Competencies for the Successful Use of Online Social Simulation Games within Organisational Leadership Development

The humble Pong arcade game at the corner store ignited a fundamental culture shift in the 1970s and it is increasingly gaining momentum. A generation of gamers is already permeating organisations. The socio-cultural phenomenon of digital gaming has become pervasive. The intersection point of the three trends, Ubiquitous Computing, Ubiquitous Gaming and Social Networking is the focus point of this study. It is at this intersection point that both social online gaming and cutting-edge leadership competencies co-exist and have the potential to flourish when implemented with caution and circumspection. Social Online Simulation Gaming (SOSG) as a learning design and learning technology can prove particularly valuable as a leadership and skills development tool within the “digimodern” world. Current literature, however, does not provide a clearly focused framework for the implementation of ICT supported game-based Leadership Development technologies within the information economy. There is currently not a clear and specific framework for evaluating the Information and Communication Technology (ICT) competencies, knowledge, skills and attitudes required to successfully use Social Online Simulation Games software within the context of Organisational Leadership Development. This study aims to create and refine a framework for evaluating the ICT competencies required to successfully implement SOSG as Leadership Development tool. The primary research question is formulated as follows: What ICT competencies (knowledge, attitudes and skills) are necessary to successfully utilise Social Online Simulation Games as Leadership Development technique and tool? A Mixed Methods research approach was followed in which the current literature has been reviewed, using an interpretative methodology and the principles of hermeneutics, in order to derive a preliminary conceptual model for the ICT-related competencies (e-Competencies) needed for the successful implementation of SOSG in Organisational Leadership Development. Subsequently, this conceptual framework has been refined utilising the input of an international panel of experts (through a two-stage Delphi exMaterial published as part of this publication, either on-line or in print, is copyrighted by the Informing Science Institute. Permission to make digital or paper copy of part or all of these works for personal or classroom use is granted without fee provided that the copies are not made or distributed for profit or commercial advantage AND that copies 1) bear this notice in full and 2) give the full citation on the first page. It is permissible to abstract these works so long as credit is given. To copy in all other cases or to republish or to post on a server or to redistribute to lists requires specific permission and payment of a fee. Contact Publisher@InformingScience.org to request redistribution permission. Successful Use of Online Social Simulation Games pert panel and further quantitative data analysis) in order to produce a framework for assessing the required competencies. Significant differences between the agreement and consensus of Serious Games (SG) and Leadership Development (LD) groups of experts were observed. The differences indicate that the design and compilation of SOSG project implementation teams need to take cognisance of this reality and the aim to control it. It has significant implications on how the SOSG Utilisation Framework can be implemented in practice. Our analysis suggests that the SOSG Utilisation Framework may potentially form a robust basis for further refinement of the competencies required to successfully utilise SOSG in Leadership Development applications within organisations.