EAGER: Evaluating the Risks, Tradeoffs and Opportunities of Entrepreneurial Startups In Different Regions Using Gamification

University Of Washington, Seattle WA

Investigators

Abstract

While successful entrepreneurship contributes to job creation, many unanswered questions remain about why so many new start-ups fail. The research develops and evaluates a novel educational model to increase the likelihood of entrepreneurial success and ability to operate in different regional innovative ecosystems. Through a computer simulation game or gamulation, entrepreneurs can experiment with different organizational structures, hiring decisions, strategy development, and use of a variety of institutional supports. The research will examine how entrepreneurial organizations may function when confronting different regional dynamics. Gamulation play allows entrepreneurs to experiment in a safe environment with their start-up proposals, while also providing data with which to generate recommendations for how entrepreneurs should approach different challenges within and between regions. The results of this project contribute understanding to why similar start-ups vary in performance; how regional attributes affect these outcomes; and what strategies firms may use to increase the likelihood of survival and growth. This project designs a user friendly, novel game design for engaging entrepreneurship students and provides for experimentation with different decisions in new firm formation and scale up. Students will gain a better understanding of what constitutes successful entrepreneurial firm development. The gamulation simulates different entrepreneurial environments and is tailored to different entrepreneurs, industries, and regions. The gamulation further serves as a platform for collecting data about entrepreneurial decisions and generates real-time data on how decisions that entrepreneurs make in their regional and economic context impact their firm?s success.