Towards a Code of Ethics for Gamification at Enterprise

Alimohammad Shahri, Mahmood Hosseini, Keith Phalp, Jacqui Taylor, Raian Ali

Bournemouth University, UK

Outline

• Gamification

• Ethics

• Problem and Aim

• Study Design

• Results

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Gamification

• “Gamification is the use of game elements in a non-game context”1

– Leader-boards– Points– Badges– Progress Bars

• It is mainly used to increase motivation and engagement

1. Deterding, S., Dixon, D., Khaled, R. and Nacke, L., 2011. From game design elements to gamefulness: defining gamification. In: International Academic MindTrek Conference: Envisioning Future Media Environments 9–15.

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Gamification could be a relief • ILO report “We found out that 47.7 per cent

of Filipino BPO workers surveyed are suffering from insomnia while 54 per cent are suffering from fatigue”

• Carlos Dominguez, senior vice president at Cisco Systems

– Call centres are very stressing... Angry and demanding customers

– We gamify by measuring the anger at the beginning and the end

– The bigger the delta, the more points the agents gets

– Agents will be wishing for angry customers

– We can also gamify it by letting the agents know how they are doing against their peers

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A call centre personnel presses her hand to her forehead at an online brokerage company in Tokyo October 23, 2008.CREDIT: REUTERS/YURIKO NAKAO

HTTP://WWW.REUTERS.COM/ARTICLE/2009/04/27/US-STRESS-DEPRESSION-IDUSTRE53Q5IA20090427

HTTP://WWW.INTERAKSYON.COM/INFOTECH/IN-STRESS-FILLED-BPO-WORLD-GAMIFICATION-COULD-OFFER-RELIEF

What is ethics?

• According to Blackburn1,ethics determine:– What we find acceptable and not acceptable

– Admirable or contemptible

– Our conception of when things are going right or wrong

– What can be forgiven and what cannot

– What is the cause of anger or attitude

– What can be forgiven and what cannot

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1. S. Blackburn. Ethics: A Very Short Introduction. Oxford University Press, 2001.

Adding Gamification to an enterprise• Applying gamification

should fit into the enterprises’ business process

• It should not violate the business goals, such as professional and ethical standards

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http://futurefreefromdepression.files.wordpress.com/2012/02/blog1.png

Problem and Aim

• There is a lack of study and understanding of the ethical and professional issues that may arise when applying gamification in a working/business environment

• We aim at empirically investigating these issues and provide a check-list of ethical and professional issues for system analysts

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Study Design

• We have used a three-phase sequential mixed method

• First two phases contained broader view of gamification and all are not discussed here

• Third phase was designed to clarify the findings related to ethics and gamification from the users’ and managers’ points of view

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Results

• The result of our study shows that five aspects need to be considered while applying gamification:

– Gamification and tension at work

– Gamification as a monitoring mechanism

– Gamification and privacy

– Gamification as “exploitation-ware”

– Gamification vs. Personal and Cultural Values

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Gamification and Tension at Work

• Gamification can create tension in a working environment, depending on different factors

– As an example, if the nature of the working environment is collaborative, it will lead to tension amongst colleagues, but if it is added to a competitive environment, the competition is already there

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Gamification as a Monitoring Mechanism

• Gamification can be seen as a monitoring system

• Despite monitoring systems being in use in corporations, they are not as accurate and in details as gamification

• As an example, having the leader-board available publicly may raise issues for those who are not in the top list

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Gamification and Privacy

• Gamification can store detailed information about employees

• It can raise issues in some cases. For instance, the availability of the information. Some people may not like others to see their weaknesses or unique areas of expertise

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Gamification as “Exploitation-ware”

• Exploitation-ware means exploiting the presence of a rewarding system to get more from employees than they are expected to give without any cost for the enterprise, such as working more unpaid hours

• Gamification can be seen as “exploitation-ware” depending on some factors– If employees are rewarded based on their progress comparing to other colleagues

rather their own individual performance

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Gamification vs. Personal and Cultural Values

• Using gamification may make people to act in a way that they would not do if gamification was not there– The desire to win and also the fear of being at the bottom of the list

may make people to cheat and do the tasks in a way that is in contradict with their own values

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Conclusion

Although gamification can be seen as an effective tool for increasing productivity, it should be considered that applying it may cause some ethical issues.

This puts an ethical responsibility on gamification developers and managers when designing and applying it.

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Acknowledgements

The research was supported by an FP7 Marie Curie CIG grant (the SOCIAD Project) and by Bournemouth University through the Fusion Investment Fund and the Graduate School Santander Grant for PGR Development

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Thank You!

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