This article discusses the benefits of using Mafia—a fun, interactive, low-cost, and easy-to-learn role-playing game—to explore organizational behavior (OB) topics. We explain how Mafia can be used in the classroom to discuss OB topics, including dynamics of teamwork, disagreement and conflict, decision-making, trust, roles, and communication. We share our experience playing Mafia in three undergraduate-level class sessions and provide recommendations, based on experiential learning and critical thinking principles, for instructors interested in playing this game. Overall, students enjoyed the sessions and provided some interesting insight in the debriefing, demonstrating the suitability of this game to discuss OB concepts.
AbdulmajedH.ParkY. S.TekianA. (2015). Assessment of educational games for health professions: A systematic review of trends and outcomes. Medical Teacher, 37, S27–S32. https://doi.org/10.3109/0142159X.2015.1006609
2.
AkerlofG. (1970). The market for lemons: Quality uncertainty and the market mechanism. Quarterly Journal of Economics, 84(3), 488–500. https://doi.org/10.2307/1879431
BatchellerA. L.HilligossB.NamK.RaderE.Rey-BabarroM.ZhouX. (2007). Testing the technology: Playing games with video conferencing. In Proceedings of the SIGCHI conference on human factors in computing systems. https://doi.org/10.1145/1240624.1240751
5.
BrayS. R.BrawleyL. R. (2002). Role efficacy, role clarity, and role performance effectiveness. Small Group Research, 33(2), 233–253. https://doi.org/10.1177/104649640203300204
6.
ChittaranjanG.HungH. (2010). Are you a Werewolf? Detecting deceptive roles and outcomes in a conversational role-playing game. In IEEE international conference on acoustics, speech and signal processing. https://doi.org/10.1109/ICASSP.2010.5494961
7.
ChowA. F.WoodfordK. C.MaesJ. (2011). Deal or no deal: Using games to improve student learning, retention and decision-making. International Journal of Mathematical Education in Science and Technology, 42(2), 259–264. https://doi.org/10.1080/0020739X.2010.519796
8.
ConnerC. T.BaxterN. M. (2022). Are you a Werewolf? Teaching symbolic interaction theory through game play. Teaching Sociology, 50(1), 17–27. https://doi.org/10.1177/0092055X211053375
9.
DaniauS. (2016). The transformative potential of role-playing games—From play skills to human skills. Simulation & Gaming, 47(4), 423–444. https://doi.org/10.1177/1046878116650765
10.
EgerM.MartensC. (2018). Keeping the story straight: A comparison of commitment strategies for a social deduction game. In Proceedings of the 14th AAAI conference on artificial intelligence and interactive digital entertainment. https://doi.org/10.1609/aiide.v14i1.13015
11.
Giraud-CarrierF. C.SchmidtG. M. (2015). Learning in the fast lane: The freeway game. Decision Sciences Journal of Innovative Education, 13(3), 273–287. https://doi.org/10.1111/dsji.12068
12.
HakanenM.SoudunsaariA. (2012). Building trust in high-performing teams. Technology Innovation Management Review, 2(6), 38–41. http://doi.org/10.22215/timreview/567
13.
HungH.ChittaranjanG. (2010). The idiap wolf corpus: Exploring group behaviour in a competitive role-playing game. In Proceedings of the 18th ACM international conference on multimedia. https://doi.org/10.1145/1873951.1874102
KolbA. Y.KolbD. A. (2005). Learning styles and learning spaces: Enhancing experiential learning in higher education. Academy of Management Learning and Education, 4(2), 193–212. https://doi.org/10.5465/AMLE.2005.17268566
17.
LeanJ.MoizerJ.TowlerM.AbbeyC. (2006). Simulations and games: Use and barriers in higher education. Active Learning in Higher Education, 7(3), 227–242. https://doi.org/10.1177/1469787406069056
18.
MarkulisP.StrangD. (2016). The game of the “in” & “out” groups. Developments in Business Simulation and Experiential Learning, 43, 4–7.
NorhaidiW. M. S. W.RomlyR.AbdullahA. N. S. (2019). Lowering anxiety among low proficiency ESL learners using the mafia game. International Journal of Innovative Technology and Exploring Engineering, 8, 67–73.
21.
O’BrienD.LawlessK. A.SchraderP. G. (2010). A taxonomy of educational games. In BaekY. K. (Ed.), Gaming for classroom-based learning: Digital role playing as a motivator of study (pp. 1–23). Information Science Reference. https://doi.org/10.4018/978-1-61520-713-8.ch001
22.
RandiM. A. F.CarvalhoH. F. (2013). Learning through role-playing games: An approach for active learning and teaching. Revista Brasileira de Educação Médica, 37(1), 80–88. https://doi.org/10.1590/S0100-55022013000100012
23.
RosenA. M. (2018). The value of games and simulations in the social sciences. In Kozimor-KingM. L.ChinJ. (Eds.), Learning from each other: Refining the practice of teaching in higher education (pp. 215–227). University of California Press. https://doi.org/10.1525/9780520969032-018
24.
SmithG. F. (2003). Beyond critical thinking and decision making: Teaching business students how to think. Journal of Management Education, 27(1), 24–51. https://doi.org/10.1177/1052562902239247
25.
SwainJ. E.BogardusJ. A.LinE. (2021). “Come on down”: Using a trivia game to teach the concept of organizational justice. Management Teaching Review, 6(3), 210–222. https://doi.org/10.1177/2379298119892588
26.
TjosvoldD.WongA. S.Feng ChenN. Y. (2014). Constructively managing conflicts in organizations. Annual Review of Organizational Psychology and Organizational Behavior, 1(1), 545–568. https://doi.org/10.1146/annurev-orgpsych-031413-091306
27.
van EschC.WiggenT. (2020). Can your students save the world? Utilizing Pandemic®, a cooperative board game to teach management. Management Teaching Review, 5(3), 275–283. https://doi.org/10.1177/2379298120933626
28.
XiongS.LiW.MaoX.IidaH. (2018). Mafia game setting research using game refinement measurement. In CheokA.InamiM.RomãoT. (Eds.), Advances in computer entertainment technology (pp. 830–846). https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-76270-8_56
29.
ZulkifliA. A.FatimahS. (2019). Using Werewolf game to teach speaking to senior high school students. Journal of English Language Teaching, 8(1), 61–70.
Supplementary Material
Please find the following supplemental material available below.
For Open Access articles published under a Creative Commons License, all supplemental material carries the same license as the article it is associated with.
For non-Open Access articles published, all supplemental material carries a non-exclusive license, and permission requests for re-use of supplemental material or any part of supplemental material shall be sent directly to the copyright owner as specified in the copyright notice associated with the article.
