Designing Gamification for Sustainable Employee Behavior: Insights on Employee Motivations, Design Features and Gamification Elements

Encouraging sustainable employee behavior is critical for companies in the face of increasing societal pressure towards sustainability. While gamification has been shown to influence employee behavior effectively, current attempts to design gamification for sustainability in the workplace largely neglect the importance of understanding personal factors and contextual characteristics. This work explores employees' motivations for sustainable behavior and expectations for design features through in-depth interviews with 27 employees from different SMEs. Our results show that many employees tend to be egoistically motivated, suggesting the design of appropriate narratives and individualistic-oriented design features. Employees expected utilitarian, hedonistic, and social design features that primarily serve to support them in achieving personal sustainability goals while highlighting that gamification at work should also integrate seamlessly with existing work routines. We contribute to gamification design research by discussing the particularities of the workplace sustainability context and shedding new light on involving users in gamification design

How to increase sustainable engagement in the workplace through green IS: the role of instructional and motivational design features

Research on green IS has emphasized the value of both instructional and motivational elements in supporting sustainable behavior at work. However, there is still a lack of understanding of these different feature types\u27 individual roles and relevance in inducing sustainable employee behavior. Our study addresses this gap and investigates the use and effects of different instructional and motivational elements in a green IS through a field study with 92 employees in five companies. Our findings based on the analysis of behavioral data shows that instructional elements are more relevant in inducing sustainable behavior, but motivational elements can amplify the positive influence of instructional elements, in particular for long-term user engagement. We contribute to theory and practice by revealing the role of instructional and motivational elements in the successful design of green IS for sustainable employee behavior

Leading in the digital age: A systematic review on leader traits in the context of e-leadership

Due to the rapid changes in work environments caused by the Covid-19 pandemic, leadership has shifted from face-to-face to virtual contexts. Accordingly, the new challenges require specific e-leader traits. To summarize the divergent scholarly discussion, we conducted a systematic review and identified distal (i.e., personality, cognitive abilities, motives and attitudes, and core beliefs) and proximal (i.e., skills) attributes of e-leaders. Our results show that some traditional leader traits such as technological, communication, motivational, and organizational skills are also important for e-leadership. However, certain traits become increasingly important in virtual contexts: e-leaders need adaptability and risk- taking to deal with constant change, and higher cultural, social, and emotional intelligence to foster collaboration in diversified teams. In addition, digital technologies require particular change management, coaching, and trust-building skills. Our findings contribute to the current discussion on e-leadership and help practitioners train their leaders towards the identified e-leader profile

Understanding toxicity in multiplayer online games: The roles of national culture and demographic variables

Toxic behavior (TB) is a negative response to in-game frustration in multiplayer online games (MOG) that can ruin the playing experience, causing financial damage to MOG operators. Understanding the drivers of TB is an important step to curb the behavior. In this work, we consult the model of national culture (MNC) as well as demographic variables (e.g., education, gender, and age) as antecedent variables of TB using an exploratory design. We surveyed players of League of Legends and Dota 2 with two samples, based on the MNC, from North America (n=155) and India (n=119). We observed significant cultural differences in TB, with higher levels of self-reported toxicity in the Indian sample. In both samples, consistent with previous findings, age was negatively associated with TB. However surprisingly, there was a statistically significant difference among the two groups in terms of the relationship between education and TB.publishedVersionPeer reviewe

Exploring the Dark Side of Multiplayer Online Games: The Relationship between contact experiences and sexism

publishedVersionPeer reviewe

Designing tailored gamification : A mixed-methods study on expert perspectives and user behavior in a gamified app for sustainability at work

The establishment of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) has put the transition to a sustainable society on the global agenda. In this respect, gamification has gained increasing attention as a tool for companies to motivate employees to adopt sustainable behaviors. Specifically, adapting gamification design to the preferences and needs of individual users has been strongly advocated. However, knowledge of personalized gamification design is largely based on conceptual assumptions and self-reported preferences. It remains thus unclear whether actual behavior of different user types matches theoretical conjectures and how user typologies can drive successful gamification design in sustainability contexts. This work addresses this gap by evaluating the design of a gamified app for sustainability at work by comparing expert evaluation (n=10) and analysis of actual user behavior (n=37) of different Hexad player types over a two-month period. In juxtaposing expert opinions and user behavior, our results reveal that actual user behavior greatly differs from expert suggestions and theoretical assumptions. Our results contribute to future research on tailored gamification by questioning the current state of tailored design theory mainly driven by self-report and pointing to the relevance of the context and non-stereotypical approaches for future personalization efforts.Peer reviewe

Everywhere but Nowhere: Development Experiences of the International Game Developers in Finland during the Covid-19 Pandemic and Remote Work

The Covid-19 pandemic has influenced people's views on work, and a significant portion of the global game industry converted to remote work during the pandemic. To explore the status of game development in this pivotal moment, we have conducted semi-structured interviews with 27 immigrant/expatriate game developers ("game expats") in Finland analyzing their migration push and pull on societal, industrial, social, and individual factors. The results indicate societal and industrial factors simultaneously influencing game expats' migration intention, but with an increasing influence of game corporation's role on developers' both on-the-job and off-the-job embeddedness due to an absence of (local) community activities during the pandemic. The data also reveals that game developers are valuing the physical workspace for face-to-face interactions, despite the industrial norm of digital tools and seamless transition to remote work. Furthermore, an alarming stratification and hierarchization within the game industrywere identified, which game developers self-dividing in-house versus outsourced workforce even if they were both required to work remotely. This paper contributes to game studies on game developers' experiences as an attempt to investigate the local context of game development. It is also one of the first snapshots of game work practices in Finland during the Covid-19 era.Peer reviewe

Understanding toxicity in multiplayer online games: The roles of national culture and demographic variables

Toxic behavior (TB) is a negative response to in-game frustration in multiplayer online games (MOG) that can ruin the playing experience, causing financial damage to MOG operators. Understanding the drivers of TB is an important step to curb the behavior. In this work, we consult the model of national culture (MNC) as well as demographic variables (e.g., education, gender, and age) as antecedent variables of TB using an exploratory design. We surveyed players of League of Legends and Dota 2 with two samples, based on the MNC, from North America (n=155) and India (n=119). We observed significant cultural differences in TB, with higher levels of self-reported toxicity in the Indian sample. In both samples, consistent with previous findings, age was negatively associated with TB. However surprisingly, there was a statistically significant difference among the two groups in terms of the relationship between education and TB.Peer reviewe

Exploring the Dark Side of Multiplayer Online Games: The Relationship between contact experiences and sexism

Peer reviewe

Exploring the Dark Side of Multiplayer Online Games: The Relationship between contact experiences and sexism

The virtual communities of PC and console-based Multiplayer Online Games (MOGs) such as Fortnite or League of Legends continue to grow in popularity and attract millions of players around the world. Despite numerous enjoyable outcomes, some concerns have emerged regarding toxic player behavior such as sexism towards female players. In this study, based on the social identity approach and the contact hypothesis, we adopt the perspective of male players to examine the relationships between positive and negative contact and benevolent and hostile sexism in MOGs. We tested our proposed research model with data from 116 male players. In our sample, negative intergroup contact increased both measured forms of sexism (benevolent and hostile), whilst positive intergroup contact had no impact on either, partially confirming predictions from the contact hypothesis. Our work contributes to the discussion on intervention strategies to curb sexism in all its forms in MOGs