Promoting Systems Thinking Competence For Sustainable Supply Chains Through Game-based Learning

Abstract

Understanding complex system dynamics is a skill needed to tackle today’s sustainability wicked problems. Although educational efforts to introduce systems thinking into curricula continue to grow, several challenges remain for teaching and developing a nuanced understanding of the different systems’ components, the cause-and-effect interplay among them, and how these convey impacts, often unexpected, that ought to be considered. Global supply chains are an example of a complex system that affects our everyday lives, highlighting the need to develop and hone systems thinking skills among students who may one day be responsible for managing them. Game-based learning (GBL) has proven to be a valuable approach for experiencing and reflecting on the consequences of one’s choices across a wide array of educational contexts, including systems thinking and supply chain management. Therefore, this ongoing study aims to examine how a GBL environment designed to teach sustainable supply chain management (SSCM) can enhance systems thinking literacy using a mixed-methods approach. In particular, the present manuscript describes the rationale and methodology for a quantitative experiment (n=250) conducted in a lecture setting. Additionally, we outline the planned next steps, which include a qualitative study to validate and further strengthen the results.