Increasing Complexity in Marketing Simulations: Critically Examining the Trends

For years, the trend for marketing professors has been to utilize continually increasing complexity within electronic simulations. Increasing complexity is considered desirable by many professors and students for its increased realism. In chasing this complexity, however, marketing professors are sacrificing the ability to demonstrate the effects of any one specific variable on business outcomes independent of other variables. This paper calls for a research stream to challenge conventional wisdom by critically examining the relative advantages of simple and complex simulations. As a starting point, this research empirically tests MBA students’ perceived learning after experiencing a complex simulation as compared to a simple simulation that only incorporates a single marketing variable.