The Tobin q as a business game performance indicator

Abstract

Various business game indicators of a company’s economic performance exist. The Tobin q was examined as an indicator of the firm’s effectiveness from an investment perspective across a variety of top management games. The Tobin q was also compared to the Altman Z as an alternative indicator of the firm’s financial viability. The q was inconsistently related to each game’s own performance indicator across game and may be a consequence of the unbalancedalgorithms created by game designers to calculate the firm’s stock price and the replacement value of its assets. This study’s results suggest game designers should pay greater attention to the theories of stock price valuations they create for their games and that game administrators should use caution when altering game weights in any performance evaluation scheme.