How can gamification increase the Performance of employees in a multicultural organisation

Année 2012-2014– Mémoire de master Forme de la maquette mémoire.doc
Mémoire de Master 2008-2013
Spécialisation de 5ème
Année : European Master in International Business
Tuteur de mémoire : Thomas Hoerber

Année 2011-2013 – Master Thesis
Résumé du mémoire en français :
L’objectif de ce mémoire est d’étudier les effets de la Gamification sur la
Performance des employés, et plus particulièrement au sein d’un environnement
de travail multiculturel.
La Gamification est une notion large qui recouvre plusieurs dimensions
techniques visant à stimuler la motivation interne. Dans un contexte de
mondialisation où les espaces de travail sont composés d’employés issus de
diverses cultures et religions, les entreprises sont confrontées à divers challenges
concernant la gestion de la diversité. Parmi ces challenges figurent la clarté de la
communication, la mise en place d’objectifs communs et stimulants pour chacun,
appréhension de la hiérarchie et différentes approches pour la prise de décision.
Ce mémoire va étudier les effets des techniques de Gamification afin de résoudre
les problématiques liés à la gestion de la diversité, notamment les problèmes de
communication interculturelle, tout en gardant comme optique l’augmentation de
la Performance générale de l’entreprise.
Des entretiens semi directifs seront réalisés avec des professionnels travaillants
sur des solutions de Gamification.
Mots-clés :
 Performance
 Motivation
 Engagement
 Gamification
 Culture

Preface
This thesis is part of my master's Degree, in the European Master in International
Business (EMIB) at Ecole Supérieure des Sciences Commerciales d’Angers, in France.
This thesis is the work that concludes my six years of study at ESSCA, and I cannot help but
to think back of those years with fondness as I’m writing theses lines. I am more than grateful
to have met some inspiring teachers and speakers thorough my studies in Paris, Angers and
Nanjing. Those meetings and discussions shaped, if not my personality, at least the way I
approach the corporate world. Not with prejudices, but with an open-mind.
Open-mindedness seems like an absolute requirement to work with individuals from other
cultures. And thanks to this, Games allow us to have fun together, to share the same goal, to
be in the same universe, and to speak the same language. Games bring us together, and I
cannot emphasize enough that point.
I would like to thanks the whole team of teachers and speakers, for their professionalism, and
their dedication,
I would also like to thank Thomas Hoerber for his advices and his valuable insights throughout
the process of redacting this Thesis.
Let’s have fun.

4

5
1 Table of Contents
Preface.................................................................................................................................3
2 Introduction.....................................................................................................................7
2.1 Relevance of the Study for Business..........................................................................9
2.2 Research questions..................................................................................................11
2.3 Academic relevance of the research.........................................................................12
Chapter 1 : Theory ...............................................................................................................14
3 Games............................................................................................................................14
3.1 Introduction...............................................................................................................14
3.2 Defining Games........................................................................................................14
3.2.1 Players ...............................................................................................................17
3.2.2 Pretending..........................................................................................................17
3.2.3 Goals..................................................................................................................17
3.2.4 Rules..................................................................................................................18
3.3 Game Mechanics......................................................................................................18
3.3.1 Points .................................................................................................................19
3.3.2 Levels.................................................................................................................20
3.3.3 Leaderboards.....................................................................................................21
3.3.4 Badges...............................................................................................................22
3.3.5 Challenges & Quests .........................................................................................23
3.3.6 Onboarding ........................................................................................................23
3.3.7 Social Engagement Loops .................................................................................25
3.4 Why do we play Games?..........................................................................................26
3.4.1 The Cognitive Evaluation Theory .......................................................................26
3.4.2 The limits of the Cognitive Evaluation Theory ....................................................27
3.4.3 The Flow Theory ................................................................................................27
3.4.4 Four Drives Theory of Motivation .......................................................................29
3.5 Conclusion................................................................................................................30
4 Performance..................................................................................................................31
4.1 Defining Performance...............................................................................................31
4.2 Performance Measurement with the Balanced Scorecard........................................34
4.3 The limits of Performance Measurement ..................................................................36
4.4 Conclusion................................................................................................................37
5 Culture...........................................................................................................................38
5.1 Defining Culture........................................................................................................38
5.2 Theories of Culture ...................................................................................................39
5.2.1 Gert Hofstede’s Theory on Cultural Dimensions ................................................39
5.2.2 Trompenaars’ Theory on Cultural Dimensions...................................................40
5.2.3 Limits of the theories ..........................................................................................42
5.3 Communication across Cultures...............................................................................43
Chapter 2 The Empiric framework......................................................................................44
6 Choice of the Qualitative study ...................................................................................44
6.1 Introduction...............................................................................................................44
6.2 Choice of the approach.............................................................................................44
6.3 Limits of the approach ..............................................................................................45
6.4 Sampling...................................................................................................................45
6.5 Hypothesis................................................................................................................46
7 Hypothesis Analysis.....................................................................................................46
7.1 Hypothesis 1: A gamified system is more suited to raise intrinsic motivation ...........64
7.1.1 Games stimulate Motivation...............................................................................64
7.1.2 Games can make you feel more engaged .........................................................64

