Incub@game: Play the management game!
In a few weeks, all MUSE students and staff will be able to test their knowledge of entrepreneurship and learn some management basics through Incubagame, a “serious game” conceived and designed by Professors Montpellier Management and their partners.
Natural and futuristic settings, high-resolution graphics, and a next-generation android named Xena serving as your coach… Welcome to the virtual world of Incub@game! A “serious game” created by Montpellier Management to introduce you to the basics of management and entrepreneurship in a fun way.
Educational and Sustainable Innovation
Serious games, which gained popularity about a decade ago, are educational resources designed to help learners acquire knowledge through the gaming experience. This initiative is Montpellier Management’sresponse to the TAKE OFF#1 call for projects launched in 2018 by MUSE to support educational innovation across the institution’s various departments and partner schools. “This is a real opportunity for Montpellier Management, and the field of entrepreneurship seemed to us like the natural theme for approaching management in a cross-disciplinary way with an audience new to the subject,” explains Sophie Spring, a faculty member and researcher who leads the Incubagame project.
A game accessible to all students and staff within the MUSE network, whether or not they are working on a business project, and with no prior management experience required. The only requirement to log in to the platform is an institutional email address. To reach the widest possible audience, entrepreneurship is approached through the lens of sustainable development. “It’s an essential requirement,” explains Sophie Spring. “We’re all aware of it today, and students even more so. It’s also a way of reminding people that modern management promotes integration from the design stage rather than correcting ecological and social damage after the fact.”
A futuristic world
As soon as players log in to Incub@game, they are welcomed by Xéna into a futuristic world consisting of three areas corresponding to the major themes of starting a business: the alignment between the founder’s profile and the company’s mission, market positioning, and the legal and financial strategies to be implemented. “The selection of these themes is the result of synthesizing the various areas of expertise and knowledge of the faculty at Montpellier Management and our partners [see box],” explains Sophie Spring.
Within each section, various modules explore subtopics such as strategic positioning, marketing analysis, business plans, and legal structures. Challenges such as building a rocket or racing through space serve as opportunities to test one’s knowledge through question-and-answer games and to explore the fundamental concepts of management. At the end of each segment, a debriefing is conducted with Xena, and at the end of the game, a dashboard allows players to see their strengths and areas for improvement.
A real educational benefit for beginners, even though, as Sophie Spring points out, “this isn’t a course on starting a business—you don’t come away from the game with specific skills. Rather, it’s an introductory module to management that might inspire some people to take it further.”
The Montpellier Management Strategy
This is a logical next step for Montpellier Management, whose pioneering role in educational innovation has already proven its worth. “We launched e-learning courses ten years ago, and we also support a hybrid approach that combines distance and in-person learning. In a crisis like the one we’re currently facing, we see that these teaching methods can prove essential,” notes Marie-Christine Lichtlé, Director of Montpellier Management.
As for entrepreneurship, it has long been one of the department’s areas of expertise. “Along with auditing, accounting, and finance; management and strategy; and marketing, it is one of the cornerstones of our curriculum, as well as of the research conducted in our laboratories, which is rooted in a long history of work on entrepreneurship,” explains the director. This initiative foreshadows another major development at Montpellier Management: the upcoming launch of the I-Lab, the very first student incubator supported by the University of Montpellier.
- If you'd like to access the game, you can contact the team.
Partners
The design of this game is the result of a true collaboration between Professors various disciplines taught at Montpellier Management and a range of private and institutional partners “who contributed their vision to this project,” notes Sophie Spring, who coordinated this collective effort. Participants in Incubagame included: Banque Populaire du Sud, the Montpellier Business and Innovation Center (BIC),URSSAF Languedoc-Roussillon, the Regional Council of the Order of Certified Public Accountants, Labex Entreprendre, and the Center for Research in Environmental and Social Accounting (CSEAR).