Inside the business simulation that is redefining how Latin America and Europe's most prestigious business schools prepare tomorrow's leaders
At some point during the week, all participants have the same thought: this doesn't feel like a class.
EXSIM (Executive Simulation) immerses teams of future business leaders in the complexity of running a real company. Every decision counts. Every mistake has consequences. And in the end, only one team leads the market.
The problem no one wants to discuss
In 2004, Henry Mintzberg, a professor at McGill University and one of the most influential voices in organizational theory, published a book that shook the world of business schools. Its title was a direct provocation: Managers Not MBAs.
His central thesis was uncomfortable: "The MBA trains the wrong people in the wrong ways with the wrong consequences." For Mintzberg, pretending to create managers in a classroom from people who have never managed anything is a sham. "It's not a science," he argued in an interview with Poets&Quants in 2016. "It's an art. It's a craft based on experience."
The problem Mintzberg identified has an academic name: the theory-practice gap. A 1984 study published by ERIC, titled "The Theory/Practice Gap in Management," found that "a majority of respondents felt a significant gap existed" between what is taught in business schools and what is practiced in the real world. Practicing managers perceived this gap as deeper than academics did.
Four decades later, the diagnosis persists. The research paper "Bridging the Theory-Practice Gap in Business Education: Insights from the Indian Context," published on ResearchGate in 2024, revealed "a significant misalignment between theoretical knowledge and practical skills, with both educators and industry professionals acknowledging the need for curriculum reforms."
The researchers' recommendations are consistent:
- more industry collaboration,
- more case studies,
- more simulations,
- more mandatory internships.
The response from Barcelona and Mexico City
EXSIM was born in this context.
Built on a longstanding collaboration between Eureka Simulations, IESE Business School, and IPADE, EXSIM is a comprehensive simulation designed specifically for executive and graduate programs. Its premise is straightforward: immersing participants "in the complexity of running a company, where every decision counts and every team competes to lead the market."
The program lasts a full week. IESE Business School's official page states that its objective is "to create realistic managerial situations that allow students to gain new insights through a learning-by-doing approach." Since many participants have limited professional experience, "these scenarios often lie outside their current experience, enabling them to learn by simulating future work conditions".
Teams inherit companies with two years of operation. Everyone starts with the same financial conditions. What happens next depends on their decisions in marketing, manufacturing, logistics, finance, ESG, and human resources. More than 20 management reports provide real-time feedback.
When bankers and unions enter the picture
What sets EXSIM apart from other simulators is its human component.
Throughout the week, teams present to boards of directors composed of more than 500 real executives who participate annually, according to IESE. There are no scripts or predictable answers.
But Thursday is when everything intensifies. That morning, participants face two simultaneous negotiations: with bankers from credit risk departments—who evaluate debt terms, interest rates, and payment schedules—and with union representatives discussing wages and working conditions. Union negotiations happen in two stages: first at the sector level, then company by company.
An IESE student described the experience on the official MBA blog in 2015: "It is one of those simulation games with the twist that you have meetings with banks, union representatives and also you report to a board. By the end of the week, you see the best and worst in people".
The theory behind it
EXSIM's design is not arbitrary. It is grounded in the work of psychologist David Kolb, who in 1984 formalized experiential learning theory.
Kolb defined learning as "the process whereby knowledge is created through the transformation of experience," as documented by Toronto Metropolitan University. The Institute for Experiential Learning describes his model as a four-stage cycle:
- concrete experience,
- reflective observation,
- abstract conceptualization, and
- active experimentation.
Researchers studying the theory-practice gap explicitly cite Kolb as a fundamental reference. The study "Bridging the Theory-Practice Gap in Business Education" notes that Kolb "introduced the concept of experiential learning, positing that individuals learn best through a cycle of concrete experience, reflective observation, abstract conceptualization, and active experimentation".
EXSIM embodies this cycle. Participants make decisions (experience), analyze results in reports (reflection), adjust strategy (conceptualization), and compete again (action).
What the evidence shows
A systematic review published in Human Behavior and Emerging Technologies (Wiley, 2022), titled "Business Simulation Games in Higher Education: A Systematic Review of Empirical Research," found that business simulations "are an effective teaching technique to help students develop managerial and generic skills in demand in the industry".
In these environments, "students get the opportunity to integrate and experiment with what they have learned, solve complex problems, get involved in active decision-making, experience the consequences of their decisions, and learn from their mistakes"(https://www.eurekasimulations.com/es/exsim/ ).
Research by Samaras, Adkins, and White (2021), cited in the chapter "Simulations in Business Education: Unlocking Experiential Learning" by IGI Global, concluded that "simulations promote recursive learning and enhance critical thinking outcomes compared to traditional case studies".
A 2024 study published on ResearchGate, based on surveys of 312 participants, revealed that system fidelity, team collaboration, and novelty of challenges "significantly enhance memorable learning experiences, which in turn strongly predict both learning satisfaction and the intention to continue participating".
A network that spans continents
EXSIM currently operates at IESE (Spain), IPADE (Mexico), IAE (Argentina), IEEM (Uruguay), IDE (Ecuador), ISE (Brazil), and ESE (Chile), according to Eureka Simulations.
The company reports that 89% of participants describe transformative learning experiences.
The same IESE student who shared his experience on the MBA blog concluded with a revealing observation: "Subconsciously you make the choices of who are the people you would work for, who you would work with, who you would hire and who you would have as a competitor".
The classroom that doesn't look like a classroom
Mintzberg wrote in Managers Not MBAs that "leaders cannot be created in a classroom. They arise in context." Perhaps that's what makes EXSIM different: it doesn't try to create leaders in a classroom. It creates the context where they can emerge.
For one week, slides and exams disappear. In their place come bankers who can reject your credit, unions that can shut down your production, and a board of real executives with no obligation to applaud your strategy.
The gap between theory and practice that Mintzberg denounced two decades ago—and that researchers continue to document today—doesn't close with more readings or better case studies. It closes when students stop analyzing other people's decisions and start defending their own.
That is, in essence, what Kolb's experiential learning proposes. And that is what EXSIM has been putting into practice for over a decade at the most demanding business schools on two continents.
The question is no longer whether simulations work. The academic evidence is compelling. The question is how many schools are willing to give up lecture hours so their students can learn the way managers learn in the real world: making decisions under pressure, with incomplete information, and living with the consequences.