6
7.1.3 The limits of Games ...........................................................................................65
7.1.4 Conclusion .........................................................................................................65
7.2 Hypothesis 2: An increase of intrinsic motivation from employees is likely to increase
overall performance of the company ..................................................................................66
7.2.1 What is performance? ........................................................................................66
7.2.2 Competition leads to performance .....................................................................67
7.2.3 Collaboration leads to performance ...................................................................67
7.2.4 Conclusion .........................................................................................................67
7.3 Hypothesis 3: A gamified system increase team cohesion .......................................67
7.3.1 Games uses team spirit .....................................................................................68
7.3.2 Bonding with Game............................................................................................68
7.3.3 Consequences and outcomes............................................................................68
7.3.4 Conclusion .........................................................................................................69
7.4 Hypothesis 4: A gamified system reduces communication problem among multi-
cultural team members.......................................................................................................69
7.4.1 Gamified systems breaks barriers......................................................................69
7.4.2 Games themselves are a way to communicate..................................................69
8 Conclusion ....................................................................................................................70
8.1 Main limit to the reflexion ..........................................................................................70
8.2 Overall conclusion ....................................................................................................70
8.3 Recommendation for further studies.........................................................................71
8.4 Academic articles......................................................................................................72
8.5 Books........................................................................................................................74
8.6 Professionnal reviews...............................................................................................74
8.7 Internet websites.......................................................................................................74
9 Appendix .......................................................................................................................75
9.1 Interview guide..........................................................................................................75
9.2 Schematization of the research question..................................................................76
9.3 The literature review Table .......................................................................................77
9.4 Concept Definition ....................................................................................................79
9.5 Theory Dictionnary....................................................................................................80
9.6 Retranscription..........................................................................................................81
9.6.1 Retranscription Number 1 ..................................................................................81
9.6.4 Retranscription Numero 4 ..................................................................................91

7
2 Introduction
More and more companies are interested in Video Games. Not only as an Industry who
valued 71,4 Billions USD worldwide in 20121 but as very powerful tool. Game mechanics such
as levels, points, badges and bonuses triggers an activity towards the player. It is because
these specific mechanics can shape behavior that more and more companies are interested
in Gamification.
The Gartner Consulting Group forecasts that by 2014, at least 70% of Global 2000
Organisation will have at least one gamified application2. The consulting company M2
Research estimated the Gamification market to reach 242 million USD in 2012 and expects it
to reach 2.8 Billion by 2016. As games have a huge impact on our day-to-day lives, Games
are expected to have an impact on business activities.
Increasing Engagement, Performance and Motivation among the employees are common
business goals for companies, no matter what are their industry or their geographic locations.
If Games mechanics can specifically shape user behavior, then maybe games can be used to
trigger similar reaction toward employee. In a way, Corporate organizations want their
employees to adopt a similar attitude than those of a gamer, meaning an acute attention, and
a genuine motivation for their tasks at hand. If we are able to have this attitude in a gaming
context, why can’t we develop those traits for the task where they are paid for at work?
Gamification is a trend that appeared in the Silicon Valley during the late 2000 decade
(Deterding, Dixon, Khaled and Nacke 2011). These researchers propose the following
definition:
“Gamification is the use of game design elements in non-game context”.
This definition is quite short, but at the same time, it allows to regroup several notions such as
gameful interactions, the complexity of game elements, and the design of these elements.
1 Euromonitor, « Passport Video Games Market Size » pp 1 (2013)
2
Christy Pettey « Gartner Predicts Over 70 Percent of Global 2000 Organisations Will Have at Least One Gamified
Application by 2014 » Gartner Group http://www.gartner.com/newsroom/id/1844115 consulted the 02/11/2014

