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ARE WE PLAYING YET? A REVIEW OF GAMIFIED ENTERPRISE SYSTEMS Kai Augustin, Department of Information Systems, University of Cologne, Cologne, Germany, [email protected] Scott Thiebes, Department of Information Systems, University of Cologne, Cologne, Germany, [email protected] Sebastian Lins, Department of Information Systems, University of Cologne, Cologne, [email protected] Robert Linden, Department of Information Systems, University of Cologne, Cologne, Germany, [email protected] Dirk Basten, Department of Information Systems, University of Cologne, Cologne, Germany, [email protected]

Abstract Gamification as the application of game elements to non-game contexts tries to take advantage of the increasing popularity of video games in order to motivate people. It thus bears the potential to be effectively applied to companies, in particular to gamify enterprise systems, which are embedded into organizational processes. Based on insights from previous research concerning game elements (i.e., mechanics and dynamics; short M&Ds), we provide an overview of M&Ds actually integrated in enterprise systems to increase employee motivation and engagement, while at the same time providing implications for future applications of and research on Gamification. Keywords: Gamification, Enterprise Systems, Mechanics & Dynamics, Literature Review.

1

INTRODUCTION

According to a survey by Gallup, Inc., many employees are ‘not engaged’ or ‘actively disengaged’ in their jobs (Blacksmith and Harter, 2011). Employees are thus emotionally disconnected from their work, which in turn leads to decreased productivity. Since video games are common in today’s world (Entertainment Software Association, 2014; McGonigal, 2011), a potential solution to increase employees’ engagement in their jobs is the concept of Gamification (Deterding et al., 2011a), which tries to take advantage of people’s growing passion for games (McGonigal, 2011). In favor of the above, recent surveys indicate that employees are eager to work for companies that incorporate Gamification into the workplace (Snipes et al., 2014). Gamification aims to intrinsically motivate people by applying elements common to games in nongame contexts (Deterding et al., 2011a). Its effective application as a motivator has been discussed for various domains, including health (McNeill et al., 2012; Menezes et al., 2013), finance (Deterding et al., 2011a; Hamari and Koivisto, 2013), education (Denny, 2013; Li et al., 2013), and road safety (Blohm and Leimeister, 2013). Bunchball Inc. (2014) further substantiates Gamification’s potential by offering ‘gamification as a service’. Due to their embeddedness in work processes, enterprise systems are critical to the success of companies in todays’ businesses (Brynjolfsson and Hitt, 2000; Dederick et al., 2003). Accordingly, increasing employees’ engagement by successfully gamifying such systems bears great potential (Thiebes et al., 2014). On the one hand, Gamification is presumed to counteract the growing complexity and scope of enterprise systems (Raftopoulos, 2014; Schacht and Schacht, 2012). On the other hand, empirical findings indicate that the incorporation of game elements into repetitive and monotone tasks makes them more enjoyable (Flatla et al., 2011). Previous research has provided both, an assessment of Gamification that it actually works (Hamari et al., 2014) and a synthesis of game elements that can be applied to information systems (Thiebes et al., 2014). However, literature so far lacks an analysis of game elements actually applied to enterprise systems in real-world company settings. Accordingly, we pose the following two research questions (RQ): RQ1: Which game elements are typically applied to enterprise systems in companies? RQ2: What kind of enterprise systems do companies gamify? By answering these research questions, we contribute to the on-going advances concerning Gamification in information systems research. We show how companies can successfully apply Gamification to their enterprise systems. We also describe the purposes for which game elements are commonly applied to enterprise systems. Finally, we discuss our findings and provide several implications for future Gamification applications and research. This paper proceeds as follows. Next, we introduce the concept of Gamification in more detail and reflect prior research. We then describe our research approach. Subsequently, we present our results: common game elements and typical applications of Gamification for companies’ enterprise systems. We then discuss our findings. Our paper ends with a short conclusion.

