Playing to Learn: Business Simulation Games as Leadership Learning Environments

The aim of this dissertation is to investigate if participation in business simulation gaming sessions can make different leadership styles visible and provide students with experiences beneficial for the development of leadership skills. Particularly, the focus is to describe the development of leadership styles when leading virtual teams in computer-­supported collaborative game settings and to identify the outcomes of using computer simulation games as leadership training tools. To answer to the objectives of the study, three empirical experiments were conducted to explore if participation in business simulation gaming sessions (Study I and II), which integrate face-­to-­face and virtual communication (Study III and IV), can make different leadership styles visible and provide students with experiences beneficial for the development of leadership skills. In the first experiment, a group of multicultural graduate business students (N=41) participated in gaming sessions with a computerized business simulation game (Study III). In the second experiment, a group of graduate students (N=9) participated in the training with a ‘real estate’ computer game (Study I and II). In the third experiment, a business simulation gaming session was organized for graduate students group (N=26) and the participants played the simulation game in virtual teams, which were organizationally and geographically dispersed but connected via technology (Study IV). Each team in all experiments had three to four students and students were between 22 and 25 years old. The business computer games used for the empirical experiments presented an enormous number of complex operations in which a team leader needed to make the final decisions involved in leading the team to win the game. These gaming environments were interactive;; participants interacted by solving the given tasks in the game. Thus, strategy and appropriate leadership were needed to be successful. The training was competition-­based and required implementation of leadership skills. The data of these studies consist of observations, participants’ reflective essays written after the gaming sessions, pre-­ and post-­tests questionnaires and participants’ answers to open-­ ended questions. Participants’ interactions and collaboration were observed when they played the computer games. The transcripts of notes from observations and students dialogs were coded in terms of transactional, transformational, heroic and post-­heroic leadership styles. For the data analysis of the transcribed notes from observations, content analysis and discourse analysis was implemented. The Multifactor Leadership Questionnaire (MLQ) was also utilized in the study to measure transformational and transactional leadership styles;; in addition, quantitative (one-­way repeated measures ANOVA) and qualitative data analyses have been performed. The results of this study indicate that in the business simulation gaming environment, certain leadership characteristics emerged spontaneously. Experiences about leadership varied between the teams and were dependent on the role individual students had in their team. These four studies showed that simulation gaming environment has the potential to be used in higher education to exercise the leadership styles relevant in real-­world work contexts. Further, the study indicated that given debriefing sessions, the simulation game context has much potential to benefit learning. The participants who showed interest in leadership roles were given the opportunity of developing leadership skills in practice. The study also provides evidence of unpredictable situations that participants can experience and learn from during the gaming sessions. The study illustrates the complex nature of experiences from the gaming environments and the need for the team leader and role divisions during the gaming sessions. It could be concluded that the experience of simulation game training illustrated the complexity of real life situations and provided participants with the challenges of virtual leadership experiences and the difficulties of using leadership styles in practice. As a result, the study offers playing computer simulation games in small teams as one way to exercise leadership styles in practice.Siirretty Doriast

Centrum Chrzanowa – rewitalizacja operacyjna i jej rezultaty

Revitalization is the process of giving a new life and the centre of Chrzanów is the unique target of the undertaken actions. The new Renaissance of the central areas – and public urban spaces in particular – marks the return to the very core of the idea of the city and urbanity. The redefi nition of particular, spatially isolated parts of the urbanized environment is an effective form of counteracting deurbanisation processes as well as the social and economic stagnation of the city. In practice, the strategy of operational revitalization developed for the centre of Chrzanów is a series of coordinated social, spatial and economic activities undertaken with respect to the entire city, but carried out gradually in its various locations and scales. The Old Town Market Square, the fi rst to have undergone these processes, quickly became the symbol of the revitalization of the city of Chrzanów and its social affirmation

The Blogosphere - Web 2.0, freedom of speech and legal issues in Poland and worldwide

