Wall Street Game

Introduction

The aim of this game is to make the participants reflect on the motives and methods of transnational corporations. It will help you understand how low in their hierarchy of priorities stand ethics, social issues, environment, fair competition.

The game also points out how interpersonal conflicts and animosities can influence company's decisions that affect thousands of people.

Who can play?

The game can be played by anyone preferably over the age of 15.
The number of participants should be between 20 and 25.

Time and place

You need about 2,5 hours in total: 1,5 h to play the game, and 1 h for discussion afterwards.

Make sure there's enough space for the "companies" and the "Wall Street" so that they can sit in some distance and don't disturb each other. There should also be space to move around between the groups. The board on which the stock exchange graph will be drawn must be visible to everybody.

You need:

• role descriptions for each participant (councilors/president)
• sets of 9 problems (one set per each "company")
• answer scheme and score scheme for the "Wall Street"
• a board or a big sheet of paper on which the stock exchange graph will be drawn (see example here)
• colour markers to draw the graph (different colour for each "company")

Step-by-step description:

1. Participants are divided into 4, 5, or 6 "companies".

2. Each "company" sits in some distance from each other so that they don't overhear other companies' discussions.

3. Game facilitators give participants their roles (which must be kept secret and not revealed to anybody neither in nor outside the "company"). There can be more than one councilor with the same role in a "company" (if there are more than 4 persons in it).

4. President of each "company" introduces herself/himself to the other members of a group and the game starts.

5. "Companies" decide on their names and inform the "Wall Street" (the game facilitators).

6. The problems (see below) are distributed to the "companies" in different order, following the answer scheme (see below).

7. "Companies" discuss and vote to choose one of four possible solutions (in case of parity the president's opinion prevails). Then they quickly communicate it to the "Wall Street" that reacts according to the score scheme (see below) and show the result on the graph.

Suggestion:

Time is the essence! You can set up a time limit for solving each problem (for example 5 min). The "Wall Street" can demand slow groups to fasten their actions. It can also punish "companies" unable to take quick decisions, eventually lowering the quotation of their stocks.

You can modify the set of problems by adding new or changing already existing ones. Don't forget to update the score scheme and the answer scheme.

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Role descriptions

PRESIDENT

You are the president of a multinational company. You never have a clear opinion on the solution of a problem and you always prefer to listen to others' reasons before saying your own. One minute before the meeting starts, a close collaborator tells you that one board of directors member is a spy of a competing company. You do not know who she/he might be, but you know she/he will often repeat the word "social". You obviously have to pay attention to the spy's suggestions because she/he will try to make your enterprise collapse.

COUNCILOR 1

As a matter of fact, you are a spy of a competing multinational company. Your task is to convince the other members of the board directors to take decisions opposite to the ones you believe are right, so to make the enterprise collapse.

COUNCILOR 2

You just get in the board of directors of this multinational company and you want to establish good a relationship with the president. You will try to convince the president of your reasons but never contrasting her/him and always flattering her/him. Still, you want your reasons to prevail because you know the president likes firm people. A close friend told you the president seems to be sensitive to social problems, so you have to include in your speeches social matters such as "President, think of the social repercussions" or "President, what will the society say?"

COUNCILOR 3

It's been ten years that you've been a member of the board directors and you are on strained terms with the president. In a month, there will be the election of the new president and you do not want to fail as it happened four years ago. You will do anything to discredit the president and to make your decisions be approved especially if contrasting the president's. By discrediting her/him, you will always insist on her/his irresolution and on her/his inability to come to a quick decision. You will oppose while the other councillors will always agree with her/him.

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Problems

PROBLEM 1

The production costs of your farm in Haiti rose by 10% because of the increase in salaries and of the adjustments to laws which regulate workers safety at work. Digifoot, a competing firm, has just opened a farm in China where salaries are lower and trade unions are weaker. In this way, their shoes cost 15% less than yours.

What do you do? 

1. You open a farm in China but leaving the one in Haiti at least one year.
2. You begin an advertising campaign on work conditions in Chinese farms to strike Digifoot competition.
3. You close Haiti farm and you open one in China.
4. You begin an advertising campaign of your shoes underlining that buying yours helps the poor people in Haiti that work for you.

PROBLEM 2

Your farm in Texas is losing 15% annually and your experts suggest that you should sell it.

What do you do?

1. You fire 1000 out of 3000 workers to control the costs.
2. You invest in a training course for your workers and you begin to make hand-made high quality shoes which will cost $600 a pair.
3. You provide income support for the 3000 workers while waiting to find a buyer for the farm.
4. You fire 2500 workers and you use the rest for administrative jobs.

PROBLEM 3

800 workers who used to be employed in one of your farms in Mexico sued you for damages assuming you were adopting solvents glue which caused their permanent sterility.

What do you do? 

