SpringerPlus, 2014

Our paper addresses the development of the gamification concept with business applications. We report on our survey of customers and managers seeking to participate in gamification on their websites. We examined both customer and manager perspectives and compare survey results in terms of service marketing and characteristics of consumers who engage with gamification platforms. Our data supported a design theory delineating four key characteristics in gamification platforms that attract consumers toward an enterprise's website. Those features attract individuals through (1) Progress Paths, (2) Feedback and Reward, (3) Social Connection, and (4) Attractiveness of the site. Results from the managers' survey reflected key characteristics that must exist for implementation of a gamification platform. The data revealed a particular demographic profile of a gamification individual drawn to a website. These findings may help company managers who wish to adopt a gamification platfor...

MECS is an Institute for Advanced Study on 'Media Cultures of Computer Simulation' funded by the German Research Foundation (DFG) at Leuphana University Lüneburg. Envisaged for a period of eight years, MECS began work in April, 2013. With a budget of over four million euros for the first four-year period, MECS is one of only eight Institutes for Advanced Study funded by the German Research Foundation in Germany and the only one in Lower Saxony. One of MECS's chief tasks is the establishment of an international fellow network. To achieve this, research grants will be awarded every semester to senior, junior and research fellows for a period of up to six months, as well as invitations for shorter stays and for lectures. A further area of emphasis are the research projects by the directors and associates (2 junior directors, 3 post-docs and 3 Ph.D. students), as well as their cooperation with the researchers at Leuphana. The institute is a place for transdisciplinary academic exchange which provides experienced scholars from the media, cultural, natural and technical sciences the opportunity to come together with Ph.D. students and post-docs to research the phenomena of computer simulation from a media-cultural scientific perspective. A program of evening lectures, workshops, colloquia and international conferences during the semester is part of the institute's public activities. The objective of MECS is to investigate computer simulation as research practice in its historical formation, its epistemology and its technological-medial constitution in the terms of the respective science in which it is used. The research focuses on the question of which problems and knowledge constellations can be answered by computer simulation, which new forms of knowledge it generates and to what extent it represents a historical break. The epistemological relevance and the wideranging applications of computer simulations are based on the fact, according to the initial hypothesis, that the constellations are fundamentally different for the various spheres of knowledge. For this reason, MECS is aligned with media science and historical knowledge and orientated on case studies. Case study investigation focuses on: 1. the computer's specific technological materiality; 2. the research logic and laboratory practices generated by the object under investigation; 3. the actors of knowledge production.

This paper examines the use of gamification in the service industry, particularly focusing on gaining and retaining customers. It is well known that this works in the tangible product industries. An examination of literatures provides the fundamentals into finding aspects that can lead to gamification success in the service industry. The findings of this paper shows a positive linkage in gamification strategies and customer acquisition and retention. As a result, this paper will be able to facilitate the decision to gamify a service or not. It will also provide a headway for further academic research in the future.

2014

Games have been used as a tool to introduce older people to digital technology. Here we are developing a gameful system to facilitate the social interactions between older people and young adults in a community run club.

Bit Bang 4: Future of Internet , 2012

Crowdsourcing is a growing phenomenon, which has been strikingly boosted by the advent of the Internet. Despite its vibrant presence in the popular press, extant literature has limited academic studies on it. Most crowdsourcing-related studies are based on single case studies. Incentive structures and motivational factors vary from one platform to another because the activities are different from one to another. The objective of this study is to understand the overall crowdsourcing platform phenomenon by considering issues such as incentive, inception, motivation, key activities, and the country of platform origin as well as the global evolution of crowdsourcing platforms. Data has been collected from over 400 online platforms. The overall structure of incentive, inception, and motivation are revealed. Moreover, geographical dispersion of online platforms shows very interesting insights.

By making work seem more like leisure time, gamification and corporate training games serve as a mechanism for solving a range of problems and, significantly, of increasing productivity. This piece examines the implications of gamification as a means of productivity gains that extend Frederick Winslow Taylor’s principles of scientific management, or Taylorism. Relying on measurement and observation as a mechanism to collapse the domains of labour and leisure for the benefit of businesses (rather than for the benefit or fulfilment of workers), gamification potentially subjugates all time into productive time, even as business leaders use games to mask all labour as something to be enjoyed. In so doing, this study argues, the agency of individuals – whether worker or player – becomes subject to the rationalized nature of production. This rationalization changes the nature of play, making it a duty rather than a choice, a routine rather than a process of exploration. Taken too far or used unthinkingly, it renders Huizinga’s magic circle into one more regulated office cubicle.

2005

Abstract This paper offers findings from a national representative postal survey (1,816 persons 15-85 years of age) conducted in Sweden that included several questions on political consumerism. Most of the questions were asked for the first time in the fall of 2003, thus making this survey one of the most comprehensive data sets on political consumerism in existence today.

Journal of Adhesion Science and Technology, 2004

The effects of an ammonia-based catalyst, surface coverage, organofunctional group and chain length on silane adhesion promoter efficacy were examined at a benzocyclobutene (BCB)/silicon dioxide interface with silanes of varying functionality and chain length. Fracture-mechanics-based techniques, and X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy and contact-angle measurements were used to quantify the adhesion energy and silane surface coverage, respectively. Inclusion of a propylamine catalyst in silane solutions was found to affect both silane surface coverage and the resulting adhesion energy. However, in the absence of the catalyst comparable results were obtained with hydrolysis times in excess of 1 h. Only a weak dependence of adhesion energy on silane surface coverage was observed. After adhesion energy results for silanes with varying organofunctional group were normalized for differences in surface coverage, only the vinylfunctional silane was found to enhance adhesion of BCB to silicon dioxide, due to interaction of the vinylfunctional group with BCB during cure. A trend of increasing adhesion energy with increasing chain length was observed for CH 3terminated silanes (2 n 18), while an opposite trend of decreasing adhesion energy with increasing chain length was found for vinyl-terminated silanes (2 n 22). The results are compared to existing models of polymer chain entanglement.