EagleRacing: Addressing Corporate Collaboration Challenges Through an Online Simulation Game

The ability to collaborate productively is critical for individuals and organizations in order to operate effectively in today’s global environment. Effective collaboration allows corporations to identify and replicate operational best practices and to optimize business activities such as cross-selling and providing integrated solutions. Effective collaboration can also produce innovation, a key driver of organizational renewal and success (Damanpour and Evan 1984; Damanpour, Szabat, and Evan 1989; Dyer and Singh 1998; Loof and Heshmati 2006). However, many collaboration initiatives fail to deliver the value expected (Labianca, Brass, and Gray 1998; Miles and Snow 1992; Shenkar and Yan 2002), at least in part because individuals may resist collaborating. People resist collaboration for many reasons: because they do not see any advantage for themselves; because they do not have the same objectives as those with whom they are asked to collaborate; because they believe the cost in time will outweigh benefits; because they have had bad prior experiences; because they do not trust collaboration partners who have different cultural beliefs or attitudes toward risk; or because they see that their corporate culture does not reward the sharing and co-creation of information, experiences, ideas, or perspectives (Ashforth and Mael 1989; Brewer 1993; Huxham and Vangan 2005).