Netrepreneur simulation: the development of realism in virtual e-entrepreneurship learning

This chapter considers the pedagogic requirements of entrepreneurial education within one specific context of e-commerce. It documents and evaluates the development of an e-commerce trading simulation “Netrepreneur”, which was first introduced in a development stage at the European Association for Education and Research in Commercial Distribution in 2002 and later published in the Journal of Retail and Distribution Management in 2004. Netrepreneur is a virtual world that users can run to learn the general dynamics of business-to-consumer (B2C).

E-commerce venture creation is one of the complex causes of casualties in the online economy. The virtual world is represented by a shopping mall within which entrepreneurs can design and implement Web-based companies to market virtual goods/services online to a large group of users. ‘Consumers’ then use the site and their behaviour is monitored to form the basis of a future business plan.

The later part of the chapter reviews the finding of a post-evaluation survey that was undertaken with an undergraduate e-enterprise teaching programme of 100 students. The methodology adopted was grounded in the current body of knowledge within the field of ‘presence’ (Witmer & Singer, 2005) and which was measured by the Presence Questionnaire (PQ). The post evaluation feedback from Netretpreneur demonstrates that a strong sense of presence was experienced by participants and that this plays an important role in the process of the transfer of skills by emulating the behaviour of the practitioners.

Netrepeneur has been used by universities to facilitate undergraduate-level learning. It has also been used by The Retail Enterprise Network, an organisation created under the European EQUAL initiative to develop ways of protecting and promoting diversity within the SME retail sector, in its training programmes for both Spanish and British users.

Dawn Lavelle
Current Research
Simulation Games
Virtual Outlets - The business simulation is intended to provide an educational and stimulating introduction into the business of fashion retailing. The simulation is designed to provide players with real world experiences in managing the variables that are encountered in business decision-making across the retail pipeline. As such players experience how the many areas of retailing are interrelated and the decision maker must consider how they affect each other in the fulfilment of the retail proposition.
Netrepreneur - This simulatory environment creates a constructed representation of the e-commerce environment. Netrepreneur simulates the initial start up phases of e-business creation and aims to create a holistic understanding of the entrepreneurial process as well as encouraging participants to 'learn by doing' in the simulated virtual world, instead of trial and error in the real e-economy.
Future Finance - The Home Office has supported and funded research into the development of an educational simulation game which creates an experiential 'virtual world', which participants can play to learn the general dynamics of managing their personal financial future. The purpose of this development was to build a simulation game to improve financial literacy amongst groups 'at risk' in terms of poor personal financial management and it’s associated problems.