8
Kai Huotari and Juho Hamari (2012) decided to define Gamification through a marketing
service point of view:
Gamification is the “process of enhancing a service with affordance for gameful experiences in
order to support user’s overall value creation”.
This definition focuses on the purpose of Gamification, which is to add value to a service
delivered by a company. This emphasizes the practical use of games and how can it impact
the strategy of a company.
It is interesting to notice that since its inception, the notion of Gamification had to create a
purpose, to achieve some goals. Gamification is not some kind of externality but a different
approach coming from managers and game designers in both, how to do business and how to
manage this business.
Companies, in order to be competitive, try to increase their performance. This can either be by
increasing the turnover or, by reducing structural costs. The delivery of financial results is
mandatory for all organizations, may they be companies, NGO, Government or even
household as they show the current condition (financial, most of the time) of this organization.
The most famous performance mapping in academic literature is the Balanced Scorecard
(Kaplan & Norton 1996). This notion allowed to take into consideration others elements than
only financial measures, in order to give an overall vision of the business unit.
The link here between Performance and Gamification is that both notions are tied to the
strategy of the company. On the one hand, elements defining Performance such as the
Balanced Scorecard should translate the company’s vision. On the other hand Gamification,
through its application, articulates this vision, and helps managers to communicate the
company’s strategy and objectives to their employees.
This communication is much easier when all the employees of the same company share the
same culture. Homogenous groups, i.e. group who share the same culture, show more
satisfaction within the members, and experience more positive reaction (Jackson Joshi and
Erhardt 2003). On the other hand, heterogeneous teams, with multicultural members
experience more frustration regarding:

9
 The advantage/limitations of bilingualism,
 The sufficiency/insufficiency within cultural communities,
 Conformity to/defiance against the norm,
 Fulfillment/failure of expectations and
 Familial obligations/sense of independence. (Baxter and Montgomery’s 1995)
Companies with international business activities are frequently managing teams composed of
individuals from diverse cultural backgrounds. Diversity management and multicultural teams
can be very efficient and rewarding for the company, if certain conditions are present, i.e.
sharing a common goal, in order to develop common norms and rules (Earley and Mosakowski
2000). This is called Hybrid Team Culture. It consists of a simplified set of rules, norms and
roles developed over time shared by all the members of this team. These simplified rules are
group-specific, and provide a common ground for all members to create a sense of belonging
and identity, as well as facilitate group communication and performance (Klimoski and
Mohamed 1994).
Companies want to engage their employees, meaning to give them a sense of purpose by
assigning objectives in concordance with the company’s strategy. At the same time, employees
within a foreign culture company experience difficulties to communicate with each other. These
difficulties doesn’t not stop only at fluency in a language, but also include indirect
communication, differing attitude toward decision making, both the decision itself and the
process to reach that decision. There is more to collaboration to than just the language though.
But the language is a condition sine qua non of an efficient cooperation.
This leads to our Central Question:
How can Gamification increase the performance of employees in a multi-cultural
workplace?
2.1 Relevance of the Study for Business

10
The purpose of Talent Research is for a company to find tomorrow’s leaders. Looking
at the current trends is an effective way to spot the persons with the required skills. Massive
Multiplayers Online (MMO) games are seen by some researchers such as Byron Reeves,
Thomas W. Malone and Tony O’Driscoll (2008) as an incubator for leaders.
MMO games share several common situations with the business world. Both managers and
Team Leaders in games must face circumstances such as:
 Quick Decision Making: how should we lead an assault? What should be our strategy?
 Risk taking: trials and error can be used as an element of gameplay. Failure must force
the gamer to ask what went wrong, and what should be done in order to achieve the
goal.
 Grabbing and releasing leadership: Leadership is not seen as a status and a role, but
as a task that must be done.
The level of complexity reached by MMO Role Playing Games requires a lot of communication
and organisation from the players within the game. This communication is essential to
coordinate actions and achieve the task proposed by the game. Example of such
communication consists of: plan of attack, revising a strategy, providing tips to newcomers,
feedback, and quite frequently trash talks. Looked from the context of the game, this might
seems trivial, but Players communicate not only for social support, but also for reaching a
sense of belonging, achieving goals and sharing information and in-game resources.
Thus, organizations present within the game, such as games groups, parties, clan or guilds
emerge. Those need structure, Hierarchy, rules and a common goal to strive. This is the reason
why these organizations, these in-games guilds are very similar to businesses. Both of them
requires rules and norms to achieve goals.
This leads to an important problematic. What drive these players to form complex
organizations, which ask a lot of time, money and commitment from their members? Is
it only for fun?
Except in video games competitions the gamers does not receive any external rewards from
these sessions. If it is not external motivation, such as money, prizes or reward, then it must

