes: simulation game instructions, a description of the simulation environment, learning videos, a course hand-out and a selection of other articles (to be announced).