Name of the game

I was in group 4 and during class we had to develop a new type of game that had the learning goal to experiences the process of social evolution. This was not an easy task especially as we are not used to developing games, but overall we had good discussions and ideas until we ran out of time. We used changing conditions, limited information and imitation as our main guidelines to design the game.

So what does the game comprise of? First of all, all players are a firm that produces products with three different symbolic (neutral) characteristics with three values each, see table 1. Behind these abstract shapes lies a secret meaning as can be seen in table 2. The goal of the firms is to maximize profit.

Shape	Feel	Colour
square	soft	red
cirkel	medium	blue
triangle	hard	yellow

Table 1: characteristics

Characteristic	Secret meaning
square	SUV
circle	MPV
triangle	Urban Car
red	Diesel
blue	Electric
yellow	Gasoline
soft	Steel
medium	Organic
hard	Carbon

Table 2: Secret meanings

Each round the different firms choose a combination that goes to market and the bank gives back a final value based on consumer preference. So throughout the rounds the firms will get to know the consumer preference, however the tricky aspect is that they only get to know the final outcome and do not know how much of the value is allocated to which characteristic. In order to become successful they could for instance imitate a sequence of a competitor or learn from them by comparing their sequence to their own.

In the beginning a certain sequence is set as the optimal sequence that is most sustainable, but due to market demand, policy (cards, more on that later) and other developments (technology) the money which can be made by this varies. The optimum set of characteristics is not static and therefore could change over the course of the game. For instance one scenario could be that urban electric organic cars would be the optimal set in the end of the game, but that in the beginning due to the premature battery techniques or dirty electricity diesel actually is the more environmental friendly option. Another scenario could be that SUVs all of the sudden become very popular until policy appears that favors urban cars. Urban cars however bring smaller profits, but when done in big numbers could become more profitable than the SUVs that had a big profit margin. 

After each round a random policy card will be placed central on the table for all players to see and adjust their strategy too. This policy is geared towards the most sustainable option and therefore players can learn from it. As the optimum outcome is said the game plays a bit like mastermind and in the end when the game is over the secret meaning of the abstract characteristics will be revealed and things will make more sense.

We choose to go for abstract characteristics in order to not have any relation with more earthly things that lead to a more predictable behaviour, as we all know instinctively that a small car is probably more sustainable than a big one. 

Let the games begin!

Feedback given on Laura Lucas in the Nokia Case

Dear Laura Lucas,

I just read your blog which provided an easy read. There are some  minor errors that have to do with English “other companies depend in their collaboration” should be depend ON. Etc. But they are just minor errors so if take the time to read your post again you will pick them out easily.

Furthermore the blog is incomplete as you also mention. Point three on how other coordination mechanisms could improve this is not yet dealt with. In answering the second question on diffusing sustainability criteria I would elaborate more on the diffusion part as now it is only mentioned in the question, but does not come back in the actual answer. Here you could talk on how measures etc. get spread throughout the supplier and how they trickle down from the top management to the work floor.

You wrote that it didn’t became clear to you how Nokia can check if their suggestions were taken into consideration, but as audits are recurring events for sure the supplier will try to, before each audit, implement several of their clients suggestions. If this is done right or sufficiently is another question, but therefor we have audits to check upon this progress. Moreover Nokia also discussed in the end that it is a long process that needs time.

Overall my impression of the blog is that it could all be formulated a bit more sharp and concise and that of course it should be finished. In the first part all elements are already in place so that should not be too much work, in the second and third part there are things missing still.

Good luck!

Jody Milder

Feedback given on Zinzi Wits in the Nokia Case

Hi there Zinzi,

First of all it was nice to read a flawless post in terms in written English! In terms of style it was pleasant to read and I think it contained all elements. It always works very well to start off with a clear theoretic definition of the key concept like coercive isomorphism like you did, so well done.

