Final report - European Commission - Europa

BUSINESS STRATEGY IN ADMINISTRATION, MANAGEMENTAND COMMERCIALISATION IN SECONDARY EDUCATIONFernando Mur Alegre, IES La Llitera, Huesca, SpainDuring the last years in the IES La Llitera de Tamarite, Huesca (Northwest Spain), the use of an enterprise strategysimulator in “Basics on Administration and Companies Management” (Upper Secondary levels) is paying very goodresults, both in students participation in and motivation for entrepreneurship. It also encourages remarkably students’enterprise abilities.Working in teams with the aid of a tailor-made enterprise simulator, students can take decisions about the mostimportant variables for enterprise strategy (price, production, research and development, marketing and capital investment).Each group creates a company and competes on a virtual market. They are provided with economic-financialinformation to make decisions. After reporting on this, the system generates results, which the groups must analysebefore doing next steps. In the meantime, changing economic environment impacts the simulation process, andstudents have to take it into account in their business decisionsThe development and application in the classroom is as follows:1. Design of the product to be produced and sold by the companies. Participants in the simulation should be familiarizedwith it.2. Draft of the macroeconomic environment through the variables that define the situation: interest rate, corporatetaxes, banking credit limit…3. Description of the variable limits object of decision by companies.4. Delivery of the initial economic-financial information to the different groups for its analysis and strategy draft tofollow.5. Group analysis and decision making about the most important strategic variables in a company (production,price, marketing, R+D, and capital investment).6. Encode of the decisions of all the groups in the simulator and results report.7. Analysis of the new company situations, newsletter about possible environment changes and new round ofdecision making.8. At the end of the decision making processes, it will be determined which companies performed better through aratio that weighs profits, growth, market share,…The success of this activity is based on the use of the ICT in learning, on teamwork, on the analysis of information andthe link between theory and enterprise practice, assuming the risks in the decisions-making process. Students are moremotivated by the study of business management which fosters entrepreneurship.36Entrepreneurship Education in Europe: Fostering Entrepreneurial Mindsets through Education and Learning