Bach Nguyen

How leadership develops through online gaming

As the title of the paper, Leadership Development through Online Gaming, indicates,
the authors, Tinnawat Nuangjumnonga and Hitoshi Mitomo, want to prove that online gaming
can help players develop leadership. The concept about the relationship between leadership
development and video games is being discussed all the time but the arguments are only
momentary and discrete, thus making them dubious, while this paper is proven to be a highly
reliable work: it is based on widely-applied theories (including Fred Fiedlers contingency model
(1967) and Kurt Lewins leadership model (1939)) and uses scientific data analysis.
With an objective tone, the authors present their work in a neat structure. First, they have
an introduction at the beginning that gives readers a general understanding about the concept of
online gaming and shows the purpose of studying about the correlation that exists between
character roles in games and leadership in everyday life (Nuangjumnonga and Hitoshi).
Besides, in this section, the authors also provide the necessary information about the
aforementioned theories as well as a related research conducted by IBM, which strengthens the
credibility of this research even more, and two games which are used in this research, DOTA and
HON. From the paper, readers, even who didnt know about games before, can see that both
games share many similar characteristics that are all connected to game roles, or in other words,
character roles, four of which are mentioned and used in this research. Then the authors use Kurt
Lewins leadership model to define three leadership styles, implying that they are not only going
to prove the relationship between leadership development and video games but also going to
identify which leadership style is suitable for which character role. It is the authors intention that
they arrange the leadership styles determination part right after the character roles determination

part so readers can easily recognize the links between them. This is also explained further in the
following text:
The basic rationale behind the explanation is that, just as leaders each have a specific
style, game roles each have specific abilities as well. Leaders are restricted by the given problem
or situation to be resolved, and game roles are also restricted by the game rules and game
environment they were placed in. Both leaders and game roles, therefore, share very similar
situational control scenarios. Within these scenarios, leadership styles and game roles also share
overlapping traits and behaviors. Through these links between the scenario and behaviors, the
correlation of leadership and game roles are established (Nuangjumnonga and Hitoshi).
To demonstrate this idea efficiently, the authors use Fred Fiedlers contingency model
which argues that the personality of the leader (known as the leadership style) and the degree to
which a situation gives the leader control and influence (known as situation control), are the two
fundamental factors which define the effectiveness of an organization (Nuangjumnonga, and
Hitoshi). By using this model, the authors are able to justify the correlation between authoritarian
leadership style and carry game role, authoritarian and democratic leadership styles and ganker
game role, democratic leadership style and support game role as well as laissez-faire leadership
style and the non-assigned game role (a specifically created role for players who care little about
the game roles and play the game without full conscious awareness of the games main concepts
during gameplay).
The research doesnt stop here as the authors want to show real life proof through a
survey which examines the daily life behaviors and the gameplay behaviors of the game players.
It is shown that they chose the survey target sample carefully by targeting only unemployed
individuals, who have not yet been shaped by group collaborations in work, and people who

have played at least 400 games, a sufficient minimum to eliminate inexperienced game players
who might miscomprehend the survey questions meanings. With the data from the survey, the
authors perform a thorough data analysis which includes Quantitative Data Summary, Factor
Analysis and Multinomial Logistic Regression. The results from the analysis prove the
arguments the authors make before and even show relationships between leadership styles and
other factors such as gender, age, income, time spent on games and, very interestingly, location
of gameplay.
This research targets a wide range of audience thanks to its well arranged structure and
coherent arguments, from people who know nothing about games to game analysts, but it would
be the best for scholars since they can understand those two models and the data analysis. It has
limits because it has to base on two assumptions:
First, it is assumed that game players are making rational decisions when choosing game
characters and when playing the games. Second, it is assumed that game players always attempt
to maximize their game roles ability to the fullest extent when playing the games
(Nuangjumnonga and Hitoshi).
These assumptions are ideal conditions for the research, which can not always be true in real life.
In addition, it is considered that work experience has not yet shaped the leadership style of the
unemployed individuals who take the survey and respondents who are more experienced in
gameplay are supposed to be more precise in identifying their gameplay behaviors. On the other
hand, it also has a lot of uses: people can use this research to relate their own leadership styles to
find suitable character roles or vice versa, in general, by playing games with a conscious mind,
game players shall be able to learn more about themselves from their gameplay habits; also by
observing and studying how young adults play games, it is possible for parents to better

comprehend the characteristics of their children. Furthermore, game developers can create games
that benefit not only leadership development, but also creativity and decision-making by using
this research as a reference.
This research is significant because it has revealed that there are correlations as to how
games are played and the leadership style which the game players possess. This relationship was
proven using three different roles recognized in the games DOTA and HON carry, support and
ganker game roles with the addition of a non-assigned role. Three major leadership styles as
defined by Kurt Lewin authoritarian, democratic and laissez-faire leadership styles were
tested for correlation in conjunction with the game roles. In the end, this research concludes that
game roles are positively correlated with leadership styles and can also potentially be used to
identify leadership styles.

Works Cited
Nuangjumnonga, Tinnawat, and Hitoshi Mitomo. Leadership Development through Online
Gaming. Proc. of 19th ITS Biennial Conference 2012, Bangkok, Thailand. Web. 2012.
<http://hdl.handle.net/10419/72527>.
Fiedler, E. F. (1967). A Theory of Leadership Effectiveness. Urbana: McGraw-Hill.
Fiedler, E. F. (1978). Situational Control and a Dynamic Theory of Leadership. In B. King, S.
Streufert, & E. F. Fiedler, Managerial Control and Organizational Democracy (pp. 10731). Washington: V.H. Winston & Sons.
Lewin, K., & Lippitt, R. (1938). An Experimental Approach to the Study of Autocracy and
Democracy: A Preliminary Note. Sociometry , 1 (3/4), 292-300.
Lewin, K., Lippitt, R., & White, R. K. (1939). Patterns of aggressive behavior in experimentally
created social climates. Journal of Social Psychology , 10 (2), 271-301.