mbb@cbnewsh.ATT.COM (martin.b.brilliant) (06/06/89)
I like Timo Salmi's MANAGAME (part of the tsgames package, v03i008 and
v03i009). It raised a lot of questions. It also showed that the
numbers you get in a simple report are not the numbers that you need to
tell whether a business is in good shape. Investor, beware!
After a while I started wondering what kind of market the company was
supposed to be selling in. Monopoly, oligopoly, or pure competition?
Durable or non-durable good? What is the effect of advertising (a good
question in the real world)? The evidence is contradictory, but that
doesn't necessarily make it unrealistic.
The production cost model is easier to understand, at least partly. It
became immediately obvious that there are fixed costs. The influence
of wearout is harder to grasp.
To get the most out of the game, you really need multitasking - one
task to run the game, and another to run an accounting model to analyze
the data coming out of the game. I hope the University of Vaasa is so
equipped.
But: do workers in Finland usually strike against a company that just
had two disastrous fires, forcing it into bankruptcy? I don't think
they do in the U.S. "You can't get blood out of a stone," we say.
Also: I thought that in the U.S. a company that has a positive cash
position (actually, a company that has assets exceeding its
liabilities) can not be forced into bankruptcy. I infer that it's
different in Finland.
Enough said, except that I have no connection with Professor Salmi
except as a satisfied user.
M. B. Brilliant Marty
AT&T-BL HO 3D-520 (201) 949-1858
Holmdel, NJ 07733 att!hounx!marty1 or marty1@hounx.ATT.COM
Disclaimer: Opinions stated herein are mine unless and until my employer
explicitly claims them; then I lose all rights to them.ts@chyde.uwasa.fi (Timo Salmi LASK) (06/07/89)
In article <1194@cbnewsh.ATT.COM> mbb@cbnewsh.ATT.COM (martin.b.brilliant) writes: >I like Timo Salmi's MANAGAME (part of the tsgames package, v03i008 and >v03i009). It raised a lot of questions. It also showed that the I am naturally very pleased that you liked managame, and you made a number of relevant observations about the logic of the game in your posting. There is no denying that the logic of my game is far from waterproof. My excuse is that the underlying, original purpose of this game was to serve as a quick and palpable introduction to the concept of management games by letting a student to play it interactively with a computer. At the time (at the beginning of 1970's) when I devised this game, the role of the computer in management games was much much more unclear to students than what it is now. ................................................................... Prof. Timo Salmi (Site 128.214.12.3) School of Business Studies, University of Vaasa, SF-65101, Finland Internet: ts@chyde.uwasa.fi Funet: vakk::salmi Bitnet: salmi@finfun