11
be intrinsic motivation. Intrinsic motivation is the doing of an activity for its inherent satisfactions
rather than for some separable consequence. (Ryan & Deci 2000)
The purpose for Gamification, and user experience is to create engagement to the user, to the
client. But is engagement really effective? Does customer engagement increase customer
loyalty? Does employee engagement increase corporate performance? As several searchers
have pointed out, not all the employees want the same thing.
“Some care deeply about the social connection formed in the workplace, others want to make
as much money with as much flexibility and as little as commitment as possible. Some have
an appetite for risk. Other crave the steadiness of a well-structured, long term climb up the
career ladder.” (Erickson and Grafton, Harvard Business Review 2007).
Games rely on commitment from all the players involved. And while it is not an exclusive part,
some games do generate some rewards. As presented earlier, the competition offers some
rewards.
The situations met in online games are very similar to those from the real world. However, it is
very likely that some managers still stay very sceptical that business can adopt elements from
online leadership situations.
Leader boards appeal to the sense of status of a user. Badges appeal to the sense of
achievement. Teamplay appeals to the sense of commitment. But all of these three elements
require some sort of engagement from the player.
But is engagement of an employee absolutely necessary? Can other elements intervene as
well?
2.2 Research questions
What elements of Gamification create Performance within an organisation?
Are these elements relevant in a multi-cultural workplace?

12
2.3 Academic relevance of the research
Kai Huotari and Juho Hamari (2012) start from the service-dominant (SD) logic in
marketing literature to explain how Gamification works as a marketing-service. In the SD
marketing literature, the user generates the creation of value, once he uses the service or the
product.
Games are co-produced by the game developers and the gamers. The developers are in
charge of defining the rules, the gameplay, the story of the game… But there are no
experiences if there is no gamer to interact with the game. This particular experience is the
core of the notion of Gamification. As their definition emphasize particularly the goal of
Gamification, and not the process itself.
The process is yet to be defined. The provider of the experience is not exclusively the company
or either the client or the prospect. A third party, responsible of the design of the gamified
system can be involved in the experience.
Then how can a company benefit from the effect of such an experience? Scott Nicholson
(2012) declares “meaningful Gamification puts the needs and goals of the users over the needs
of the organization”. In order to gain long-terms benefits, a powerful and meaningful
experience, a transparency of the goals searched to the users and compatibility between the
in-game and the non-game settings are 3 sine qua non conditions to be met.
Fitz-Walter, Tjondronegoro and Wyeth (2011) have carried out a study, exploring the effects of
an achievement system used to engage students with a mobile application system.
The purpose was to analyse the design and the initial response of the students to the overall
experiences. The conclusions were that tasks such as check in to a specific location, that's to
a GPS application present on their smartphone or check in at an event were more enjoyable,
as they presented a kind of challenge.
These tasks are contextual, and appear to be immersive. They appear immersive, as they
require a lot of action from the students. They need to have a Smartphone, they need to have
the application, they need to know how to use it, they need to go to the specific location and

13
finally, they must use the application at the specific location. Thus, is immersion a necessary
condition to engagement?
Landers and Callan (2011) point out that the purpose of immersion in games or simulations is
to recreate a real in-person environment, with all its complexity, in order to reduce instruction
costs.
However, engagement is created when games are selected from course objectives, and not
the opposite.
“Gamification does not involve the creation of a game for learning purposes. Instead, it takes
the motivational properties of games and layers them on top of other learning activities,
integrating the human desire to communicate and share accomplishment with goal-setting to
direct the attention of learners and motivate them to action”.
Is engagement everything? The Corporate Leadership Council in 2004 carried out a study with
over 50 000 employees from 59 organizations, 30 countries and 14 different industries.
However “Engagement is not a Cure-All”. Engagement is an element of a high performing
workforce, but only accounts for 40% of observed performance improvements. Direct
performance influence factors include also, the access to job relevant information, experiences
and access to better resources.

14
Chapter 1 : Theory
3 Games
3.1 Introduction
This chapter aims at giving an academic review of the literature on the key concepts of
the central question. The purpose of this review is to add context and help to understand how
the three notions are inter-linked. The first part of this chapter will focus on the game, and what
composes a game. The second part will present performance, what constitutes performance
and the different measures of performance of a company. Finally, the last part is about culture
and communication within a multi-cultural group.
There are three purposes to this review. First, some notions will be presented and defined.
This purpose serves to add clarification as these notions will later be used in the second part
of the thesis. Then, we are going to show an overview of what constitutes Gamification and
performance, and how can these elements interact with each other. Finally, the last purpose is
to present the theories that compose the theoretical framework surrounding these very notions.
The red-thread of this chapter is to study how Gamification, and more specifically games, can
change and shape the behaviour of employees in order to make them more motivated. Then
how this Motivation can increase the overall performance of a Company. Finally, we investigate
if this aspect can be applied in a multi-cultural workplace.
3.2 Defining Games
It seems crucial that to understand Gamification, we must first understand games.
However, it is surprising to see how something as common as games can be difficult to define.
The term game covers a lot of things: Tags, the statues game, Monopoly, Call of Duty, pinball,
football. All of these are games. But what have all these things in common?
Jesper Juul, in a keynote presented in 2003 at the Utrecht University has regrouped seven
definitions of games.