1. Before the trial starts, you immediately indemnify them with $15.000. To promote your action you buy a page in the Times.
2. You buy the jury with $100.000 to make sure you do not have to pay any indemnity.
3. You wait for the trial.
4. You pay some of the best lawyers in New York to defend you so as to make sure to be discharged (it will cost you $10.000.000).

PROBLEM 4

Greenpeace has discovered that you use a cancerous element to produce one model of your shoes. For this reason, Greenpeace activists chain themselves to the gates of your central office in London.

What do you do? 

1. You ignore the protest and deny the use of the cancerous element.
2. You call a meeting with the delegation from Greenpeace.
3. You stop using of the cancerous element waiting for scientific results (you have to close the farm losing $50,000 a day).
4. You kick the activists out.

PROBLEM 5

Activists are distributing pamphlets in front of your Italian shops (around 140) denouncing the dreadful working conditions in your Indian farms. The shop director in Pinerolo sued the ones distributing pamphlets in front of his shop.

What do you do? 

1. You deny any responsibility of what is going on in India, but you do not take part in the trial.
2. You establish an inquiry commission into your Indian farms.
3. You support the director and start the trial against the activists to defend your image (it will cost you about $800.000).
4. You ignore the matter and you do not support the director’s action.

PROBLEM 6

You bought 70% of Benzina si, a Nigerian petrol company. Many of its oil-wells are located in the middle of the Nigerian virgin forest.

What do you do? 

1. You extract oil but you make sure that any precaution is taken to avoid pollution (this costs you 20% more).
2. You extract at lower cost.
3. You decide not to extract oil from the virgin forest to avoid pollution.
4. You keep extracting oil and you launch a new kind of petrol: "Pine-petrol", a new petrol smelling pine to strike ecologists.

PROBLEM 7

Amnesty International accuses Vietnamese farms which produce laces for your shoes: bad salaries, corporal punishments, prohibition of using bathroom more than once a day.

What do you do? 

1. You give $100.000 to Amnesty International.
2. You establish an ethic behaviour which pledges you to engage just companies that recognise dignity to workers. But you reject any kind of supervision.
3. You deny Amnesty's report.
4. You close any relationship with the farms.

PROBLEM 8

You have the possibility to have the most famous football player Bobaldo for an advertising campaign ($20.000.000).

What do you do? 

1. You prefer a cheaper contract with the Brazilian volleyball national team ($10.000.000).
2. You accept it and you launch a big advertising campaign on television and magazines with Bobaldo.
3. You refuse it and start a new advertising campaign by doubling salaries if your 80.000 Asian workers (it costs $20.000.000).
4. You hire not only Bobaldo but also his entire team. You launch a huge campaign ($50.000.000).

PROBLEM 9

Your main competing firm invents a new material: "gompack", which makes shoe soles harder and stronger . "Gompack" pollutes rivers next to the Brazilian farm.

What do you do? 

1. You denounce your competing firm for the pollution.
2. You use it but reclaim the area.
3. You finance a new research on a material which does not pollute.
4. You also use it.

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Answer Scheme

Using this answer scheme the "Wall Street" (i.e. game facilitators) distributes problem descriptions to the "companies" according to the specified order. It is also helpful in registering answers and scoring.

ANSWER SCHEME
RED...[company name]			BROWN...[company name]			GREEN...[company name]
problem	answer	score	problem	answer	score	problem	answer	score
2			8			8
3			7			9
4			6			2
5			9			3
6			2			6
7			1			7
8			5			1
9			3			5
1			4			4
BLUE...[company name]			BLACK...[company name]			PURPLE...[company name]
problem	answer	score	problem	answer	score	problem	answer	score
3			5			2
5			4			4
7			3			6
9			9			8
1			8			1
2			7			3
4			6			5
6			2			7
8			1			9

Score scheme

"Wall Street" consults this scheme to check the results of companies' decisions.

SCORE SCHEME
Answer	Problem 1	Problem 2	Problem 3	Problem 4	Problem 5
A	-50	50	-100	50	100
B	-100	-150	50	50	100
C	50	-50	-50	-100	150
D	-100	100	50	100	0
Answer	Problem 6	Problem 7	Problem 8	Problem 9
A	-100	100	100	50
B	100	100	150	-50
C	-100	100	-150	-50
D	50	-100	200	50

Debriefing and Discussion

For the debriefing and discussion you can sit all together or split into 2/3 groups (to make it easier for everybody to speak). Try to base your discussion on the following topics:

• Analysing the problems your "companies" were struggling with, point out which decisions were rewarded by "Wall Street" and which not.
• Were your "companies" eager to sacrifice profits for the good of environment, people's health, safety, rights?
• What was the impact of interpersonal relations within the "companies" on the decisions that you took?
• Do you think this game reflects the reality?
• How can we make huge coroprations become more responsible?

This game has been used during the Ecumenical Youth Council of Europe seminar on globalisation in Prali, Italy in April 2001. © 2002 ecumenical youth website: www.ecumenicalyouth.org