Educational Programs For Rural Bankers: Use Of A Management Game

Management games are an accepted component of the management training program for farm and agri-business firms. Computerized games have become a mainstay of many farm management courses on college campuses (Meng, Boehlje) and games have been developed for use in conferences and educational programs with fertilizer dealers, supermarket executives, grain merchandising and feed supply cooperatives (Babb, 1966; Babb, 1971; Greenlaw, Naylor, Babb, 1974; Babb, 1973). Babb has stated that "Management games are quite flexible in terms of of what can be taught. They have been used to teach basic management concepts such as planning, control, organization and coordination. They can be used to demonstrate economic principles and are especially effective in the area of imperfect competition where we can say less about behavior and performance. They can be used as an exercise to gain practice in the use of analytical tools .... They can be used to teach a subject his role in and contribution to a complex organization and to give him a view of the way the parts fit together ..."