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This paper aims to stimulate interest in the potentials of serious games within organizations. Through the examination of a case study, emphasis is given to serious games designed for health care (HC) organizations that are adopting lean thinking principles and tools.

The paper discusses how serious games can be designed and implemented in practice by describing a case study based on a HC organization. The program, now in its second year, has been used extensively to train HC professionals.

The article is based on the authors’ firsthand experience with serious games and the outcome of several projects carried out in the HC setting under analysis. Serious games were found to be powerful training and management development tools as well as engaging environments for professionals. Specifically, The Lean Healthcare Lab supported professionals in their use and implementation of several Lean principles and techniques.

The article suggests the opportunity to evaluate the effectiveness of serious games also to improve team performance and develop leadership skills.

Serious games have an enormous potential in sustaining processes of both individual and organizational learning, as well as facilitating improved teamwork. Moreover, serious games are very effective educational tools when compared to more conventional programs.

The approach described in this study can be used to design and implement serious games in any type of organization, in particular, those employing highly skilled professionals. Additionally, this article highlights how serious games can provide learners with a simulated close-to-reality environment where they are challenged to develop policies and use a variety of Lean and management tools.

This paper builds on the debate regarding the application of Lean strategy principles and tools in modern organizations, specifically focusing on the healthcare (HC) sector. The purpose of this paper is threefold: first, to highlight the potential role played by Lean strategy tools for strategic planning and management, particularly in reference to the Hoshin Kanri policy deployment system and the “focus, alignment, integration, and review” (FAIR) method; second, to discuss how Lean strategy can be operationalized, specifically relying on the X-Matrix reporting tool; and third, to explore how simulation techniques, in the form of role-playing (RP), may support the aforementioned operationalization of Lean strategy while at the same time promoting policymaking and knowledge sharing.

This research adopts a case study approach. Specifically, the paper relies on the use of a RP Lean strategy project developed in a HC setting.

The paper highlights the potential for the Hoshin Kanri policy deployment process in HC, also emphasizing the main strengths of X-Matrix reporting and the usefulness of the RP technique to support learning acquisition and decision making.

The paper demonstrates how a Lean strategy simulation project may be effectively used for strategic planning/management and to train professionals in HC. To achieve these aims, a methodology to design and implement simulation-based Lean strategy projects in HC is presented and discussed.

A review of the academic literature indicates that Lean strategy is still an emerging research topic addressed by only a limited number of articles. The paper contributes to a deeper understanding of the fundamentals of Lean strategy (particularly Hoshin Kanri and X-Matrix) with particular reference to the HC sector.

This study seeks to: (1) discuss how the integrated reporting (IR) framework may provide the principles, concepts and the key elements to support the analysis and representation of circular economy (CE)–related activities and information; (2) explore how and to what extent current IR practices are including and disclosing CE-related information; (3) investigate through an exploratory case study the interplays between IR and CE.

Building on a theoretical analysis of the interplays between CE and IR, this study first performs textual content analysis on a dataset of 84 integrated reports to determine the type and extent of CE-related disclosure. Subsequently, the article presents and discusses an exploratory case study developed according to an action research perspective.

Through textual content analysis, the study provides data on CE-related reporting practices for 74 organizations operating worldwide, highlighting differences in reporting choices and emphasizing the role played by IR concepts. Through the exploratory case study, this article provides insights on how IR principles support the analysis and the (re)presentation of CE-related information.

Content analysis is used to explore how and to what extent companies disclose CE-related information, not to investigate the quality of such disclosure. Only one single exploratory case study is used.

This article advocates to embed CE data into integrated reports and according to IR principles. The exploratory case study offers useful insights and examples.

This work represents one of the first studies advocating and exploring the interplays between CE and IR. Additionally, this study aids in the development of a more standardized and established terminology for CE research and reporting practices.

The purpose of this paper is to explore the way in which system dynamics (SD) can enhance some key success factors of the balanced scorecard (BSC) model and support decision-makers, specifically in analyzing and evaluating the results of hypothetical scenarios. Moreover, the paper aims to emphasize the role played by statistics not only in validating the SD-based BSC, but also in increasing managers’ confidence in the model reliability.

The paper presents a case study, developed according to an action research perspective, in which a three-step approach to the BSC implementation was followed. Specifically, the first step requires the development and implementation of a “traditional” BSC, which is refined and transformed into a simulation SD model in the second step. Last, the SD-based BSC is combined with statistics to develop policy making and scenario analysis.

The integration of BSC and SD modeling enables the development of a comprehensive approach to strategy formulation and implementation and, more importantly, provides a more reliable basis upon which to build and test sound cause-and-effect relationships, within a specific BSC. This paper exemplifies how an SD-based BSC can be used – and perceived reliable – to evaluate different scenarios and mutually exclusive policy effects in a multidimensional approach. In particular, this study illustrates how to forecast and depict trends for financial and non-financial indicators over the simulation period, with reference to three different scenarios.

This paper contributes to the ongoing debate on the BSC by exploring whether a combination of SD and statistics may enhance the BSC system’s advantages and facilitate its implementation process and use for decision-making and scenario analysis.

This study aims to contribute to the ongoing debate on behavioral operational research (BOR), specifically discussing the potential of system dynamics (SD) models to analyze decision-making heuristics. In more detail, the study suggests using an SD model as an ex-post research tool adopted not only to mimic a role-playing game (RPG) – reproducing the whole physical structure, and the complete set of decision rules specified for a supply chain (SC) management game – but also, and specifically, to replicate and analyze the players’ in-game behavior and decision-making.