2

THE CONCEPT OF GAMIFICATION

Gamification originates from the digital media domain and has first been introduced in 2008 (Deterding et al., 2011b). It has been defined as “the use of game design elements in non-game contexts” (Deterding et al., 2011a, p. 10). Alternatively, Huotari and Hamari (2012, p. 19) define Gamification as “a process of enhancing a service with affordances for gameful experiences in order to support user’s overall value creation”. While the former definition is more widely used, a common

theme across the definitions is that “the digital computer and digital computer games are a reference without which gamification could not be conceived” (Fuchs, 2014, p. 121). Gamification in its most common sense uses game elements to regulate people’s behavior in non-game activities for strategic purposes (Schrape, 2014). In contrast to typical marketing instruments aiming to change the way people think (e.g., people’s attitudes and beliefs), Gamification aims at changing the way people behave (Schrape, 2014). Thereby, Gamification utilizes two interrelated aspects of today’s world. First, video games have become a substantial part of daily life (McGonigal, 2011). Second, they “can demonstrably produce states of desirable experience, and motivate users to remain engaged in an activity with unparalleled intensity and duration” due to their explicit design focus on entertainment rather than utility (Deterding et al., 2011b, p. 2). As a result, Gamification helps to make non-game applications more motivating and engaging to use.

3

RELATED WORK

Two types of game elements that are commonly differentiated are game mechanics and game dynamics (Zichermann and Cunningham, 2011). Whereas mechanics are functional components providing various actions and control mechanisms (e.g., point systems, leaderboards, levels, and challenges) (Hunicke et al., 2004), dynamics determine individuals’ reactions as a response to using implemented mechanics (e.g., competition among players). These reactions try to satisfy fundamental needs and desires, including the desire for reward, self-expression, altruism, and competition (Bunchball Inc., 2010). Thus, adequate combinations of mechanics and dynamics create a motivating, emotional, and entertaining interaction (Neeli, 2012). In the remainder of this paper, we refer to these mechanics and dynamics as M&Ds. Due to the multitude of potential M&Ds, previous research has synthesized M&Ds to be used for information systems (Thiebes et al., 2014). According to this synthesis, five clusters of M&Ds have been identified (see Table 1). Additionally, Gamification has recently been analyzed with regard to its effectiveness (Hamari et al., 2014). The assessment of findings in empirical studies reveals the positive effects of Gamification. However, the effects do not apply to each observation. In other words, the effects “are greatly dependent on the context in which the gamification is being implemented, as well as on the users using it” (Hamari et al., 2014, p. 1). Cluster System Design Challenges Rewards Social Influences User Specifics

Table 1.

Definition M&Ds describing how a gamified application has to be designed and developed in order to motivate users (e.g., feedback mechanisms). M&Ds attempting to motivate users by providing challenges. All M&Ds, which support the development or accomplishment of challenges (e.g., formulation of clear goals) were assigned to this cluster as well. M&Ds aiming to motivate the users by providing rewards (e.g., point systems or the awarding of badges) after certain actions were successfully taken. M&Ds aiming to motivate users or a group of users by social dynamics and influences (e.g., altruism, competition, gaining status, or user high scores). M&Ds motivating users by directly influencing the individual personality (e.g., by promoting self-expression).

Definition of M&D-Clusters (adopted from Thiebes et al., 2014).

Continuing previous research, we focus on game elements used to gamify enterprise systems in business contexts. By presenting applications that are actually used in companies, we aim to provide in-depth insights into game elements used and the contexts they are applied in.

4

RESEARCH APPROACH

Figure 1 summarizes our research approach. For an overview of Gamification applications in the context of enterprise systems, we performed a literature review by following guidelines widely used in our domain (Kitchenham, 2007): statement of research questions, description of search process, statement of inclusion or rather exclusion criteria, and the explanation of the quality assessment and the data collection. First, our review was guided by our research questions (see Section 1). Second, concerning the search process, we aimed for a representative set of publication. Accordingly, we chose the following scientific databases to identify books, journal articles, and conference proceedings: Association for Information Systems Electronic Library (AISel), Association for Computing Machinery (ACM) Digital Library, EBSCO Host, Emerald Insight, Institute of Electrical and Electronic Engineers (IEEE) Xplore Digital Library, Proquest, and ScienceDirect. Moreover, we extended our search to the search engines google.com and bing.com to account for other Gamification publications like whitepapers and other corporate reporting. Across all selected databases, relevant publications needed to meet the search string “gamif*”, which accounts for the relevant terms ‘Gamification’, ‘gamify’, and ‘gamified’. Scientific literature databases Enterprise systems applying gamification M&Ds

AISel ACM Digital Library

Ford p2p Cup

EBSCO Host

Allstate

Emerald Insight

Accenture Addo Agnito Award

IEEE Xplore Digital Library

IBM Connections

Proquest

Deloitte Leadership Academy

Science Direct

LiveOps My Work Community

Public search engines Google.com Bing.com

Figure 1.