Nieustannie wzrasta liczba internautów aktywnie działających w Internecie. Jest to przejaw pojawienia się nowego paradygmatu wielu-do-wielu oraz narzędzi i aplikacji Web 2.0. Tym samym umożliwiono użytkownikom Sieci generowanie treści, które publikowane są online oraz wielokrotnie modyfikowane, przekazywane czy komentowane przez innych internautów. Jednym z flagowych przykładów wzmożonej aktywności internautów jest rozwój blogosfery.Nowe technologie, do których bezsprzecznie zalicza się Internet, powodują wiele problemów natury prawnej. Niejednokrotnie międzynarodowe i krajowe ustawodawstwa nie nadążaj za zmianami i nie są w stanie efektywnie uregulować wielu nieszablonowych sytuacji. Często pojawiające się nowelizacje są nieaktualne już w momencie publikacji. Zmiany w formie komunikowania przez Internet oraz rozwój blogosfery doprowadziły do pojawienia się prawie nieograniczonej platformy dla realizacji idei wolności słowa. Tym samym władza legislacyjna stanęła przed zadaniem zdefiniowania norm i zasad, które panować będą w cyberprzestrzeni i określać gdzie znajdują się granice tej wolności.Celem tego opracowania jest zwrócenie uwagi na ważkie problemy, które pojawiają się od momentu sformułowania i wzmożonego używania narzędzi Web 2.0. Należy zauważyć, że kwestie te, pomimo globalnego charakteru Internetu, różnią się w zależności od przyjętych systemów państwowych. Opracowanie to ma za zadanie zarysować zagadnienie wolności słowa w blogosferze na arenie światowej – zarówno regulacji międzynarodowych, jak i skrajnych tendencji legislacyjnych w poszczególnych regionach. Bardzo istotne są również problemy i wątpliwości pojawiające się w polskim ustawodawstwie. Zwrócona zostanie uwaga na kwestie związane z zastosowaniem prawa prasowego oraz ustawy o świadczeniu usług drogą elektroniczną do aktywności blogerów w Sieci.The number of active Internet users is constantly growing. It is a sign of the emergence of a new paradigm called “many-to-many” as well as tools and applications connected with Web 2.0. Thus, surfers have an opportunity to generate content that is published online and repeatedly modified, transferred or commented on by other Internet users. One of the flagship examples of increased activity of the Internet users is the development of the blogosphere.New technologies, which undoubtedly include the Internet, cause many legal problems. Often international and national legislations are not able to keep pace with the changes and therefore cannot effectively regulate many unconventional situations. Often appearing amendments are outdated at the time of publication. Changes in the form of communication through the Internet and the development of the blogosphere have led to the emergence of an almost unlimited platform for the realization of the idea of freedom of speech . Thus, the legislative power faces the task of defining standards and rules that will be binding in cyberspace and determine the boundaries of this freedom .The aim of this study is to draw attention to the major issues that arise from the wording and the increased use of Web 2.0 tools . It should be noted that these issues, despite the global nature of the Internet, vary depending on the adopted state systems. This paper aims to outline the issue of freedom of speech in the blogosphere on the world stage - both international regulations and extreme legislative trends in different regions. Very important are also the problems and doubts appearing in the Polish legislation. Attention will be paid to issues related to the use of the press law and the law on electronic services to the activity of bloggers on the web

The use of new social media platforms as marketing tools on the example of Snapchat

Niniejsza praca dyplomowa ma na celu przedstawienie zmian, które zaszły w marketingu pod wpływem wzrostu znaczenia internetu w codziennym życiu, zwłaszcza obecności mediów społecznościowych. Bardzo istotne jest pojawienie się nowej generacji mediów, nazywanych efemerycznymi, które otwierają niepoznane dotąd perspektywy marketingowe. Autorka zestawia nowe oblicze marketingu z transformacją mającą miejsce wśród nowych pokoleń urodzonych w dobie internetu. Szczególną uwagę poświęcono, bardzo popularnej wśród młodych ludzi, aplikacji Snapchat - flagowemu przykładowi mediów efemerycznych. Przedstawione zostały badania wykazujące możliwości marketingowe tej aplikacji, które odbiegają od tradycyjnych form.The thesis aims to present the changes that have taken place in marketing due to the growing importance of the Internet in everyday life, resulting in the intensified social media presence. Crucial for this thesis is the emergence of a new generation of media, called the ephemeral media, which opens still unexplored marketing perspective. The author combines the new face of marketing with a transformation having place among the new generations born in the Internet era. The particular attention was paid to an application called Snapchat, the flagship example of the ephemeral media, which is very popular among young people. The author presented the findings of her research showing marketing possibilities of the application which differ from the traditional forms

Centrum Chrzanowa – rewitalizacja operacyjna i jej rezultaty

Revitalization is the process of giving a new life and the centre of Chrzanów is the unique target of the undertaken actions. The new Renaissance of the central areas – and public urban spaces in particular – marks the return to the very core of the idea of the city and urbanity. The redefi nition of particular, spatially isolated parts of the urbanized environment is an effective form of counteracting deurbanisation processes as well as the social and economic stagnation of the city. In practice, the strategy of operational revitalization developed for the centre of Chrzanów is a series of coordinated social, spatial and economic activities undertaken with respect to the entire city, but carried out gradually in its various locations and scales. The Old Town Market Square, the fi rst to have undergone these processes, quickly became the symbol of the revitalization of the city of Chrzanów and its social affirmation

The importance of seniors’ education for the level of their cognitive competencies

Cognitive competencies of adults are described by different theoretical models, most often in empirical research using the information processing model and the genetic-development model. In the firstcase, individual processes, such as the speed and accuracy of information processing, are tested. The second model tests the ability to solve abstract, laboratory and practical problems. From middle adulthood, competencies in abstract thinking are reduced, but training limits this decline (Salthouse, 1993, 2006; Sternberg, 1996, Birren, Schaie 2006; Michalska 2015). The ability to solve practical problems is stable and even increases with age of adults (Blanchard-Fields, 2007; Gurba 2016), but it is not known whether education is important for these seniors competencies. The purpose of the study was to determine if the level of cognitive competencies of seniors, measured by the way of solving everyday problems (Test Everyday Problem by Sebby, Papini, 1994), depends on their participation in education in the course of the Third Age University. The two groups of seniors: students of the Third Age University (45 persons) and those who did not participate in institutional education (50 persons) were examined. The best solutions presented by the respondents were compared. For the analysis of the level of cognitive competence, the concept of G. Labouvie-Vief (1980) was used