Gamification In Management Research Articles

Exploring gamification in the Administration context: a systematic literature review

Through a comprehensive review of studies reported in the literature on gamification – which is understood as the use of game design elements in non-game contexts, this work sought to present the results obtained from a Systematic Literature Review (SLR) of studies related to the use of gamification in management and business. This study was conducted based on the application of the Systematic Model for Research in Open Access Databases (SMROAD). The model applied involved the conduct of a comprehensive survey of research studies related to the subject matter investigated in a number of journals and the categorization of the data obtained into two aspects: i) general aspects; and ii) dimension of analysis and its categorizations according to the subject matter. For the literature review, we examined 20 journals, and 24 articles were selected out of a total of 4973 articles initially investigated. The results obtained showed that although research on gamification is incipient and is in need of theoretical and empirical deepening in specific contexts, such as in finance, the use of gamification as a management tool can provide us with relevant individual and organizational results.

Gamification in management: Positive and negative aspects

The phenomenon of gamification is analysed, identifying positive aspects of gamification, risks and problems. The paper adopts a method of systematic critical literature analysis in English, German, and Russian. We provide the most relevant gamification definitions classified into two main groups, fundamental and practical. The confusion of these groups or ignorance of one causes particular problems in understanding gamification. We face two levels of gamification in different areas of business management. It is the so-called meta- or macro-level and applied or micro-level. The paper aims to demonstrate the broader context of gamification in management by revealing the phenomenon’s positive and negative aspects. To reach the aim, five objectives were defined: i) to show the broader context of gamification in management; ii) to reveal the problems, risks, or even negative aspects of gamification in management; iii) to appeal to the practical issues how and in what areas to use gamification; iv) to show a broader cultural and philosophical context behind the manager interpretation of gamification; v) to introduce the discourse of gamification as an integrated theoretical approach that could reveal essential aspects of management. Gamification has both positive and negative aspects in all areas of management. On the one hand, gamification increases productivity and improves service, contributes to innovative participatory thinking and action, improves internal control, coordination, communication, collaboration, and creativity, increases motivation and pleasure at work, develops the soft skills of employees and reduces costs, as well as contributes to better acclimatisation. On the other hand, gamification commercialises human relations, causes novelty effects, elicits desired behaviour and predicts job performance, transforms organisational culture in unpredictable and counterintuitive ways, results in stress and anxiety, lowers self-esteem, causes exhaustion, conflict, and incomplete knowledge, serves as a means of domination and mobbing, and finally increases free-riding and work intimidation.

Gamification in Management: a systematic review and research directions

This paper conducts a contemporary and inclusive review of initial applications of gamification to various management fields, such as finance, corporate governance, risk management, human resource management, etc. It defines and contextualizes gamification within the field of management. This allows to understand the main elements of a general gamified system and its main applications. Via a systematic review of 203 studies addressing management contexts and gamification, it develops a holistic framework for the analysis of gamification in management areas. The study concludes by setting out a list of questions to direct future research in order to increase the impacts of this innovative and strategic research area within businesses and organizations.

Demon or angel: an exploration of gamification in management

PurposePreviously coined as the application of gaming principles in non-gaming scenarios, gamification is an emerging managerial tactic, but it lacks a rigorous theorization in the management discipline. Based on introductive research on related domains, this study aims to link up gamification and training and directly explored its effectiveness and efficacy, thus providing certain implications for practitioners. Specifically, this paper conceptualizes the gamification as a crystallization of routines as it continuously strengthens the new ways to award and punish with predetermined goals while initiated from past experiences. As such, the study confirms that gamification demotivates the participants and lowers their performances. Overall, the study is important as it investigates the significance of gamification and offers a new perspective to disentangle the debates over the effect of experience on learning.Design/methodology/approachThe study used one base experiment conducted in two random-chosen paired classes, followed by another confirmative experiment. By introducing the gamification system into one experiment class while controlling the other, the authors sent out two waves of surveys while merging with the objective grades to investigate the effects of gamification on both motivation and performance.FindingsThe results have confirmed that gamification could engender the detrimental effects on both motivation and performance, though the authors did not find support for a mediating effect of motivation on the relationship between gamification and performance.Research limitations/implicationsBecause of resource limitation, the study used business students’ academic performance as a proxy for the performance effect. Although the results help reveal a basic cause-effect relationship, we still need further experiments based on real business units and/or on larger samples.Practical implicationsThe findings indicate that gamification counter-intuitively demotivates participants and directly leads to poorer performances. This reminds practitioners of a cautious adoption of gamification in their management system.Originality/valueTo the best of authors’ knowledge, this study is among the first to link the trendy concept of gamification with both managerial and academic studies on related fronts.