Common M&Ds in enterprise systems

Feedback Goals

Nitro for Salesforce

Badges

Bluewolf #goingsocial

Point Systems

Infosys

Leaderboards

Cisco

User Levels

Research approach.

Third, for the selection of publications, we focused on those with an explicit description of an application of Gamification to enterprise systems, that is, an article’s main purpose should be to describe the enterprise system as well as the game elements used to gamify the system. We excluded publications that referred to applications of Gamification in which external rewards (e.g., monetary or physical) were awarded for high participation since Gamification should be applied to foster intrinsic motivation, deepen system involvement, and to create gameful and fun experiences on a long-term basis (Hamari, 2013; Huotari and Hamari, 2012). Fourth, we did not perform a quality analysis of the identified publications because we also searched for publications such as white papers, which are unlikely to meet the criteria for scientific publications. Fifth, Information extracted for our analysis included the game elements used (e.g., leaderboards), the type of enterprise system being gamified

(e.g., knowledge management), as well as context information (e.g., how the gamified system is being used). Our search yielded a total of ten enterprise systems that apply gamification M&Ds. From these ten enterprise systems we were able to identify six common M&Ds. In the following, we first explain the common M&Ds (see Section 5) and then describe their application in the identified enterprise system context (see Section 6).

5

GAMIFICATION OF ENTERPRISE SYSTEMS

We first describe the M&Ds that are most common in the identified applications, and then explain how those M&Ds are applied in enterprise systems and provide exemplary illustrations. 5.1

Game Elements – Selected Mechanics and Dynamics in Enterprise Systems

Analyzing the exemplary applications, we identified the M&Ds in Table 2 to be the most common ones. As can be seen, at least one M&D from each cluster is included. M&D Feedback Goals Badges Point system Leaderboa rds User levels

Table 2.

Definition Immediate feedback is used to keep users aware of their progress or failures in real-time (Passos et al., 2011b). Goals of the underlying activity should be adapted as challenges for the user (Passos et al., 2011b). “Badges consist of optional rewards and goals whose fulfilment is stored outside the scope of the core activities of a service” (Hamari, 2013, p. 2). Point systems reward users for completing actions, whereby a numeric value is added to their overall point total (Burke and Hiltbrand, 2011). “Leaderboards are used to track and display desired actions, using competition to drive valuable behaviour” (Bunchball Inc., 2010, p. 10). “Levels indicate the proficiency of the [user] in the overall gaming experience over time” (Gnauk et al., 2012, pp. 104-105).

Cluster System Design Challenges Rewards Rewards Social Influences User Specifics

M&Ds commonly applied to enterprise systems.

To show users the behavior that is considered positive or negative within enterprise system usage, feedback (e.g., notifications) can be used in the direct aftermath of completing a specific action (Paharia, 2013b; Passos et al., 2011a). The feedback M&D reinforces learning effects and gives users the feeling of progress. Feedback in form of notifications might appear after awarding points or badges, completing missions, or other current events. Furthermore, notifications can be used to suggest next steps or other related content. Goals help users to see what should be done in gamified systems and the behaviors that are particularly appreciated (Passos et al., 2011a). The idea of goals is to continuously offer users major new and interesting challenges to address. Furthermore, individual goals can contain sub-goals to enable minor achievements on the way to complete provided missions. Users can be introduced to a new system by, for instance, providing on-boarding missions like exploring different system features. In addition, goals can be designed to be accomplished by multiple users in a team in order to foster social interactions and a sense of community. Another goal type refers to missions that are required to fulfill a specific goal within a specific period of time, thus creating time pressure to further increase the challenge. In gamified systems, goals and sub-goals are often presented in the form of a list of tasks, in which each goal includes a description of what to do, the current progress of individual goals, the rewards for fulfilling a goal, or the progress of other users pursuing the same goal. Badges are game elements consisting of “optional rewards and goals whose fulfilment is stored outside the scope of the core activities of a service” (Hamari, 2013, p. 2). Badges can be hidden, that

