The mechanics of effective enterprise gamification system use

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Abstract

Developing an understanding of the employment of game based mechanics within an organisational context, is becoming an increasingly relevant topic of interest and research. This nascent field of study and practice has been termed Enterprise Gamification, and is progressively being adopted by organisations wishing to improve the use of their information systems across the workforce. However, there is limited understanding of the effective use of these elements and their influence on the actions of employees using gamified information systems. Thus, this research seeks to theorise the effective use by actors in the workplace of enterprise gamification systems embedded with game based mechanics. These elements were explored through an in-depth case study approach extending over a two year period with a global media agency comprising a large workforce. This approach enabled me to collect empirical data through interviews, archival materials and observations of information system use in the field of study, and to theorise about the mechanics of effective enterprise gamification system use by employees.

In conceptualising effective enterprise gamification system use, and by uncovering the dynamics between user actions, system use, and performance effectiveness by which these may gamefully engage employees, this study offers a substantial contribution to the related streams of research concerned with understanding the effective use of information systems and enterprise gamification. Thus its original contributions to knowledge are: (i) uncovering new insights into gamified user actions and representations of game based mechanics; (ii) developing salient understanding of gamified system use across dimensions of effective use nature; (iii) offering novel insights into the relationship between game based mechanics and performance effectiveness in a gamified system use context; and (iv) research implications for the study of information system use with enterprise gamification. Contribution to practice also provides novel insights into the effectiveness of gamified information systems with employees, as findings suggest that potential benefits may be context specific as characterised by user interpretations and variations in states of engagement as influenced by game based mechanics.

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