Conceptualising Gamification Risks to Teamwork within Enterprise

Gamification in businesses refers to the use of technology-assisted\ud solutions to boost or change staff attitude, perception and behaviour, in relation\ud to certain business goals and tasks, individually or collectively. Previous research\ud indicated that gamification techniques can introduce risks to the business\ud environment, and not only fail to make a positive change, but also raise concerns\ud in relation to ethics, quality of work, and well-being at a workplace. Although\ud the problem is already recognised in principle, there is still a need to\ud clarify and concretise those risks, their factors and their relation to the gamification\ud dynamics and mechanics. To address this, we conducted multi-staged empirical\ud research, including two months’ observation and interview study, in two\ud large-scale businesses using gamification in their workplace. In this paper, we\ud focus on gamification risks related to teamwork within the enterprise. We outline\ud various risk mitigation strategies and map them to primary types of gamification\ud risks. By accomplishing such conceptualisation, we pave the way towards\ud methods to model, detect and predict gamification risks on teamwork and\ud recommend and design practices and strategies to tackle them.