The CAPSIM competition provides an opportunity for students to practice teamwork behaviors, such as collaboration, negotiation, and consensus-building, that will be be useful once they enter the workforce and need to solve problems in a complex world of uncertainties.

Teams from MUM finish in top 15% in business decision-making competition
by Maharishi University of Management, Fairfield, Iowa, USA, The Review and MUM website
8 May 2015

Dr. Andrew Bargerstock*, Director of MBA Programs at Maharishi University of Management (MUM) in Fairfield, Iowa, announced that both MBA teams from MUM finished in the Top 15% of 68 graduate-level teams who participated recently in an online business decision-making simulation. The teams finished in 95th and 88th percentiles.

The CAPSIM Foundation Simulation is a continuous event available on-line where participant teams earn points for optimizing a set of both short-term and long-term performance metrics. A team’s final score is the basis for comparison to other teams. Through the Foundation Simulation, students gain the opportunity to practice integrated decision-making in a manufacturing sector across a wide range of management functions, e.g., product design, sales forecasting, inventory management, operations management, human resources, finance, and quality management.

According to Dr. Bargerstock, in whose class the MBA Accounting event took place over a four- week period in March, “The simulation provides an opportunity for students to practice teamwork behaviors such as collaboration, negotiation, and consensus-building. In addition, the groups think and act both strategically and tactically in a dynamically changing competitive environment. We feel it is critical for MBAs who possess keen technical skills, to also practice higher-level executive behaviors. The Capsim results speak well about the readiness of our MBAs for the professional workplace.”

Organized in groups of 3-5 students for this simulation, MUM’s MBAs have finished #1 in the world in 2011, 2013, and 2014. Over the past four years, 18 of 19 MUM teams have finished in the Top 15th percentile in the graduate level competition. Looking back to the six-month period ending March 17, 2015 with 68 eligible MBA teams, Capsim Client Relations Consultant, Anthony Illuzzi, confirms that MUM’s Andrews Team finished at the 95th percentile and the Baldwin Team finished in 88th percentile.

According to Dr. Bargerstock, MBA schools shown in Top 10th percentile reports during the Foundation Simulation included California State University, Villanova, Drexel, Alfred Laurier University, and University of Houston. A full list of participant universities is not published by Chicago-based CAPSIM, the nation’s leading provider of business simulations.

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FOOTNOTE
*Andrew Bargerstock is an Associate Professor and Director of MBA programs at Maharishi University of Management. His educational background includes B.A. Economics from Muhlenberg College, M.B.A. from University of Pittsburgh, and Ph.D. in Management from MUM. In addition, he is a Certified Public Accountant. A skilled teacher with considerable hands-on, real world experience and expertise in Lean Accounting, Andrew has been an entrepreneur, business consultant, and Fortune 500 corporate executive. His MBA Accounting students have performed at high levels against other MBA schools worldwide in online integrated decision-making simulations.

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