Gamification in Management and Other Non-Game Contexts—Understanding Game Elements, Motivation, Reward Systems, and User Types

Gamification is the use of gaming methods and ways of thinking in non-game economic and social contexts in order to solve some kind of problems. Possible applications of gamification are currently the subject of broad-based discussion in marketing and management in particular. Expectations are very high, primarily in those areas in which motivation processes have a large part to play. In order to fully exploit the potential of gamification, a profound understanding of modes of operation in gamified systems is needed. This then enables a productive transfer of game elements to non-game contexts, taking into account user typologies and including the requirements of very different application scenarios. This article takes up the findings of different theoretical and empirical studies on gamification from various perspectives. It combines the findings into an integral perspective and provides a catalogue of core elements of gamified systems. Approaches to reward mechanisms in gamified systems are worked out on the basis of fundamental motivation theories. It is argued that a simple adoption of award systems cannot be productive; the different kinds of needs of users with regard to social interaction, attractive challenges and individual development opportunities must, rather, be incorporated into the design of gamified systems. The article offers practitioners and researchers new impetuses for further engagement with gamified systems.

The Gamification of Work: Lessons From Crowdsourcing

The nature of work and management are in flux; work is increasingly distributed, sporadic, community-driven, and motivated by constant self-development. Developments such as sharing economies, crowdfunding, and crowdsourcing have emerged as new forms of organizing work and economic coordination. At the same time, increased gaming and gamification of our lives have arrived to address this newly found yearning for intrinsically motivated work. Thus, work is increasingly consciously and unconsciously gamified. Crowdsourcing is a frontrunner management domain in employing gamification to positively affect motivation and performance of workers. However, to be able to harness the full potential of gamification, a union of knowledge of interwoven areas of game design, motivational psychology and management is needed. Therefore, in this article, based on the accumulated body of research on gamification in crowdsourcing, we discuss the emerging opportunities and challenges of using gamification in management.

Gamification Misunderstood: How Badly Executed and Rhetorical Gamification Obscures Its Transformative Potential

Although management gamification has immense potential to broadly benefit both management and employees, its impact to date has been lackluster and its value unclear. I credit this to a market proliferation of rhetorical or “fake” gamification, a process which involves the decoration of existing organizational processes with game elements but with little or no attention paid to the psychological processes by which those elements influence human behavior. For gamification to be successful, specific psychological characteristics of employees or customers must be targeted, and game elements must be chosen to influence those characteristics. In theoretical terms, legitimate gamification in management can be defined as a family of work and product design techniques inspired by game design, whereas rhetorical gamification is at best novice gameful design and at worst a swindle, an attempt to make something appear “game-like” purely to sell more gamification. Only by carefully distinguishing legitimate and rhetorical gamification can legitimate gamification’s potential be fully realized.

Gamification in Management: Between Choice Architecture and Humanistic Design

Gamification in management is currently informed by two contradicting framings or rhetorics: the rhetoric of choice architecture casts humans as rational actors and games as perfect information and incentive dispensers, giving managers fine-grained control over people’s behavior. It aligns with basic tenets of neoclassical economics, scientific management, operations research/management science, and current big data-driven decision making. In contrast, the rhetoric of humanistic design casts humans as growth-oriented and games as environments optimally designed to afford positive, meaningful experiences. This view, fitting humanistic management ideas and the rise of design and customer experience, casts managers as “second order” designers. While both rhetorics highlight important aspects of games and management, the former is more likely to be adopted and absorbed into business as usual, whereas the latter holds more uncertainty, but also transformative potential.