After presenting a brief literature review devoted to highlighting the key concepts of the emerging streams of research named BOR and behavioral system dynamics (BehSD), the study presents the characteristics and results of an SC management-based RPG and describes the SD model that was developed to mimic the game and provide the base-run. A triangulation of data sources (which included feedback questionnaires and reports drawn up by 86 participants, as well as notes collected through direct observation of one of the authors) was used to infer information about and in-game decisions. Subsequently, four alternative versions of the SD model were calibrated to reproduce, investigate and explain ex-post the players’ in-game behavior and decision-making heuristics; this study specifically refers to one of them.

The SD model can be considered as the first output of this research. The model was calibrated to mimic the game and subsequently used to develop a few alternative models, helpful to replicate players’ behavior and analyze decision-making heuristics. The findings reveal not fully rational decisions taken by the players and share common findings with previous literature on the emergence of sub-optimal strategies (e.g. phantom ordering and hoarding strategies). The data collected from questionnaires, reports and direct observation additionally revealed that stress and behavioral factors played a role in affecting in-game decision-making.

Considering a specific RPG setting, the SD model developed in this study replicated and captured the range of factors affecting decision-making heuristics, allowing an ex-post analysis of in-game decisions. Notably, the research design presented and used in this study can be considered a generic one, which could be applied subsequently in a variety of contexts, also in combination with simulation/gaming tools and techniques different from role-playing, and both for educational and training purposes, and for research validation.

This study builds on and makes a contribution to the debate related to the emerging stream of research of BOR and more specifically, provides insights and evidence for the yet growing field of BehSD, at the same time advocating and suggesting further research in this area. Overall, the research revealed that behavioral factors may play a relevant role in driving and affecting human decision-making in simulation/gaming contexts.

According to the “strategic focus and future orientation” principle of the integrated reporting (<IR>) framework, <IR> should provide information useful to support investors in assessing the future financial performance of organizations. This study aims to support the operationalization of this function by improving the forward-looking orientation of the integrated report.

Basing on the backward- and forward-looking disclosure in <IR> and the dynamic resource-based view (DRBV), this study develops an explorative case study building a quantitative simulation model based on an integrated report.

This study provides useful insights into how operationalizing the <IR> “future orientation” and obtaining more quantitative information on the organization’s capacity to create value in the future by applying DRBV and quantitative simulation modeling.

The article presents one case study to explore the method suggested to improve the <IR> forward-looking orientation. Additional case studies applying the same research design should be certainly useful to refine the method.

Supporting the <IR> forward-looking orientation, this study provides additional information for the decision-making process of investors, thus contributing to the efficient and productive allocation of capital.

Few studies have investigated forward-looking information in integrated reports, highlighting the existence of an “information gap” referred to such disclosure. Overcoming these previous results, the study provides useful insights on how to improve the <IR> forward-looking orientation.

The purpose of this paper is to investigate the potentials of role-playing (RP) both in training healthcare (HC) professionals to implement tools and improvement actions based on Lean principles, and in supporting group discussion and the sharing of different competencies for the development of Lean HC.

The paper presents the case study of an RP simulation called LEAN HEALTHCARE LAB, which is used to train HC professionals at Siena University Hospital. The paper reports and discusses the results of a specific two-day simulation session and of a questionnaire that was distributed to gather feedback from the participants.

The paper verifies the potentials of RP to be a powerful educational and training tool that is able to stimulate the HC participants to apply Lean thinking principles and share their competencies in collaborative decision-making processes.

The study provides data in reference to one single simulation session, although the game has already been applied several times in different HC organizations with very similar outcomes. Moreover, a more in-depth analysis of players’ perceptions and decisions could be performed using different tools in addition to the adopted questionnaire.

RP games (RPGs) are effective training and educational tools for HC professionals. They offer benefits and learning conditions which are definitely different if compared with more conventional education programs for HC professionals.

While previous studies have extensively discussed the potentialities of RPG and simulations in training programs, only a few articles have discussed the RP adoption for Lean thinking and even less to educate HC professionals on Lean principles and tools.

Drawing motivation from the greater exposure to uncertainty and condition changes that affect large projects due to their long lifecycle, this paper aims to investigate how the time factor affects the use of governance mechanisms to pursue the success of these projects.

To pursue its aim, the article applies the dichotomization between the hard and soft mechanisms of project governance to the analysis of a historical case study, whose findings are organized over the short, medium and long periods. The case selected is referred to the peculiar water system, made up of tunnels named “bottini,” that was in use in Siena (Italy) as the old aqueduct. Specifically, the study focuses on the project of expansion of this water system that was realized during the 14th century for the construction of the “Bottino maestro di Fontegaia.”

This article highlights the different relevance that, during the lifecycle of large projects, is assumed by hard and soft governance mechanisms, with the former having main relevance in a short and medium period, and the latter usually emerging in the medium period and, subsequently, playing a growing role for the project success in the long period.

The article contributes to the literature on large projects by providing novel insights about how the time factor impacts the governance of these projects. Furthermore, the case study, with its unique history, highlights the relevance of combining effectively the hard and the soft dimensions of project governance to pursue success.