is, they are only awarded if some special action is taken and without the user knowing beforehand that this action is associated with a certain badge (Domínguez et al., 2013). Such design helps to keep users motivated to continuously explore a system. The quest to collect all badges is another motivator (Hsu et al., 2013; Ibanez et al., 2014). However, badges can also decrease motivation if users have collected all rewards (Ibanez et al., 2014) or get frustrated since they fail to collect all rewards (McDaniel et al., 2012). Users of gamified enterprise systems can receive points for different actions such as successfully accomplishing goals (Burke and Hiltbrand, 2011). The number of points represents the importance or extensiveness of the tasks. It is therefore important to design point systems carefully to value user actions. For example, different organizational units might use different point systems if typical work tasks are difficult to compare. Furthermore, users might share points among each other to honor outstanding achievements, which in turn create dynamics of altruism. Point systems can be extended to user levels, in which the user may rise when reaching a predefined point limit (Burke and Hiltbrand, 2011; Paharia, 2013b). Points provide important information to both the user and the operator of the system. On the one hand, users receive direct feedback on their progress. On the other hand, operators can use points to track, evaluate, and reward the performance of users. Leaderboards can be used to list users according to measurable characteristics (e.g., points) (Burke and Hiltbrand, 2011; Paharia, 2013b). As a consequence, competition between users is encouraged which fosters engagement. However, some aspects should be considered when implementing leaderboards. In case of rankings with several thousand users, the highest ranks may seem unreachable, thus demotivating users to participate at all. The same applies to new users, who are unlikely to catch up with long-time users who already have a high number of points. In order to avoid such demotivation, representation of leaderboards may be adjusted as follows. Using multiple leaderboards with different periods (e.g., weekly, monthly) or contexts (e.g., business units) at the same time is a viable option for users in rear positions to fight for the top places. Another option is to select users in a specific context instead of selecting all users. Choosing this option, users, for instance, only compare themselves to friends, work colleagues, or departments. Another option is to show a snippet of the leaderboard only with the current position of the user and, for example, five other users directly above and below the user. In areas in which cooperation is desirable, it may be useful to waive rankings to avoid (potentially negative) competition. 5.2

Gamification Applications

Table 3.

X X

X X X X X

X X X X

X X X X

X X X X

M&Ds used in the identified enterprise systems.

Cisco

Infosys

Bluewolf #goingsocial

Nitro for Salesforce

LiveOps My Work Community

Deloitte Leadership Academy

IBM Connections

X X X X X X

Accenture Addo Agnito Award

Feedback Goals Badges Point system Leaderboards User levels

Alltate

M&D

Ford p2p Cup

While Table 3 provides an overview of the M&Ds applied in the respective systems, we describe the gamified enterprise systems in the following subsections.

X X X X

X X

X X X

5.2.1

Ford p2p Cup

Ford Canada has expanded its learning platform Professional Performance Program for sales and service personnel by a gamified area called Ford p2p Cup (Paharia, 2013b). This area aims to increase the use of existing content, to accelerate personal certifications, and to motivate users to learn. The Gamification of this the area is based on car racing. Users receive direct feedback in form of points and badges for watching videos, downloading and consuming latest product information, and participating in webinars. Badges are issued in a virtual trophy cabinet as well (see Figure 2).

Figure 2.

Badge in Ford p2p Cup (http://www.bunchball.com/).

Users with sufficient points rise to higher levels. In addition to leaderboards that compare users with their immediate colleagues, team goals exist for which individual car dealerships compete with each other. While promoting the sense of community on the one hand, it also fosters competition among the various car dealerships on the other hand. 5.2.2

Allstate.

