The role(s) of gamification in knowledge management

Gamification is a new, but an increasingly popular approach, which proved to be powerful in many areas, such as education and marketing, and has entered the area of internal corporate applications. This exploratory study is focused on a particular part of corporate environment – gamification being a medium of interactions of knowledge workers with each other. By providing a literature review of gamification and combining it with the exploratory case-study of an online retailer, Zappos, we demonstrate the ways in which gamification helps to identify various types of knowledge workers and influence their dynamics, as well as we open a wide range of areas for further research

Changing the Game : A Case for Gamifying Knowledge Management

Purpose: This exploratory paper investigates gamification as a medium for knowledge workers to interact with each other. The paper aims to open the discussion around the sustaining impact that gamification might have on knowledge management. Design/methodology/approach: The paper employs an exploratory literature review investigating the current state of the art in relation to knowledge management and gamification; this literature review serves as the starting point of subsequent theorizing. Findings: Based on the literature review we theorize that the use of gamification in knowledge management can go far beyond the motivational aspects. To name just a few uses of gamification, it can help in: supporting flexibility, facilitating transparency and therefore improving trust, visualizing skills and competences as well as generating requirements for new competences, and promoting a collaborative environment among the knowledge workers. Research limitations/implications: This paper opens the discussion around knowledge management and gamification and suggests a wide range of areas for further research. Practical implications: In this paper we argue that by looking at gamification as more than just a set of tools for improving motivation and engagement a company can address some pitfalls of a particular type of knowledge workers. Social implications: Originality/value: Gamification is a new, but increasingly popular approach, which has been shown to be to be powerful in many areas. This paper is novel in that it initiates a dialogue around the impact that gamification might have on knowledge management

Knowledge management in innovative technology companies, the case of the energy sector

Knowledge Management (KM) has been extensively researched for more than two decades, however the academic literature is still quite disjoined and fragmented. Companies keep facing repetitive KM-related problems that come at high cost, and the solutions that they find are often reduced to installing a new software package that is expected to facilitate knowledge flow across an organisation.This research departs from a problem observed in practice - a failed KM project in an innovative company, and aims at understanding the reasons behind this failure. It then investigates KM within some of the most innovative companies in the energy sector in an attempt to address the questions found in practice and not answered by the academic literature. Subsequently it sets the following research goals, which help to address identified gaps in the literature: (1) to understand the KM journey that companies undertake, (2) to define the role of technology in this journey, and (2) to explore gamification as a possible contributing aspect of a developed solution.The research adopts an iterative approach in a form of continuous dialogue between theory and practice, with multiple case study analysis as the research design of the main part of the empirical investigation. And as a result, it develops an organic roadmap of KM that depicts an evolution of KM in innovative companies at the example of the energy sector.This research contributes of the body of knowledge by:1. Describing a KM journey that innovative companies in the energy sector undertake in order to achieve excellence, and that consists of three phases: managing explicit knowledge, knowledge sharing and creating new knowledge.2. Demonstrating that technological component (document repositories) is central to KM only in the first phase and becomes peripheral (with the most useful tool being wikis) starting from the second phase.3. Opening a new area of research and suggesting that gamification might have a significant impact on KM that stretches far beyond motivation.4. Questioning that maturity models are an appropriate framework to study the evolution of KM in an organisation.The research contributes to practice by demonstrating that KM is a learning process rather than a one-time initiative and by creating realistic expectations from the technological support.The extent of the contribution was discussed with the companies-participants of this study and the board of directors at Durham Energy Institute, being a validation of the findings.Knowledge Management (KM) has been extensively researched for more than two decades, however the academic literature is still quite disjoined and fragmented. Companies keep facing repetitive KM-related problems that come at high cost, and the solutions that they find are often reduced to installing a new software package that is expected to facilitate knowledge flow across an organisation.This research departs from a problem observed in practice - a failed KM project in an innovative company, and aims at understanding the reasons behind this failure. It then investigates KM within some of the most innovative companies in the energy sector in an attempt to address the questions found in practice and not answered by the academic literature. Subsequently it sets the following research goals, which help to address identified gaps in the literature: (1) to understand the KM journey that companies undertake, (2) to define the role of technology in this journey, and (2) to explore gamification as a possible contributing aspect of a developed solution.The research adopts an iterative approach in a form of continuous dialogue between theory and practice, with multiple case study analysis as the research design of the main part of the empirical investigation. And as a result, it develops an organic roadmap of KM that depicts an evolution of KM in innovative companies at the example of the energy sector.This research contributes of the body of knowledge by:1. Describing a KM journey that innovative companies in the energy sector undertake in order to achieve excellence, and that consists of three phases: managing explicit knowledge, knowledge sharing and creating new knowledge.2. Demonstrating that technological component (document repositories) is central to KM only in the first phase and becomes peripheral (with the most useful tool being wikis) starting from the second phase.3. Opening a new area of research and suggesting that gamification might have a significant impact on KM that stretches far beyond motivation.4. Questioning that maturity models are an appropriate framework to study the evolution of KM in an organisation.The research contributes to practice by demonstrating that KM is a learning process rather than a one-time initiative and by creating realistic expectations from the technological support.The extent of the contribution was discussed with the companies-participants of this study and the board of directors at Durham Energy Institute, being a validation of the findings

Designing a supply network for sustainable conversion of agriplastics into higher value products

This study addresses the problem of agricultural plastic waste being a major stream of waste landfilled. The developed model is designed to optimise the supply chain of converting plastic waste into energy through pyrolysis and applied in a case study of the Scottish agricultural sector to showcase its potential in assessing the feasibility and financial viability in addition to the positive environmental impact of agricultural plastics supply networks. Based on the results this study discusses the benefits of using such a model for decision making purposes, the potential for waste reduction and the implications for the farmer operation

The role of technology support in knowledge management evolution in innovative companies

Technology is an essential part of most knowledge management (KM) initiatives, and the researchers have been both praising and criticising it for almost three decades. In this paper we take a more balanced view of the role of technology in KM and suggest that the impact of technology and the reliance on changes depend on the phase of KM evolution in a company (company's experience with KM practices). In particular, we examined different types of knowledge management systems (KMS) in the context of innovative companies from the energy sector and found that at the beginning companies are quite reliant on document repositories that help them to manage explicit knowledge. When they start paying more attention to knowledge sharing practices, the role of technology shifts to the periphery where wikis were found to be the most useful tool

Gamification and innovation : a mutually beneficial union

Gamification is a new but rapidly growing trend impacting a wide range of areas, such as education, marketing and others and it could be considered an innovation in these areas, though it is rarely seen in this light. On the other hand, gamification was predicted to revolutionise the innovating process by now, but we do not see many examples of it. This is an exploratory paper that intends to open the discussion about the ways in which a new area of gamification intertwines with innovation and supports different aspects of it. In particular, it provides examples of gamification being an innovative aspect of innovation as a result and suggests the ways in which gamification can be an innovative approach to the innovating process

Gamifying knowledge sharing:networks, communities, and emotions

In this paper we build a case for gamifying knowledge sharing