Beyond the Game: Identity, Ethics, and the Transformative Power of Role Play in Business Simulations

"Beyond the Game" examines whether role play within a gamified business simulation can do more than build engagement and applied skills, arguing that, when properly scaffolded through onboarding, feedback, and reflective debriefs, it can also cultivate ethical awareness and professional identity. The study is situated within the literature on gamification and game-based learning and centres on SimVenture Evolution, a business simulation used as a capstone module for MSc Business Analytics students. Its exploratory aim is to understand how role-based learning shapes engagement, skill development, ethical awareness, and identity formation among postgraduate students.

The empirical core is a thematic analysis of reflective narratives written by 20 students, conducted using Braun and Clarke's six-phase framework. Five interrelated themes emerged: experiential anchoring, motivational engagement, cognitive regulation, ethical awareness, and identity formation. Participants reported that enacting a role transformed abstract theory into lived decision-making, and that the experience supported their sense of autonomy, competence, and relatedness. Many also described heightened ethical reflection and a growing sense of professional self-efficacy. These conclusions are drawn from a small, single-institution sample relying on self-reported data, limitations the authors acknowledge.

Taken together, the findings position role-based simulation, when well scaffolded, as a promising pedagogical approach for postgraduate business education. The work's scope is narrow in geography and cohort, focusing on one programme and one simulation, but its conceptual contribution lies in linking role enactment to ethical and identity development rather than to skill acquisition alone. The closing section consists of an extensive bibliography drawing on gamification, experiential learning, role-play, and self-determination theory literature, supporting the claimed educational value of such simulations.