Insurance company Allstate has chosen an alternative implementation for its data protection training (Everson, 2014). In addition to instructional videos, online training, webinars, and blogs with subsequent tests, Allstate offers its employees to accomplish the annual training program in the form of a game called PII Protectors, in which employees may choose one of four heroes. The game starts with a video in which the hero will be denied a mortgage due to identity theft. In revenge, the hero joins an agency to fight data thieves, hence defining a clear goal for the employee. Subsequently, employees are confronted with situations from everyday life that they can solve by answering questions. After answering a question, an employee directly receives feedback to determine whether her answer was correct. The higher the number of questions answered correctly, the more data leaks can be prevented. By simulating everyday situations, employees get a better understanding of the importance of data protection. At the same time, the game motivates employees to consult privacy policies that are available outside the game at any time. 5.2.3

Accenture Addo Agnito Award.

Accenture has started the reward system Addo Agnito Award (A3) to improve its internal knowledge management (Hsu and Kaukonen, 2013; Leeson, 2013). Initially, core activities were identified, which employees can perform to express their commitment to cooperate. Points are awarded for accomplishing activities, receiving badges, and completing missions. These points add up to an employees’ knowledge score (see Figure 3). Quarterly, the points are reset to equalize chances for all users. If sufficient points are collected, employees reach higher levels to show overall progress. When

accomplishing a goal, users receive direct feedback in form of a notification, thus reinforcing important behaviors and ensuring a feeling of accomplishment. Employees also receive direct feedback about the influence of their posts within the company. Adding to the total of points, user profiles show how many times their contributions were viewed or downloaded by others, as well as the number of comments and how many questions were answered by the user.

Figure 3. 5.2.4

Aggito Agnitio Award (A3) Profile (http://www.kmworld.com). IBM Connections.

IBM Connections is a social software platform for companies (IBM, 2014; Paharia, 2013a; Paharia, 2013b). It consists of blogs, micro-blogs, wikis, and forums and allows sharing files and documents. To help users on-boarding to the platform, four levels with different goals of increasing complexity exist. The aim of these levels is to show users the system’s usefulness. Beginning with the goals to upload a profile photo, follow a colleague, and to join a group on the first level, users have met all features of the system after accomplishing the fourth level. In order to increase competition among users, a leaderboard exists, which indicates the users’ current levels and is ordered by the number of completed goals (point system). On successful completion of a task, users receive a notification of their success to give immediate feedback. 5.2.5

Deloitte Leadership Academy.

The learning platform Deloitte Leadership Academy for executives uses missions (i.e., goals) to guide users through the platform (Badgeville, 2014; Johnsen, 2013). The introductory mission consists of watching a video, which explains how to personalize the platform for individual learning priorities. Having completed this personalization, users receive a badge, and can connect to the networks LinkedIn or Twitter to support creating a personal profile (see Figure 3) and to simplify the choice of a user photo. The personalization helps in binding users to the platform. Further missions with clear goals are used to guide users through the various tutorials and support users while pursuing their monthly learning objectives. Earned badges and points will be published on the profile page of the user (see Figure 4). In order to strengthen the community, users follow each other and will be informed about activities and achievements in form of notifications. To increase user motivation, rankings (i.e., leaderboards) exist for each learning area. To avoid discouraging users if they, for instance, do not use the platform during holidays, rankings are reset on a weekly basis.

Figure 4. 5.2.6

Deloitte Leadership Academy Profile (http://badgeville.com/). LiveOps My Work Community.

LiveOps is a company that handles customer support for businesses (Paharia, 2013b). For coordination of its employees, LiveOps uses the gamified online platform called My Work Community. Employees receive points by achieving performance goals, accomplishing personal certifications, and interacting with the staff community. Leaderboards are used to allow comparisons among employees and hence increase motivation. Employees can use points to customize their virtual avatar, which reflects their identity and reputation in the community. Badges can be earned for completing training and the accomplishment of performance goals. Each employee has a profile showing points, badges, and other statistics. 5.2.7

Nitro for Salesforce.

