Author ORCID Identifier

https://orcid.org/0000-0002-2513-1571

Semester

Summer

Date of Graduation

2023

Document Type

Dissertation

Degree Type

PhD

College

College of Business and Economics

Department

Management

Committee Chair

Jeffrey Houghton

Committee Member

Kayla Follmer

Committee Member

Xiaoxiao Hu

Committee Member

Kip Holderness

Abstract

Gamification, or the use of game elements in the working environment, is becoming more prevalent in the workplace. These elements, such as badges, points, levels, fictional narratives, leaderboards, and others have been being used in industry due to their assumed motivational properties. Though researchers have begun to investigate this assumption, there is still a lack of supporting empirical evidence. Furthermore, what research has been done has been met with mixed results. This study investigates the usefulness of gamification through the lens of the job characteristics model, which has rarely been used in this field of study and would bring it more cleanly into the management literature. Based on extant literature and theoretical development, this research hypothesized positive relationships between three game elements (points, choices, & badges) and job characteristics found to have motivational properties (feedback, autonomy, & task identity). It was also hypothesized that these relationships will be positively moderated by one’s attitudes towards games, such that a person who enjoys games will be more likely to be motivated by game-like properties in their working environment. To do this, a 2x2x2 experimental design was employed, where the different conditions included one or more of these game elements. Furthermore, these data were analyzed using structural equation modeling to test these hypothesized relationships. This has allowed for efficacy testing against a control group. The results of this research and empirical analysis will be discussed along with implications for practitioners and scholars hoping to make use of this gamification design principle in the workplace environment. It will also provide management scholars with a possible theoretical lens by which gamification can be investigated and discussed in the future for this field of inquiry.

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