Teaching Social Skills in Virtual Worlds: A Primer for Extending Existing Social Science Education to Business Management

Abstract

The process of teaching business is rather complex, as it inherently combines a large number of different tasks, approaches, and techniques. On the one hand, business students have to be taught the basics of rational decision-making, accounting, business planning, and other similar “hard” topics. On the other hand, however, they also have to be prepared to deal with other humans and their myriad diverging desires. In this chapter, the authors propose that some inherently immersive virtual worlds can be used as educational sandboxes that allow business students to practice their business tools. They provide a set of examples as to the specific kinds of knowledge they can attain and practice in the virtual environment, and conclude with sample lesson plans for enterprising professors.