15
Source Definition
Johan Huizinga 1950 PP13
[…] a free activity standing quite consciously
outside “ordinary” life as being “not serious”,
but at the same time absorbing the player
intensely and utterly. It is an activity
connected with no material interest, and no
profit can be gained by it. It proceeds within
its own proper boundaries of time and space
according to fixed rules and in an orderly
manner. It promotes the Formation of social
groupings which tend to surround
themselves with secrecy and to stress their
difference from the common world by
disguise or other mean.
Roger Caillois 1961, PP10-11
[…] an activity which is essentially: Free
(voluntary), separate [In time and space],
uncertain, unproductive, governed by rules,
make-believe.
Bernard Suits 1978 PP34
To play a game is to engage in activity
directed towards bringing about a specific
state of affairs, using only means permitted
by rules, where the rule prohibit more efficient
in favor of less efficient means, and where
such rules are accepted just because they
make possible such activity.
Avedon & Sutton Smith 1981 PP7
At its most elementary level then we can
define game as an exercise of voluntary
control systems in which there is an
opposition between forces, confined by a
procedure and rules in order to produce a
disequilibrial outcome.
Chris Crawford 1981 Chapter 2
I perceive four common factors:
representation [a closed formal system that
subjectively represents a subset of reality],
interaction, conflict and safety [the results of
a game are always less harsh than the
situations the game models].
David Kelley 1988, PP50
A game is a form of recreation constituted by
a set of rules that specify an object to be
attained and the permissible means of
attaining it.
Katie Salen and Erice Zimmerman (2003)
A game is a system in which players engage
in an artificial conflict, defined by rules that
result in a quantifiable outcome.
Jesper Juul 2003

16
If we compare all these definitions, we notice that they all share common aspects. So according
to all these authors, a game must have rules, an outcome (uncertain or precise), a goal, and
an interaction.
It is interesting to notice that in Caillois’ definition games are “unproductive”. It can be argued
that it is very easy to find proof of games “productiveness”. First of all, it is possible to bet on
the outcome of a game. Actually, Casino, gambling, the football industry, and even video
games competitions generate billions of dollar of profit each year, and many people live off
games. Then if we take the example of competitions, a football match, a “game” of Monopoly
or a First Person Shooter Deathmatch, all of those are not to be considered as game by this
definition, because there is a prize for the winner. All these instances still have rules, outcomes,
interactions and goals.
Zimmerman and Salen’s definition might seem very short but cover all the basic aspect of a
game. According to them, games arise from the human desire to play and our capacity to
pretend. When we play, we establish a fictional context, which has no purpose except for being
recreational. We play because we are bored and we want to kill time. The authors then focus
on the pretending aspect of game, and emphasizes that the player creates a boundary between
reality and fiction. Games are different from reality. These two aspects, Play and Pretend are
two essential elements of games.
It is interesting to notice that these elements of the game are also present in non-human
games. The following paragraph is extracted from Huizinga’s Homo Luden’s (1955, p 446).
“We have only to watch young dogs to see that all the essentials of human play are present in
their merry gambols. They invite one another to play by a certain ceremoniousness of attitude
and gesture. They keep to the rule that you shall not bite, or not bite hard, your brother’s ear.
They pretend to get terribly angry. And – what is most important- in all these doing they plainly
experience tremendous fun and enjoyment. Such rompings of young dogs are only one of the
simpler forms of animal play. There are other, much more highly developed forms, including
regular contests and beautiful performances before an admiring public.”
Ernest Adam (2004) has reduced Game to 4 key elements:

17
3.2.1 Players
The element of play is a participatory form of entertainment, in contrast to books and
movies who are presentational form of entertainment. In games, the player has the ability to
make choices that affects the course of event. This implies a certain freedom to act and how
to act. However, this freedom is limited by the rules. Ernest Adam (2004)
3.2.2 Pretending
This regards the creation of a fictional reality in the mind of the players, for the purpose
of the game. Johan Huizinga in Homo Luden (1952) defined this as the Magic Circle. The Magic
Circle in the mental universe established when a player “pretends”.
Within the Magic Circle, players can pretend anything, even things that are impossible in real
life. This is established each time that a player decides to play a game. It is important to notice
that in multi-player games (football, chess, childish games), all the players agrees to pretend
together the same things.
For example, if we take the game of football were concepts, situations and events are real, we
could think that not much pretending is involved. But in “real life” kicking a ball into a net does
not have much meaning, while in the magic circle of football, it could mean victory for one of
the team. There are two teams, who each assign artificial significance to the situations and
events in the game.
3.2.3 Goals
Scoring a
Goal
Kicking a ball into a net
The Magic Circle The Real Life

