16573: Addressing Entrepreneurship Research and Learning Challenges Through Gamification and Play

Saturday, July 26, 2025

14:00 - 15:30 CEST (GMT+2)

Location: Bella Center: Hall A- A2-m4

Session Type: PDW (workshop)
Orientation: Teaching,Research,Diversity
Shareable link: https://cdmcd.co/wjA78r

Organizer(s)

CA

Craig Armstrong

U. of Alabama, United States
SF

Sebastian Fourne

University of North Florida, United States
PK

Phillip H. Kim

Babson College, United States

Facilitator(s)

FA

Felix Arndt

University of Waterloo, Canada
LG

Lotte Glaser

Vrije U. Amsterdam, School of Business and Economics
RL

R. Scott Livengood

U. of Colorado, Boulder, United States
LE

Linda F. Edelman

Bentley U., United States
MZ

Miriam Zschoche

University of Erfurt, Germany
SV

Siddharth Vedula

TUM School of Management, Technische U. München, Germany

Entrepreneurship has long been recognized as a process, with variations of process-based models now part of the literature (e.g., Baron, 2007; Moore, 1986; Shane & Venkataraman, 2000) for explaining entrepreneurial behavior. Those processes are enacted on a more granular level through mechanisms. As a result, entrepreneurship researchers have produced richer and more precise explanations of the entrepreneurial process by identifying and exploring these mechanisms. New insights from the use of these explanations, however, lead to new calls for an even better understanding of the underlying mechanisms of entrepreneurship. We believe that studying games and their own analogous game mechanisms can provide a new source of insights into our study of the entrepreneurial process. Games have multiple mechanisms their designers employ to create engaging and memorable experiences. Games let us apply our intelligence and skills in roles we do not normally play in real life under conditions of known objectives and outcomes. Games set new, sometimes unexpected boundaries, and, importantly, have rules of play combined with elements of uncertainty and luck. Alike entrepreneurial processes, games feature the need to pivot in response to competitors’ actions or changes in resource availability. In this workshop panelists and participants will explore how entrepreneurship scholars can use game mechanisms to study and teach entrepreneurship. We strive to show how mechanisms that are used in popular games can be used to evoke deeper understandings of the mechanisms of the entrepreneurial process.