Abstract

     The considerable proliferation of serious games (SG) in management education necessitates an academic foundation grounded in the concepts and practice of leadership, Flow, learning and development theory. Going beyond addressing the benefits of SG, this study is the first to demonstrate the successful use of SG in two areas: (a) teaching Flow theory within management studies via dedicated software designed to train a Flow-promoting Leadership style; and (b) showing that SG can serve as an innovative tool for measuring 29 leadership skills. The article demonstrates how non-intrusive data – collected during FLIGBY gameplay by 7931 managers globally, who made 150+ simulated leadership decisions – de facto support the process of leadership skill development. The findings show the system of relationships among the four critical Flow-promoting Leadership Skills that are needed for leading a work environment with more frequent Flow experiences. The results support educators and content developers in their quest to find optimal pathways and combinations for effectively developing skills by showing the underlying complexities of Flow and Leadership. The study contributes to the application of Flow-promoting leadership theory in practice via the help of innovative SG technology.

Introduction

     Since its discovery by Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi (1990), “Flow” research and its application have become ubiquitous in many fields of science, education, and day-to-day life. Flow is the colloquial terminology for what scientifically is known as an “optimal mental state” that can occur during an activity and is characterized by experiencing happiness, meaningfulness, learning and creativity. During the past two to three decades, we have also seen the spread of game-based learning solutions and systems and the proliferation of interactive and gamified learning environments.

     Whilst details of the general use and the benefits of serious games have been widely published (Buzady, 2017; Pérez-Pérez et al., 2021), our study will briefly showcase the application of an innovative and complex management learning system dedicated specifically to promoting the principles of a Flow-promoting leadership style and of Csikszentmihalyi’s “Good Business’ values (Csikszentmihalyi, 2003).

Summary and conclusions

     We have demonstrated the concrete and effective application of serious gaming technology for the measurement and analysis of leadership skills, including the four that promote a greater Flow experience for employees at work. We show that, beyond the traditional methods of measuring leadership skills (primarily self-assessment via questionnaires and external rating via an assessor), a third method can be effectively used. The key scientific result of the work is the introduction of gamebased psychometrics that can be used to effectively explore complex leadership skillsets and correlations thereof.

     Virtual stories and decision dilemmas in serious games enable the unbiased, objective collection and reporting of data about gamer decisions. Expert coding and decoding of the underlying patterns of leadership skills and resulting leadership styles and preferences can be used to compare strengths and weaknesses with other players in the same cohort or across larger global populations. The four Flow-promoting leadership skills by Csikszentmihalyi have thus been more deeply explored and empirical support for their interrelatedness has been provided, and a further set of strongly associated leadership skills revealed.