[AISWorld] CFP | Gamification | Journal of Business Research | Deadline Nov 15th 2017

Sat Apr 15 13:13:06 EDT 2017

Theoretical Perspectives and Applications of Gamification in Business 
Contexts - 
https://www.journals.elsevier.com/journal-of-business-research/call-for-papers/special-issue-theoretical-perspectives-and-applications-of-g

*** CALL INFORMATION ***
Special Issue Guest Co-Editors:
Juho Hamari, Tampere University of Technology (juho.hamari at tut.fi)
Petri Parvinen, University of Helsinki (patri.parvinen at helsinki.fi)
Anders Gustafsson, Karlstad University (anders.gustafsson at kau.se)
Nancy V. Wünderlich, Paderborn University (nancy.wuenderlich at upb.de)

Submission deadline: 15 Nov 2017

First revisions due: 15 March 2018

Final revisions due: 15 October 2018

Expected publication date: JBR makes articles available as soon as they 
are accepted

This an open call. However, interested authors can OPTIONALLY submit a 
first 10-page version to the gamification-track at the 51st Annual 
Hawaii International Conference on System Sciences (HICSS-51):

Submission of 10-page version to HICSS-51: 15 Jun 2017

Deadline for HICSS-51 fast-track papers: 15 Feb 2018

http://hicss.hawaii.edu/program/hicss51-fasttrack/

http://gamification-research.org/2017/03/hicss2018/

*** CALL TEXT ***

During the last decade, games have become an established vein of 
entertainment, consumer culture, and essentially, a common part of 
people’s daily lives (Mäyrä, Karvinen, & Ermi, 2016). In the United 
States alone 59% of the population plays computer games while revenues 
of the computer games industry exceed US $15 billion (ESA, 2014). 
However, in addition to the increased penetration of games, also the 
ways in which people play and employ games have become more varied. 
There are more different kinds of games available for a multitude of 
different platforms, mediated through different technologies that cater 
for differing gaming needs (Hamari & Keronen, 2017) and which use a wide 
variety of business models (Hamari et al., 2017).

As a result, today, our reality and lives are increasingly game-like, 
not only because video games have become a pervasive part of our lives, 
but perhaps most prominently also because activities, systems and 
services that are not traditionally perceived as game-like are 
increasingly gamified.

Gamification refers to designing products, services and organizational 
practices to afford similar experiences as games do, and consequently, 
attempt to create value and affect people’s behavior (Huotari & Hamari, 
2017). In recent years, popularity of gamification has skyrocketed and 
manifested in growing numbers of gamified applications, as well as a 
rapidly increasing amount of research (Blohm & Leimeister, 2013; 
Deterding, 2015;.Marchand & Hennig-Thurau, 2013; Terlutter & Capella, 2013).

Beyond HCI and game research areas, however, gamification has thus far 
remained a relatively small vein of literature in the areas of business, 
marketing, and organization studies. In these areas, organizations apply 
gamification primarily to motivate two stakeholder groups: employees and 
consumers (Bittner & Shipper, 2014; Conaway & Garay, 2014; Hofacker et 
al., 2016)

While generally gamification is regarded as a highly potential 
technology, predictions about the diffusion of gamification have varied 
from extremely positive outlooks (e.g. Gartner, 2011; IEEE, 2014) to 
less optimistic ones (Gartner, 2012). In the academic realm, several 
studies in various contexts have shown that gamification can be an 
effective approach to increase motivation and engage users or 
participants in a given activity (Seaborn & Fels, 2015). However, it has 
also been predicted that a majority of gamification implementations are 
doomed to fail due to poor understanding of how to successfully design 
gamification (Morschheuser, Werder, Hamari, & Abe, 2017). This dearth in 
comprehensive understanding of the phenomenon continues to inhibit 
organizations from adopting and designing effective gamification approaches.

