Resources for Courses

Teaching theNew Edexcel

A LevelBusiness

T h e S t a k e h o l d e r G a m e

Jorge are a major manufacturer of sportswear selling toan international market. They have 3 factories and a longhistory of providing good working conditions for its employees. Like every business, Jorge has a number of stakeholders (people or organisations that have an interest in the businesses operations).

The stakeholders include customers, suppliers, employees,local and national government as well as the owners ofJorge themselves. As with any business, Jorge must payattention to the needs and demands of these stakeholdersif it wishes to be successful.

Your team are the management of Jorge hoping to buildon the company’s previous success over the comingmonths.

You will be presented with a list of 28 possible strategiesfor Jorge. You are going to choose one strategy for eachperiod. The game will last for 12 months. You cannotchoose the same strategy more than once!

Each time you choose a strategy you must bring your choice to thetutor at the front of the class where your choice will be given a score.Each strategy gives a score (between -4 and + 4) for each of the 5stakeholders listed.

Your score is an accumulative total of the scores of the Customers,Suppliers, Employees and Government.

Your team must try and get the highest score possible.

Your Shareholder score does not count to your overall score. However,the shareholder score must be above zero otherwise your main scoredoes not count. You must always keep the shareholders happy!

The winning team is the one with the highest Stakeholder score. Should there be a tie, the team with the highest Stakeholder and highest Shareholder score will be declared the winner.

Strategy:

Shareholders

Customers

Suppliers

Employees

Government

SCORE

Jan Feb Mar Apr May Jun Jul Aug Sep Oct Nov Dec

1 Alter some suppliers to bring in third world companies who guarantee good wages for their workers

2 Apply for business loan from bank research and development3 Increase the size of the factory to enable increased production4 Give money to retail outlets to support increased numbers of stores5 Increase average employee wages by 3%6 Sponsor the building of a local community hall7 Increase price of products by 5%8 Buy out a competitor9 Start selling sportswear in new European locations10 Re-negotiate cheaper supplies with current suppliers11 Improve quality assurance measures12 Increase funds given to charities13 Open High Street retail outlets14 Move customer service call centre to a foreign country15 Reduce the number of managers by 15%16 Increase the number of trainees by 10%17 Temporarily alter the main business aim to sales maximisation

away from profit maximisation18 Open factory for 24 hours a day19 Sponsor a major football team20 Develop a new phone aimed at businesses21 Out-source delivery of goods to an external business22 Sponsor a major city marathon race23 Reduce communications with trade unions24 Alter the manufacture of sportswear to include more synthetic

materials25 Conduct more research on changing customer expectations26 Start selling phones in new Asian locations27 Negotiate deal with sports drink company to use Jorge name

as an endorsement28 Reduce number of factories to two to make efficiency gains

Possible strategies:

Initial Task Student WorksheetYour tutor is about to appoint you to play the role of one of the stakeholders in Jorge. You will either be the customer, supplier, shareholder, employee or local and national government.You will now receive a copy of 28 possible business strategies that Jorge may implement over the coming months or years.For each strategy you must give it a score between -4 and +4 depending on how negative or positive that strategy might be for your stakeholder.Once finished, give your ‘Stakeholder impact sheet’ to your tutor who will input your scores onto the Game database.

1 Alter some suppliers to bring in third world companies who guarantee good wages for their workers

2 Apply for business loan from bank research and development3 Increase the size of the factory to enable increased production4 Give money to retail outlets to support increased numbers of stores5 Increase average employee wages by 3%6 Sponsor the building of a local community hall7 Increase price of products by 5%8 Buy out a competitor9 Start selling sportswear in new European locations10 Re-negotiate cheaper supplies with current suppliers11 Improve quality assurance measures12 Increase funds given to charities13 Open High Street retail outlets14 Move customer service call centre to a foreign country15 Reduce the number of managers by 15%16 Increase the number of trainees by 10%17 Temporarily alter the main business aim to sales maximisation away from profit maximisation18 Open factory for 24 hours a day19 Sponsor a major football team20 Develop a new phone aimed at businesses21 Out-source delivery of goods to an external business22 Sponsor a major city marathon race23 Reduce communications with trade unions24 Alter the manufacture of sportswear to include more synthetic materials25 Conduct more research on changing customer expectations26 Start selling phones in new Asian locations27 Negotiate deal with sports drink company to use Jorge name as an endorsement28 Reduce number of factories to two to make efficiency gains

SCORE

Teacher Instructions

Welcome to the Stakeholder GameThe premise is that your students (separated into teams) represent the management of a fictional sportswear company – the teams are coloured Blue, Red, Green, Purple and Orange. They have 10 periods in which to maximise their ‘stakeholder’ score.

The game is used to achieve the following objectives:• To understand how business strategies affect stakeholders differently.• To understand that strategies have different levels of impact on stakeholders.

Limitations1 The game does not always reflect an accurate effect on the actual impact

on stakeholders. The figures used are simplistic and sometimes exaggerated to enable students to grasp the type and degree of impact that may occur.

2 The changes do not reflect any realistic time lag that would genuinely occur with real life business strategies – this should be pointed out to students veryclearly.

Note: The game uses embedded macros. Ensure that these are enabled whenprompted.

Optional Initial taskBefore playing the ‘Stakeholder Game’ you may wish to test your students’ understanding of particular strategies and how they impact on a stakeholder.Separate your class in to 5 groups and assign them a named stakeholder – customer, supplier, shareholder, employee or local and national government. Give them the worksheet entitled ‘Initial Task Student Worksheet: The StakeholderGame’ (page 3 of this resource). Ask each group to give a score for each strategyindicating the level of impact that the strategy would have on their given stakeholder. Their scores can range from -4 to + 4 depending on how negative or positive that strategy might be for your stakeholder.

On completion of this task lead a discussion on which strategies would have thelargest negative and positive impact on their specific stakeholder.

If you wish (and to engender a sense of ownership for your students), input thesescores into the table on slide3 of the Powerpoint resource.

How to use the Main Game1 Separate your group into 5 teams (or keep the same groups that

you used for the initial task if you wish). Hand out the student worksheet (pages 1 and 2 of this resource).

2 Click on ‘Click here to start’. Click on ‘Instructions’ to run throughthe presentation of instructions (or go over the instructions onthe worksheet).

3 Then click on ‘Click to start new game’ and confirm that you wish to start a new game.

4 You are presented with the main scoreboard view. Give the students a few minutes to decide which of their strategies thatthey wish to implement first.

5 When ready each group needs to come to the computer that isusing the Powerpoint game (ensure that the screen is not beingdisplayed to the whole class). With each coloured group click on the colour button at the bottom of the screen.

6 This will take you to the screen of the individual team colour. Ask the student to indicate which strategy number they wish toimplement. Click on the strategy number. Ask the team to notedown the changed scores (if any) to each of their stakeholderand their overall Stakeholder Score.

7 Repeat this with all 5 teams (you can toggle between teamcolours using the buttons at the bottom of the screen). After all 5 teams have had their strategies entered click on the ‘Scoreboard’ button. The overall scores will be shown. Either call the scores out or allow the screen to be displayed to thewhole class.

8 Repeat this process for all 12 rounds.

9 Announce the winning team at the end of the 12 rounds!