When I saw the video I at first also had similar thoughts that the role play theatre was rather distracting and disturbing from what they both wanted to achieve, however on second thought I changed my mind as the women who did the audit were not phased about it at all. They just did their job anyway in a very smart way by giving the right reactions that satisfied both ends. I could start a whole discussion here on culture and that in France for instance you need to first have elaborate dinners, talking about art etc, without any mentioning of business before you actually can get deals done, etc., but for now I think you took on an interesting point of view. Just be aware that there are more than one ways to reach a goal. I also think we have to see this movie in the light of Nokia being one of the pioneers in auditing these sort of things, so there were very few previous experiences to learn from. Currently there is much more attention for these sustainable matters and industry can jointly guide their suppliers towards a more sustainable production so I agree with this suggestions. 

Certification is the way forward and I think we saw Nokia take the first steps in this long term effort. However as I said before I do think that human communication will always play an important role that cannot be put aside because of the fact that the communication is inefficient. I think that communication should be judged on its effectiveness in reaching their goals.

Well, as you can see I only discussed things, but have no actual feedback in terms of things that are missing. So overall I would like to say keep up the good work.

Jody Milder

Harvest game 2.0

The original harvest game was made up by a simple set of rules. The sea contains 50 fish that if no fish is caught will reproduce to be 100 fish in the next round. If 25 fish are caught, the next time the sea will have 50 fish again. Each team writes their demand on a paper and sticks this in a "boat"  and there is no communication allowed between groups. The sea randomly picks the boats and fulfills their demand as long as there is fish. If a group receives 2 fish instead of the demanded 4 fish, it means that the sea is depleted of fish as the sea will always provide the maximum amount of fish possible. 

After playing the harvest game with the initial set of rules during class we all saw that even with a group of environmentally aware people we still emptied the seas. So something needs to be changed in order to prevent this from happening so that we all can keep our business alive and thus not empty the sea. I was in one of the groups that just did the math and always asked for 4 fishes and got 4 fishes 3 times, until the 4^th time we didn’t get any fish and therefore had to conclude (although we didn’t as we were busy accusing other groups of greed) that the sea was empty.

So what can be changed based on opening up communication?

I would suggest a wide range of tweaks that ultimately lead to more fish being caught in the end as in theory the game could go on for ever. Ultimately you want to achieve that all 6 teams catch at least 4 fish and one of the teams can catch 1 extra fish. However another approach could be to first under-fish and therefore increase the amount of fish that can be caught in the future. The latter however would only work if the game could last for more rounds than we played the game therefor perhaps this option should be discarded.

You can go two ways. First of all you could have all cards on the table and therefor really demand openness on catch figures by the individual teams. This would be most effective, but at the same time would be most controversial as well, so for that reason it will be discarded as well.

Secondly you could also control the total amount of fish being caught without going into the details of how much each individual team caught. By having all fish collected by one new governing body that consist of a new team of representatives of all teams that stay on shore. Their task is to make sure that a maximum of 25 fish are to be sold. By applying the same randomness as the sea applies to picking the order of boats to receive fish, the game element would still be present. If the maximum of 25 fish is achieved the rest of the fish that still is landed after this would be sold without the money going to the boat who supplied them, but to invest in creating a sustainable fishing label. This label would then be handed out to the teams that never ask more than 4.17 fish. If the maximum amount of fish being caught reaches 25 before all teams have landed their fish, the teams that already landed their fish get punished by not being allowed to go out fishing in the next round. I am not sure if this would lead to the seas not being emptied, but at least it would provide an interesting dynamic that could lead to more conservative demands to the sea.

If this turns out not to lead to more sustainable fishing then I would go back to total openness so that naming and shaming could do its job. If this still does not work then a punishing factor should be introduced together with a reward system. Being forced to skip a year, or with a very low catch limit could be used as a punishment, whilst the division of the extra fish capacity (4 fishes per team + 5 fishes for 1 team) could be used as a reward. 

There are many ways to try to solve this puzzle and it would be interesting to keep on playing the game with different tweaks to see what the effects would be.