Meaningful Work as an Ethical Approach: Shaping the Next Generation of Organizational Gamification

Abstract

Gamified information systems have become widespread in organizations along with unintended ethical consequences. In parallel, recent advances in artificial intelligence and their promise for gamification raise new ethical concerns in the workplace. Building on a generational review of research progress in the field, we draw from work design, affordances, and value-sensitive design literatures to develop a theoretical framework and a related ethical design approach to encourage more meaningful work with organizational gamification. Our frameworks specify how game elements and their associated affordances can help transition organizational gamification from an add-on to an integrated part of instrumental work systems. We discuss how tying an ethical reflection into a historically informed view of progress in the field overcomes limitations in previous generations of gamification research and helps to resolve long-standing as well as emerging ethical concerns.

Appendices

Appendix I: Distinguishing Gamification from Related Constructs

Although gamification definitions have evolved, clear distinctions from related constructs, such as games, are still needed (Landers et al., 2019).¹ In contrast, some scholars avoid any comparisons, going as far as to suggest that definitions and distinctions are ‘contentious’ (e.g., Mollick & Werbach, 2015). Nevertheless, we believe that it is important to continue to make progress in this area. Specifically, in the workplace we need to distinguish gamification from serious games.

Games represent “an externally structured, goal-directed type of play” (Landers et al., 2019). Some suggest that the primary distinction between games and gamification concerns the number of game elements, such that “games incorporate a mixture of all game elements, whereas gamification involves the identification, extraction, and application of individual game elements or limited, meaningful combinations of those elements” (Landers, 2014, p. 754). However, we find this distinction unsuitable, as many games do not incorporate particular elements (e.g., puzzle games generally do not include narratives) and therefore would not be seen as including all game elements. Further, it is not clear what ‘all’ elements might represent. In line with our thinking, Deterding (2014) concludes “it is impossible to … identify a gamified system by their [game elements] presence”. Thus, although games will include more game elements than gamified systems, this represents just one possible distinction between the two (see Appendix Table 2 for a comparison).

Table 2 Comparison of workplace systems

Another distinction concerns a comparison of gamification with finite games, that is ones with ‘end-states’ (i.e., although they may include increasingly difficult levels, one could theoretically win, lose, or end a finite game: “the goal is to have a winner” (Herger, 2014)). In contrast, gamified systems generally do not have end-states (consider a gamified ERP system that is used continuously in an organization: no one wins or loses overall – or finishes using the system, but employees interact with the system on work-related tasks as needed over time). As Diefenbach and Müssig (2019) conclude, “While a game usually forms an end in itself, gamification forms a means to an end”. Of course, not all games are finite, instead some can be ‘infinite’ (Herger, 2014); examples of these might be games with few, if any, explicit goals, such as The SIMs™ game (an artificial life simulation game). However, most serious games in organizations are finite.

Unlike gamification, serious games are not “embedded in live systems” (Herger, 2014), but generally act as offline standalone systems. Serious games are full-fledged (complete) games, whereas gamified systems are the incorporation of game elements into instrumental systems. Those participating in (serious) games know that they are not in the real world (Kim & Werbach, 2016). Unlike games, gamification is concerned with the “design of a system in which the logic of a non-game activity remains dominant in accounting for success or failure … [gamification may] prove a risky endeavour, if the game logic distorts the non-game logic of the target activity” (Rughinis, 2013, p. 1). That is, gamified systems have consequences in the real world, while games are self-contained (Landers et al., 2019).

Because of gamification’s dependence on game elements, some propose that it represents a sub-discipline of game design (e.g., Landers et al., 2018). Others propose that gamification should not be considered part of game design since it draws on the behavioral sciences (e.g., Klabbers, 2018): we concur and thus draw on the work design literature from the behavioral sciences. As described earlier, this is because gamification in the workplace is applied to instrumental systems (e.g., Liu et al., 2017) that form the dominant part of the system. Thus, we argue that gamification should be primarily considered part of work systems (e.g., Parker et al., 2017) rather than game systems.

Of course, serious games and gamification do have some similarities. Both are developed for instrumental rather than hedonic (Van der Heijden, 2004) purposes. Like gamification, serious games have been defined as systems that aim to leverage the engaging and entertaining aspect of digital games to achieve at least one goal other than entertainment. This may be the reason that some have categorized both as instances of ‘enterprise gamification’ (e.g., Herger, 2014) and others have grouped gamification with serious games in past reviews (e.g., Hamari & Koivisto, 2015).

Both serious games and gamification may be either mandatory or voluntary at work. In contrast, games outside the workplace are generally viewed as voluntary, with many arguing that voluntariness is an essential element of games (e.g., Landers et al., 2019). Of course, instrumental systems at work are often not voluntary, and gamified systems (e.g., ERPs) and serious games (e.g., training systems) could similarly be mandated.

Some researchers have suggested describing gamification based on users’ gameful experiences (e.g., Deterding, 2011; Huotari & Hamari, 2012). Although this is appealing because it relies on individuals’ perceptions of the systems, it does not advance a clear distinction of gamification from games (Deterding, 2014) because, of course, games should also provide for gameful experiences (Li et al., 2014).

In sum, although there is overlap between gamification and serious games in the workplace (e.g., they are both instrumental, they both can be either voluntary or mandatory, and both should elicit gameful experiences), we believe that the distinctions between gamification and serious games (the number of game elements, their end states, integral versus stand-alone systems, work design versus game design theory bases) are necessary to help move the field forward. That is, researchers need to continue to work on defining gamification more precisely and distinguishing it from related constructs in order to move towards the next generation of research and practice.

Appendix II. Game Elements and Affordances

See Table 3, 4 and 5.

Table 3 Game objects

Table 4 Game mechanics

Table 5 Affordances