Salesforce.com is a software company that offers a cloud-based sales force automation platform (Paharia, 2013b). The platform supports all phases of sales from lead management to analytics. Bunchball developed a plugin called Nitro for Salesforce that adds gamification to the cloud system. Positive behavior like enabling or closing deals, meeting sales goals early, collaboration, keeping up high data quality, following predefined sales processes, or acting in any other way that is desired by sales managers is rewarded with points. Accumulating a specific amount of points results in level ups. Missions vary in their appearance. They are used to introduce new users to the system and its functions and to set long-term or time-based goals. Additionally, some goals are available for a specific amount of time only (e.g., be among the x users to close y deals worth more than z) or are completely personalized for specific user groups. The current mission status and the time left to complete its tasks can be looked up at any time. Users can see other users who have previously accomplished the mission. While allowing users to quickly identify other users to ask for tips, this also creates a level of competition as it urges users to catch up to or surpass others.

5.2.8

Bluewolf #goingsocial.

Consulting firm Bluewolf launched the program #goingsocial to encourage its employees to advertise the firm (Bluewolf, 2015; Paharia, 2013b). Employees can earn points for creating blogposts on Bluewolfs website or by creating content on social platforms like Twitter, LinkedIn, Pinterest, Salesforce chatter, Google+, and Facebook. Each piece of published content is automatically pushed to the publicly available profile. Using web analytics tools, users earn points each time content is viewed so that – besides creation of content – its popularity is rewarded. Internally, Nitro for Salesforce (see 5.2.7) is used to monitor these points. Here, users can see leaderboards. To support employees in the use of aforementioned social tools, slide presentations and short videos are available on the #goingsocial portal. 5.2.9

Infosys

Consulting firm Infosys introduced an incentive scheme to promote and gain a higher quality concerning its internal knowledge management system (Mehta et al., 2007). At the core of this incentive scheme, knowledge currency units (KCU) as a context-specific type of points can be awarded by content reviewers and system users for documents in the knowledge management system. Depending on the type of contribution, different denominations of KCUs are awarded (e.g., project lessons learned received higher denomination than project snapshots). As a result of this incentive, participation in the knowledge management program has been intensified and the knowledge management system has been kept lean and up-to-date. For instance, documents with low KCUs phase out automatically. While serving the purpose of a short-term motivation, the KCU scheme did not provide long-term involvement of the employees. By adding a scoreboard on the knowledge management portal and monthly updates of that scoreboard, the visibility of the application and the long-term motivation could be improved. 5.2.10

Cisco

At Cisco, Gamification has been applied to the Social Media Training Program (Lau, 2014). The purpose of this application of Gamification is to improve Cisco’s Social Media Training. For instance, sales account managers get accustomed to the use of Twitter in order to reach their customers. Depending on the domain (e.g., human resources, marketing, product development), skills in relation to social media are diverse. Accordingly, a multitude of courses are offered to address the different business contexts. Based on the Gamification used in the training system, three levels of certification can be reached (i.e., specialist, strategist, and master), each of which requires the players to show higher levels of social media expertise. Additionally, sub-specializations are available, for instance, for social media for sales. Such specializations are helpful for teaching specific employees the skills that they require directly for their work. To foster collaboration, the social media training program includes team challenges where employees can join small teams or play as the entire organization. For team challenges, employees are additionally awarded with badges.

6

DISCUSSION

In this section, we discuss the findings of our research and state specific implications for practice and research. We also discuss limitations of our research. Within this paper, we present Gamification M&Ds actually applied to enterprise systems. The specific applications show that selected M&Ds are common to gamifying enterprise systems (see Table 2). Moreover, a single application of one M&D seems to be rare since typical applications usually include a combination of different M&Ds. Different reasons might exist for why some M&Ds are more frequently used than others within enterprise systems. Thiebes et al. (2014), for instance, highlight that

