Peer Review

Power Simulation (Bolman & Deal)

Material Detail page

Reviewed:: Dec 31, 2014 by Business

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Ratings

Overall Rating:

Content Quality:

Effectiveness:

Ease of Use:

Overview:: This is a simulation intended to demonstrate how power and the allocation of power can put some people at a disadvantage. There are instructions provided for instructors or faculty members, as well as a direct link to the journal article that explains how to run the simulation.
Type of Material:: Simulation
Recommended Uses:: This is recommended for and organizational behavior class to demonstrate how power is distributed and help people react to and perform as a result of differential power distribution. This is clearly intended to be experiential in nature, as a debriefing is a significant part of the simulation. This could be an in-class experience if time permits.
Technical Requirements:: This requires an Adobe reader, and was reviewed with Internet Explorer version 11; Firefox 5.0, and Java 7update 45.
Identify Major Learning Goals:: - Students will understand how power can be distributed in a work environment. - Participants learn how difficult it can be, under the conditions presented in the simulation, to create effective communications and decision-making, even with the best of intentions. - Students will experience first-hand many of the dilemmas and conflicts of power. - Students will develop a more profound appreciation for structural injustice, and the effects it can have on individuals. - Students can learn from confronting hard and messy problems, because that is what they are likely to face in the real world.
Target Student Population:: This simulation is recommended for upper-level undergraduate students and graduate students in business classes.
Prerequisite Knowledge or Skills:: It is recommended that students have an understanding of basic management which should include an introduction to ethics, management, HR and leadership. This could be found in first and second year college courses.

Content Quality

Rating:
Strengths:: - The design of the simulation provides the opportunity for an in-depth understanding from an experiential perspective. - Students can feel and experience the outcomes of power distribution, and obtain a better understanding of how this can potentially impact attitude, morale, job satisfaction and other aspects of employee performance. - The implementation of the simulation has instructions. - The accompanying article can be read to obtain some insights into how to manage the simulation, as well as experiences of other faculty members in using the simulation.
Concerns:: - An extensive debriefing is required and there is little information on what students are supposed to learn relative to the simulation. - There is limited guidance on how to manage the debriefing. - Usefulness in business is questionable because there are no solutions or recommendations offered to improve the environment in the organization. This will have to be developed by the instructor.

Potential Effectiveness as a Teaching Tool

Rating:
Strengths:: - Experiential learning can be very effective for some students - This would introduce students to the reality of organizations and power. - It is not difficult to implement. - The accompanying article provides supplemental information for the instructor.
Concerns:: - Having students experience what it feels like to have limited power may be beneficial, but it's not clear how this can be used for organizational improvement, developing leaders,or improving conditions in organizations in general. Simply having students experience the simulation ( which is essentially negative) is not adequate if students are expected to be good managers, supervisors and employees. - It seems limited to explore one source of power (bureaucratic power). - It is not clear if will reach the objectives in different contexts (for example with passive students). - Running the simulation will require a lot of preparation on the part of the faculty member.

Ease of Use for Both Students and Faculty

Rating:
Strengths:: - The journal article provides a lot more information about the simulation than the webpage for the material. - The instructor will have to provide all of the detail to the students.
Concerns:: - The task for the groups seems to be undefined (it is not clear what is the goal or final result expected. Some groups of students could feel confused). - The exercise requires three physical spaces to complete it. - Because an extensive debriefing is required, it is not clear how easy this might be to use, especially when the guidance for the debriefing is minimal and there are no real learning goals for students. - While this can be used in business, it seems that it may be more effective for a sociology or psychology class, as business typically looks for ways to improve or to do things better, and that is not part of this simulation.

Other Issues and Comments:: - Issues have already been noted, but briefly stated, it's not clear what students can learn from this other than to feel powerless. The extensive debriefing as described takes a significant amount of time, and without recommendations or suggestions for improvement it's unclear how this simulation can benefit business students - On the other hand, students often have a great experience in working through the simulation.
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