A Holistic Approach to Management Development

Managerial work includes the use of cognitive skills and affective processes. Management education programmes usually provide an adequate coverage of cognitive skills but have less success with behaviourally non‐specific skills. An effective programme should combine the use of behaviourally specific cognitive skills with practice in affective skills. The computer‐based simulation game appears to encompass these requirements. Learning acquired through the simulation process will have enough job‐related realism to result in an ultimate transfer to the workplace. Simulation should not be a replacement for basic knowledge acquisition, however. It is simply an opportunity for providing practice and reinforcement of basic knowledge.