the application of some M&Ds might not be suitable in each business context, for example, loud audio feedback in rather quite office settings. Since the enterprise systems analyzed in the present study indicate the usage of a limited set of M&Ds only, future applications of Gamification to enterprise systems should consider the broad set of available M&Ds in order to foster employee engagement (implication 1). In the selected applications, Gamification has been applied to make the use of enterprise systems more challenging, more enjoyable, and thus more motivating. The application of Gamification to knowledge management at Accenture led to the insight that instead of being the first on a leaderboard was the best motivator, it was rather about becoming familiar with the impact that own knowledge contributions have on the company and to receive recognition for that impact (Leeson, 2013). Consequently, future research should investigate why some M&Ds are more common in context of enterprise systems than others and assess the suitability of specific M&Ds for application in gamified enterprise systems (implication 2). Another interesting finding pertains to the fact that all gamified enterprise systems analyzed in this study do not implement the core business processes of the respective companies but rather supporting and management processes. While it is possible that gamified enterprise systems exist that are not included in our analysis and that implement a company’s core business processes, application of gamification to enterprise systems in less critical areas seems to be favored by companies as of now. Especially enterprise systems for employee training and knowledge management seem to be popular areas of application of Gamification. Consequently, firms should also consider applying Gamification to enterprise systems that support their core business processes in order for them to harness the full potential of Gamification (implication 3). From a research perspective, there might be diverse reasons for why Gamification is mostly applied to enterprise systems implementing mainly support and management processes, like, for example, lower risks compared to enterprise systems implementing core business processes. However, more research is needed to understand companies’ motivations and objectives when applying Gamification to their enterprise systems (Nicholson, 2012) (implication 4). Positive aspects notwithstanding, concerns related to the effects of Gamification are increasingly being raised. Seeing Gamification solely as a buzzword (Chorney, 2013), critics assume that many people will not respond to this novel concept (Spencer, 2013). They also argue that Gamification might induce unwanted behavior if game elements become more important than the actual core activities (Haaranen et al., 2014; Hakulinen et al., 2013). Considering the training program at Allstate, some of the employees complained about insufficient time to play games although playing time was comparable to the time that they previously had for video trainings (Everson, 2014). Other employees complained about the lack of the possibility to skip a test since they did not want to spend 30 minutes on relearning something they already practice every day. In this case, the biggest complaint concerns Gamification being too childish. While Gamification bears the potential to increase work motivation in general and the motivation to use enterprise systems in particular, the design of Gamification needs to be carefully chosen in order to avoid employees rejecting it due to, for instance, unsuitable tasks (implication 5). In this regard, future research is needed to produce actionable guidance for how to gamify enterprise systems (implication 6). An experimental study might, for example, analyze the contexts in which Gamification should foster collaboration or competition, respectively. This design decision can be crucial as indicated by studies in educational environments. Initial analyses suggest that emphasizing competition over collaboration and sharing reduces student participation, thus lowering scores for participation (de-Marcos et al., 2014). Furthermore, a balanced evaluation task is required. For example, granting too many or too few points for the accomplishment of tasks can lead to perceptions of unfairness. Finally, we found a substantial number of gamified enterprise systems that also allowed for employees to receive monetary or other physical rewards and were, thus, not included in our study. Inclusion of monetary or other physical rewards is in stark contrast to the original idea behind Gamification, which aims to foster intrinsic motivation instead of extrinsic motivation. Yet, combining both seems to be widely practiced. Future research should therefore investigate the effects of combining Gamification

with extrinsic rewards and whether or not Gamification itself still works in these situations or if employee behavior is mostly driven by extrinsic rewards (implication 7). Limitations of our work are as follows. First of all, our search yielded only a total of ten enterprise systems that make active use if Gamification M&Ds. It is likely that there exist additional gamified enterprise systems that we were not able to identify due to a lack of information or missing descriptions of these gamified enterprise systems. Moreover, our analysis is based on the limited data provided by respective publications and corporate documents. In-depth analyses of gamified enterprise systems, for example through case studies, might thus provide additional insights into the current state of Gamification of enterprise systems. Nonetheless, our sample includes gamified enterprise systems from big players in diverse industries such as automotive companies, consulting firms, software developers, and insurers. We are thus confident that, despite these limitations, our previously outlined implications apply to a wide range of gamified enterprise systems.

7

CONCLUSION

Within this study, we have identified applications of Gamification to enterprise system in business environments. While the applications rely on a limited set of M&Ds only, each application uses a combination of M&Ds instead of focusing on single ones. The applications in this study show that Gamification can be used for various enterprise systems purposes. In identifying applications, we attempted to find examples of different enterprise systems. Since many publications focus on elearning or do not cover the concrete implementation, there is need to extend this set in future studies. Whereas the use of game elements is similar across the selected applications, one difference concerns the behavior that is rewarded by the gamified systems. The current insights notwithstanding, future research will need to analyze long-term effects of Gamification on the motivation of users.

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