Computer history and the movement of business simulations

Abstract

In this paper I explore some aspects of the rise of early business games in the post-war period after the Second World War. For a game to become truth-apt in a scientific sense and able to guide actions in a pragmatic sense it needs coupling to the computer and its technical-mechanical calculatory competence as well as certain types of rationality assigned to it culturally. Regarding this interconnection of games and rationality with the medium computer, three different ways of using computers can be described: First, the idea of the computer functions operationally in administration. With the aid of the computer, many of the corporate management’s tasks are to be realized in a more rational and less mistake prone way. Secondly, the computer appears simulatorily in this context, by calculating and presenting complex management operations. Following the idea of the cybernetic control circuit the computer as dream constellation promises understanding and manipulability of complex systemic interdependencies. Third, the constellation of the computer acts as a stochastic and probabilistic tool, as a decision making aid in possible situations and for the consequences of future decisions. In early business simulations the company, modeled as a game, is examined and evaluated with the aid of the computer. Thus the business game serves as a metareflection of processes, decisions, strategies and planning within the company (1). The interconnections of rationality and the mediality of computing machines are complex and run parallelly on several levels, as historically the computer not only changes the functionality of a business operationally as an element of rationalization in order to increase efficiency for example in administrative procedures (scientific management), but at the same time is also used on the level of longterm planning, analysis, decision making as well as in schooling and training (decision making).