18
Every game must have at least one goal. This is what Salen and Zimmerman (2008 pp
80) are calling a “Quantifiable Outcome”. However even if the outcomes are not quantifiable,
all games have a goal. A girl who pretends to cook as a game for instance, a boy who plays
“Flight Simulator”… Those are situations where there is no tangible outcome other than, to
have fun. Nobody win, and nobody loses. The game is over, when the player stops playing it.
Some Games continues to play until a rule forecasts its end (Tetris ends when the players
accumulates mistakes and no blocks can fall down further, Space Invader ends either when
the player dies, or when he destroy all the enemies present on the screen) so long as the
player(s) try(ies) to achieve the goal.
The rules of a game frequently characterize the game’s goal as a victory condition. This is the
unambiguous situation where one or more of the players are declared winners (checkmate to
the opponent’s king, having more points at the end of the time, beating the last boss…). The
rule that determines when a game is over is called the termination condition.
It is important to notice that the victory condition is not the same as the termination condition.
In a race, the victory condition is when the first racer crosses the finish line whereas the
termination condition is when the last player finishes the line.
3.2.4 Rules
The rules are the definitions and the instructions that the players agree to accept for the
duration of the game. Every game has them. They serve several purposes, such as
establishing the objectives of the game, and the meaning of the activities and events that occur
inside the magic circle. Those are the main elements defined by the rules of a game:
 The Semiotics, or the meanings of the terms and symbols used in the game (fool, goal,
level up, +10XP…)
 The Gameplay, or the challenge and options the game offers to the player
 The sequence of play, or the progression of activities that make up the Game
 The Termination Condition
 Metarules, or the rules about the rules.
Salen and Zimmerman (2008)
3.3 Game Mechanics

19
The mechanics of a game are all the elements that facilitate and encourage a user to
explore and learn the properties of the games, the boundaries of the space given through the
use of feedback mechanism3. The design of game mechanics is crucial when making a game
because the whole purpose of a game, from a game designer is to create a meaningful
experience toward the player.
Based on the work from Zichermann and Cunningham (2011), we will focus on seven major
game mechanics:
 Points
 Levels
 Leaderboards
 Badges
 Challenge/Quests
 Onboarding
 Engagement loops
3.3.1 Points
Points are an important part of game mechanics, and are presented in almost most games,
especially video games. Points are counting units. Game points can be used as a way to
communicate progress in a game, or to keep the score in a multiplayer-game.
Points are absolute requirements for all gamified systems, as it is important to keep track of
the progress made. Thus, it is possible to evaluate how the players interact within the game,
and if needed, to change the outcomes or make appropriate adjustments.
Points systems in games can have various forms:
 Experience Points (XP): those are widespread in role playing games (RPGs) but can as
well be encountered in other type of game as well. XP don’t serve as a currency in the
game, but as a metric that ranks progress in a game. XP are earned each time that the
player achieves an action within the system. In general, Experience Points cannot be
3 Daniel Cook “What are game Mechanics ?” www.lostgarden.com (23/10/2006) consulted the 09/11/1990

20
redeemed, and cannot be lost. Some game systems never “maxes” out XP, which
motivates the user to keep on playing the game. Zichermann and Cunningham (2011)
 Redeemable Points: Unlike XP, Redeemable points can fluctuate. The purpose of these
points is to be used within the system as a currency of exchange. Those are earned
similarly to XP, by accomplishing interaction within the game. It is important to note that
the amount of Redeemable points are to be strictly monitored, as the profusion, or the
lack of redeemable points can alter the overall experience of the player. Zichermann
and Cunningham (2011)
 Skill Points: Those points, are used in a very specific system within the game and can
be used to be assigned to the game definite activities. They work as a bonus set of
points that allow the player to gain experience. Zichermann and Cunningham (2011)
 Karma points: A less frequent point system, solely used to reward the player for
performing a specific action. Players don’t gain anything from stacking Karma points,
but the action of receiving those points, by itself, gives meaning to the player. Those
points add context and immersion to a player, as karma points indicates to the player
that the performed action have an effect in the game. It is noticeable that karma points
reward both “good” and “bad” actions. Zichermann and Cunningham (2011)
 Reputation points: This is the most complex point system. If the game system requires
the player to build and manage trust between two or more parties, the reputation points
will serve as proxy. Zichermann and Cunningham (2011)
Points systems will help the player to show what activities are important, and how far his
progress in the game is. Furthermore, these systems will incentivize communities to drive
their behavior. If the user get 10 XP by doing a menial task, while 100 XP are offered for a
complex achievement, it is more likely that the user will focus its effort on the latter.
3.3.2 Levels
In most games where levels are present, levels indicate progress. The level design often
shows are progressive difficulty to move on and continue playing.
In the game Angry Birds, the level design and the progressive difficulty are very engaging to
the player. The first levels are very easy, serving as a tutorial to explain the game mechanics

