We were excited to have Ethan Mollick join us this year at GSummit. Ethan is the Assistant Professor of Management at The Wharton School of the University of Pennsylvania. Below are his bio, video and slides from GSummit SF 2014: Prof. Ethan Mollick studies innovation and entrepreneurship, and the ways in which an individual’s actions can…
One of the questions I’m asked most frequently is: “What are the biggest mistakes/risks/pitfalls of Gamification?” My answer almost always includes a cautionary note about the risks of compelling people to “play” gamified experiences, because using force reduces a sense of agency. This is a trap many companies fall into when they gamify an employee process. No matter how much money they spend building an amazing, engaging system, many HR folks fail to consider how they’ll get users to participate beyond “they have to”, or “this is the new process.”
New gamification research out this week from UPenn’s Wharton Business School puts a spotlight on this thorny question, looking at the efficacy of sales team gamification when it’s optional vs compulsory through a primary research project at a high-growth tech startup. The results indicate that gamification is effective at improving employee satisfaction, but if its compulsory it may actually reduce their overall affect.
Stefanie Hermann of Reutlingen University has recently completed a master’s thesis on gamification. She explores gamification theory and gains insight on gamification’s ability to be a motivation for action. Interviewing a number of industry experts, including Gabe Zichermann, Hermann discusses what factors these industry experts believe need to be true in order to use gamification…
