Course content
From fitness apps to workplace productivity incentives, from language learning to customer retention strategies, gamification seems to be an almost ubiquitous part of our society, especially in the highly digitalized context of service management. Initially devised to promote better engagement with tedious tasks by adding layers of game mechanics to them, practices of gamification have grown into their own as widespread forms of behavioral nudging that are, almost ironically, even being applied to games themselves.
In the context of service management, gamification can be considered from many different aspects. On the one side, game developers, which are themselves part of the service industry, can be both developer of gamification services or even have their products subjected to gamification mechanics; on the other side, companies might consider whether using gamification strategies might be a way to boost user engagements with their products or services, or whether their human resources could be better mobilized through the gamified processes in the workplace; and finally, the success of these initiatives will fully depend on whether the users of these gamified mechanics will engage with the gamified aspects as intended, or show indifference or even rejection and resistance to them.
In this course, students will critically engage with basic concepts of games and gamification, in order to better understand the foundations, uses and reservations to the use of gamification in a service management context. This will be done through the engagement with different uses of gamification, exploration of the different stakeholders involved, and the development of their own gamification prototype.
The course will cover (on an introductary and intermediary level)
By the end of the course, students will
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