21
to the player. Then more complex challenges appear, requiring both skills and a good
knowledge of the game mechanics to achieve the level.
Angry Birds level design is controversial. If the difficulty of a level is too hard, then a player can
be tempted to drop off the game. On the other hand, if the player sticks to the level, and finally
beats it, then he is more likely to feel as achieving a meaningful assignment.
It is noticeable that levels are also present in real life. One might say that the degrees
Bachelor’s, Master’s or Ph.D’s indicate a level achievement. Even armies have a ranking
system from private to General.
Zichermann and Cunningham (2011)
3.3.3 Leaderboards
Leaderboards are boards that display the leaders in a competition, regarding their
relative score, and ranking position. The purpose of leaderboards is to make simple
comparisons. Leaderboards are quite explanatory, and most of the time, no further
explanations are needed for the player to understand it, at the exceptions of some specific
ratios.
Today’s use of leaderboards by game developers is to create some kind of social incentive.
Games are very frequent is social networks, and they allow to compare the users’ progress

22
with each other or players’ results in comparison with the members on their social circles.
Recent games allow the user to control their leaderboards, and to compare the users’ player
scores, globally, locally, and socially.
Leaderboards are dynamics, and a high score can’t stay forever unbeaten. Furthermore,
leaderboards can be used to drive the user behavior, by informing the progress of other users.
Those types of game mechanics are very important and meaningful to competitive driven
users.
Figure 1 MicroSoft's Playfit LeaderBoard
It is also important to keep in mind that Leaderboard can keep score of sensitive information,
or private information. In those cases it is crucial for the game developers to keep all the
information private. As it is frequently used in fitness gamification systems, an abstracted points
systems, similar to the example above, can be used to share information and progress.
3.3.4 Badges

23
Badges are games mechanics used to show status. The use of badges in a game is to
encourage social promotions of the game itself. They also serve to mark the completion of
goals and progress if the game within the system.
The more recent successful use of badges is done by the FourSquare social network. In the
FourSquare’s system, badges are given to represent players’ progress and to create a sense
of delight to them. However the system rule of badge attribution is not transparent and players
often don’t know what badge come next.
It is important to understand that badges need to show progress, status, and must offer some
kind of visual value to the user. Otherwise, they are meaningless to the player, and ultimately
to the game designer.
3.3.5 Challenges & Quests
Challenges and quests give players directions for what to do within the world of the
gamified experience. Players should be able to enter the game and always have something
interesting and substantial to accomplish.
Quests and challenges are the narratives of the game, and some players need to understand
the lore of a game to maintain an interest for this game. Most of the time, the challenges and
quests occur after the onboarding.
3.3.6 Onboarding

24
Onboarding is the act of bringing a novice to the game. This is crucial for game
developers to develop this game mechanic to broaden the user base.
This game mechanic emphasizes the first minute of a user’s interactions with the game. Game
developers are aware that the first minute of the game is when the user will make a judgment
about the game and decides to continue or no. To appeal to the new user, the game will try to
focus on simple tasks, impossible to fail, but at the same time meaningful to keep the player’s
interest,
If the onboarding is successful, the player will be put in a seductive positive reinforcement loop.
Several games follow the pattern enclosed to attract players.
From the Game designers, the Onboarding challenge is to:

25
 Reveal the complexity of the game system
 Reinforce the user positively
 Remove opportunities to fail
 Learn something about the players
3.3.7 Social Engagement Loops
This element is not exclusive to games. It is the way a player engages with the system,
as well as how he leaves it and what brings him back again.
A player is in a social engagement loop, when a motivating emotion leads to player re-
engagement, which then leads to a social call to action, before flowing to visible progress
and/or rewards, to finally looping back again to a motivating emotion.

