Toward a Design Theory of User-Centered Score Mechanics for Gamified Competency Development

ABSTRACT

Gamification is increasingly being used by organizations to foster work-related competencies and employee motivation. In the current body of gamification literature, there is a dearth of design knowledge about systems that foster the development of employee competencies through effective gamification approaches. The aim of this paper is to set the cornerstone of an information systems design theory (ISDT) of user-centered score mechanics that can assist both researchers and practitioners in building gamified environments.

KEYWORDS:

• Design theory
• gamification
• gamified competency development
• user-centered score mechanics
• design science research

Additional information

Funding

This projectwas co-funded by the Federal Ministry of Educationand Research (Bundesministerium für Bildung und Forschung, BMBF) and the EU’s European Social Fund (funding number 898 14145).

Notes on contributors

Martin Böckle

Martin Boeckle holds a Ph.D. from the ESCP Business School, Berlin, Germany and currently works as a Lead Strategic Designer at BCG Platinion. He also affiliated with the IACS-Institute for Applied Computer Science of the University of Applied Sciences Stralsund and previously worked as a researcher at the European Institute for Participatory Media and the Humboldt-Viadrina School of Governance. His research interests are in the area of Information Systems, Human-Centered Artificial Intelligence and Gamification. His articles have been published in conference proceedings such as ECIS and HICSS as well as international journals like the Journal of Enterprise Information Management (JEIM).

Markus Bick

Markus Bick is full Professor of Business Information Systems at ESCP Business School Campus Berlin, Germany. He earned a PhD in Business Information Systems from the University of Duisburg-Essen. His current research interests include gamification, digital transformation as well as global knowledge management, or blockchain. He published his work in renowned international journals (Journal of Business Logistics, Information Systems Frontiers, Electronic Markets, Information & Management, Business Information Systems Engineering, Decision Support Systems, International Journal of Information Management or Information Systems Management) and is an Associate Editor of Electronics Market and a Senior Editor of Information Systems Management.

Jasminko Novak

Jasminko Novak is Professor of Information Systems at the University of Applied Sciences Stralsund and Head of its Competence Center for Human-centered Intelligent Systems and Sustainability at the IACS-Institute for Computer Science. He is also Chairman of the European Institute for Participatory Media in Berlin and serves on the editorial boards of Human Computation and i-com – Journal of Interactive Media. His current research focuses on Human-Centered AI and Digital Innovations for Sustainability. This work is pursued in collaborative interdisciplinary projects that integrate methods and techniques from fields such as Information Systems, HCI, Cooperative Systems, Social Computing, Gamification, Visualization and AI.