VE World History
 VE
has a venerable educational history and background. Practice Firms created "…to
provide practical commercial education in the form of realistic exercises,"
date back to at least the 17th century. In Vienna, a Musterkontor an educational
enterprise, or practice firm, was integrated into the curriculum of the Commercial
College. (Korbmacher, 1989). These firms originated as a part of the apprenticeship
movement in the German speaking countries of Europe. By the middle of the 18th
century, these practice firms had developed business simulations consistent
with the industrial development of the period. "The teacher allows them
to choose a method with which to deal with the matter themselves, so that the
whole course is permanently represented by a draper, a commissioner, a forwarding
agent, etc. Each is provided with fictitious money, goods and other effects
which form the foundation on which to carry out transactions." (Karl Friedrich
Bahrdt, 1776).
The modern VE
has its roots with the birth of the modern information economy and
technology based applications some twenty-five years ago. In Germany,
Austria and Denmark, the practice firm concept was updated to provide
a construct that would provide an interactive business experience
for all college and high school students. The concept was also used
as a strategy in workforce development by these three pioneering
countries. Today VE's in some form, are parts of the national educational
curriculum in each of these countries. With the development of the
European Union and trends toward a global economy, VE's quickly
spread into every European country. Today, the founding triad of
countries hosts 1,800 VE's, with another 1,000 firms in Great Britain,
Netherlands, France, Czech Republic, Switzerland, Spain, Portugal,
Greece, Italy, Finland, Norway, Sweden, Ireland, Hungary, Slovenia,
Slovak Republic, Russia, Poland, Ireland, Belgium, Latvia, Lithuania,
Estonia, etc. Each of the European countries developed a Central
Office to regulate and access and transactions between their various
firms and to create virtual financial instruments and a virtual
bank for the processing of transactions. In 1998, Europen, a consortium
of central offices was created as a separate coordinating entity.
The VE movement
has taken on global proportions during the past decade with another
1,000 VE's located in China, Japan, Brazil, Argentina, Canada, Australia,
and the United States among others. With the aforementioned distribution,
the number of global enterprises exceeds 3,000 with a central office
in each participating country.
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