CFP: The Business of Gamification

Discussion

We are pleased to invite you to submit a chapter for our book on gamification and business! This is probably one of the first edited books on this subject based on critical and analytical perspectives. It will appear with Routledge in 2015.

Background

The gamification craze in the business world has lasted a number of years and time has arrived to critically examine and analyse the meaning and impact of this trend. Without a paradigmatic definition, a common and tentative viewpoint is that gamification involves the use of game mechanics in “non-game” contexts. The business world has embraced this loosely defined trend with vivid enthusiasm and spawned a plethora of software applications, services, campaigns, products and communication strategies that all claim to be part of the gamification movement. Within a business context an impressive range of efforts have been produced within project management, education, internal/organisational communication, health care, human resource management and marketing. It is the obligation of academia to scrutinise the understanding and use of gamification.

Target Audience

This book is targeted at two broad audiences:

  • Primary: Academics, and postgraduate business students at research levels
  • Secondary: Advanced industry practitioners looking for inspiration and insights regarding the cutting edge of gamification research and implementations

Consequently, we invite submission from both of these audiences.

This book has global reach. The implementation of gamification in business is frequently aligned with digital media and in particular Internet – the reach of gamification applications in business contexts has similar geographical range i.e. global.

Objective

This anthology aims to provide a potentially important and foundational contribution to the nascent field of gamification in business studies. The interest in this field is clearly growing as indicated by the growing industry and media attention to this emerging business strategy. However, there is a strong demand for analytical stringency and critical approaches to this phenomenon covered in hyperbole and uncritical media industry argot.

We aim for the broadest possible theoretical – and practice based – approaches to gamification in business, among others from following areas:

  • Market communications
  • Human resource management
  • Organisational communication
  • Loyalty programmes
  • Project management

Contributions will be categorised into the following three sections:

  • Theoretical – with an aim to critically analyse and construct theoretical understanding of gamification
  • Practical – with the aim to provide empirical observations on how gamification can be implemented in different business settings
  • Future – with the aim to provide comments on future possible scenarios of gamification in business, and how this concept might drive our theoretical understanding of businesses

Time Table

  • 31-Oct 2014: Submission deadline (1500 word extended abstract in PDF format, Short biography)
  • Before end of 2014: Announcement of accepted submissions
  • 31-Mar 2015: First draft deadline
  • 31-May 2015: Second draft deadline
  • 30-Jun 2015: Final chapter deadline

image Download PDF here

Let’s write a smashing gamification anthology!

Mikolaj Dymek, Peter Zackariasson

Associate Professors, Mid Sweden University, University of Gothenburg

mikolaj.dymek[at]gmail.com                      peter[at]zackariasson.com