Student teams role-play as companies to compete. All teams (i.e. the classroom) constitute the entire market. Classroom competition games are initially conducted whereby students only choose prices. Then, student strategy space is relaxed to include more learning content: asymmetric information, brand loyalty, market share dominance, exit gains through liquidation, inventory carry-over, change of timing for market entry, and the possibility of collusion and merger/acquisition by negotiation. Economic principles are contrasted with classroom game outcomes. Findings indicate better learning outcomes through specific-to-general strategy sequence, rather than general-to-specific strategy sequence. Cumulative learning is key, within a certain sequence of play, which maximizes mental activity. The winning team is not necessarily the most happy team even when bonus credit has been given. Learning gaps constitute a commonality challenge in the games played. In addition to learning across teams, students acquire self-learning through intra-group interactions. Self-learning included convincing skills, leadership capabilities, and leadership limitations. Game outcomes reveal collective trembling-hand errors do persist under highly uncertain game scenarios relative to less uncertain scenarios, and at the same time, higher team profits are associated with lower risk conditions. This suggests a contrast to the classical literature on trembling-hand imperfection and risk-return tradeoffs in economics principles, i.e. a contrast to trembling-hand imperfection and higher risk-higher return doctrines. Moreover, inventory carry-overs are able to “switch winners” from a price advantage team towards a market share advantage team, if the timing of price announcement is switched from pre-production pricing to post-production pricing. In retrospect, Cournot game outcomes are found contingent on the timing of Bertrand price strategies, hence implying a needed association between Bertrand and Cournot models of competition. Additionally, it was perceived that a quick response to a radical change in opponent team strategies is Pareto-dominant over the optimal strategy response itself if the latter is exercised beyond a certain time lag. This is true even if discounting is omitted from the game structure. Overall, the most critical learning technique for students in specific-to-general framework is what we call “faster collective adaptability” even if conducted with impure rationality