Organizations use gamification in intra-organizational settings 
primarily to motivate and engage employees to adapt to job tasks or to 
develop skills (Vesa, Hamari, Harviainen, & Warmelink, 2017). Research 
has studied the transformation of work processes into a game-like 
experience and identified the outcomes of gamification in the workplace 
on both the organizational and individual employee level. As such, 
studies support the beneficial effect of gamification such as improved 
job satisfaction and enhanced employee productivity (Oprescu, Jones, & 
Katsikitis, 2014), but also point to unintended side-effects such as a 
decrease of employees’ intrinsic motivation (Thom, Millen, & DiMicco, 
2012), the potential to cheating (Carignan & Lawler Kennedy, 2013; 
Makanawala, Godara, Goldwasser, & Le, 2013) and short-term engagement 
(Farzan et al., 2008). Due to short timeframes in studies around 
gamification, there may be novelty effects in the attraction of 
gamification. Therefore, more research is warranted that explores the 
short-and long-term effects of gamification on customer behaviors and on 
financial outcomes.

Firms implement customer-geared gamification elements to enhance 
customer experiences and to encourage product adoption (Müller-Stewens, 
Schalger, Häubl, & Herrmann, 2017) and value-creating behaviors such as 
boost consumption, strengthen loyalty, deeper engagement, or positive 
word-of-mouth (Leclerq, Hammedi, & Poncin, 2017). While research has 
shown effects of gamification predominantly on short-term behaviors 
(Harwood & Garry, 2015) or behavioral intentions (Bittner & Shipper, 
2014), more research is warranted that explores the short-and long-term 
effects of gamification on customer attitudinal and behavioral outcomes 
as well as on an organization’s financial and operational outcomes. It 
is of great interest to business practitioners, therefore, to answer how 
gamification should be implemented in a sustainable and profitable way. 
While research has focused mainly on exploring the game mechanics that 
drive participation, more research is needed that focuses on the 
mechanics and the underlying processes how firms, employees and customer 
may derive value from gamification.

This Special Issue calls for papers that explore the phenomenon in 
general, regarding both the firm, the employee and the customer 
perspective. Research is needed regarding the underlying mechanisms and 
drivers for the successful use of gamification in business settings. We 
call for research across disciplines from engineering, social science 
and humanities and welcome research from information systems, marketing, 
strategic management, human resources, organizational behavior and other 
fields. The objectives of this special issue are to publish findings and 
exchange knowledge on gamification and its application in business 
contexts. We seek studies that explore gamification application targeted 
to any stakeholder group across all industry sectors.

Theoretical, empirical, experimental, and case study research 
contributions are welcome. All contributions should clearly address the 
practical and theoretical implications of the research reported.

Submission guidelines and deadlines

When preparing your submission, please check the JBR website for 
guidelines on style and paper length: 
http://www.elsevier.com/journals/journal-of-business-research/0148-2963/guide-for-authors.

Manuscript submission for the review process will be done in the 
Elsevier Editorial system at the following website: 
http://www.journals.elsevier.com/journal-of-business-research/

Submission deadline: 15 Nov 2017

First revisions due: 15 March 2018

Final revisions due: 15 October 2018

Expected publication date: JBR makes articles available as soon as they 
are accepted

This an open call. However, interested authors can OPTIONALLY submit a 
first 10-page version to the gamification-track at the 51st Annual 
Hawaii International Conference on System Sciences (HICSS-51):

Submission of 10-page version to HICSS-51: 15 Jun 2017

Deadline for HICSS-51 fast-track papers: 15 Feb 2018

http://hicss.hawaii.edu/program/hicss51-fasttrack/

http://gamification-research.org/2017/03/hicss2018/

Selected paper accepted to the Gamification mini-track will be 
fast-tracked into the Gamification special issue of JBR. Attending the 
conference and/or submitting a manuscript to JBR for publication 
consideration are independent activities; authors are welcome to engage 
in one or both of these activities.

Inquiries should be sent by email to the coordinating JBR Guest 
Co-Editor Nancy V. Wünderlich (nancy.wuenderlich at upb.de).

Bibliography

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differences of gamification in product advertising. Journal of Consumer 
Marketing 31(5), 391-400.

Blohm, I., & Leimeister, J. M. (2013). Gamification. Business and 
Information Systems Engineering, 5(4), 275-278.

Carignan, J., & Lawler Kennedy, S. (2013). Case study: Identifying 
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Conaway, R., & Garay, M. C. (2014). Gamification and service marketing. 
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Deterding, S. (2015). The lens of intrinsic skill atoms: A method for 
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ESA (2014). Essential facts about the computer and video game industry: 
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http://www.gartner.com/it/page.jsp?id=1629214, Access: March 27, 2017

Gartner (2012). Gartner says by 2014, 80 percent of current gamified 
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