26
3.4 Why do we play Games?
The Previous Study of game elements allows us to understand how games works, and what
are their effects on the user. However, we need to understand what triggers the motivation to
play.
3.4.1 The Cognitive Evaluation Theory
Deci and Ryan (1980) proposed to explain the effect of the cognitive evaluation theory (CET)
to understand the effects of extrinsic motivators, on intrinsic motivation.
The CET suggested that external factors such as tangible rewards, deadlines, surveillance and
evaluation tend to diminish the feeling of autonomy and undermine intrinsic motivation. In
contrast, some external factors such as providing choices about aspect of tasks tend to
increase this feeling of autonomy and increase motivation.
Furthermore, feelings of autonomy and feelings of competence are both important for extrinsic
motivation. Optimally challenging situations and positive feedback are also highly intrinsically
motivating.
Deci and Ryan concluded that people need to feel autonomous and competent, in order to feel
intrinsic motivation. Thus Deci and Ryan endorsed situations where the factors where
promoting these feelings. In contrast, factors that did not promote neither autonomy nor
competency left people “amotivated” or controlled by contingencies (Gagné & Deci 2005).
This theory of intrinsic motivation was highly controversial at the time of its publication and
some authors still does not acknowledge these findings. Kehr (2004) suggested that rewards
would not undermine intrinsic motivation if they did not deactivate implicit motives related to
task enjoyment. However Gagné and Deci pointed out that this was basic speculation, with no
concrete study to back off this assertion.
However, studies carried out in the continuity in parallel of CET showed that tangible rewards
and extrinsic motivations factors such as competition and evaluation can be detrimental to
outcomes such as creativity, cognitive flexibility and problem solving (Mc Graw 1978). Mc Graw

27
and Mc Cullers (1979) found monetary rewards to decrease cognitive flexibility in problem
solving. Later, Erez, Gopher and Arzi (1990) showed that monetary rewards decreased
performance on a complex task with difficult goal.
3.4.2 The limits of the Cognitive Evaluation Theory
Whereas the theoretical study of the CET received a lot of attention at the time of its
publication, there are limits to this theory (Gagné and Deci, 2005).
First, most studies that tested CET were laboratory experiments rather than organizational
studies. Then, most activities in work organization are not intrinsically interesting, and the use
of strategies to stimulate autonomy to enhance intrinsic motivation is not always possible.
Everyone needs money in order to live, and for an organization, using monetary rewards as a
central motivational strategy is both practical and logical.
Finally, CET seems to imply that managers would have to focus on either intrinsic motivation
through participation and empowerment programs while minimizing the effect of extrinsic
programs or, on the opposite, to use rewards to maximize extrinsic motivations. Which cannot
be realistic, nor practical.
3.4.3 The Flow Theory
Mihaly Csikentmihalyi issued in his book Finding Flow (1998), a very interesting theory
about the state of “effortless concentration and enjoyment” called Flow.
The flow moments are the moments when people feel a sense of effortless action while
standing out as the best in their lives. They feel a short rush, a positive feedback of their current
actions. These moments can occur during a sport effort, closing a business deal, or even when
interacting with a baby, performing a comfortable tasks; The situation are multiple and depends
on everyone, and what the subject find appealing.
It is the full involvement of Flow, rather than Happiness, that makes for excellence in life. What
makes Flow different from other kind of pleasing moments (taking a nap, enjoying a meal in a
restaurant…) is that Flow is the consequences of our own making. We are the only person

28
responsible for this outcome, and this moment is not dependent of any other external
circumstances.
Flow tends to occur when a person faces a clear set of goals that require appropriate
responses. A game of chess, poker, tennis, etc, are situations where the players can act
directly, without questioning what should be done, other than the strategy he should plan, as a
player. As the Magical Circle defines a specific system with rules, the goal itself becomes very
specific. And as these goals are very well-known to the player, the positive feedback of the
outcome is immediate.
Flow happens when a person's skill are fully involved in overcoming a challenge that is just
about manageable. It is important to understand that if the task is too challenging for the user’s
skills, the user enters a state of anxiety. On the opposite, if the skills of the user are too high
for the specific task, then he will feel bored.
It is interesting to notice that Csikentmihalyi thinks that Flow can be present at work, as he
compares work as a game with clear goals and performance. Both game and work provide
feedback. And both of them require concentration and prevent distraction as ideally, the job
requirements match the worker’s skills.

29
3.4.4 Four Drives Theory of Motivation
According to Lawrence and Nohria (2002), all humans are subject to four basic drives.
The drive to
 Acquire
 Defend
 Bond and
 Comprehend
The drive to acquire propels people to obtain physical good (food and shelter), intangible things
such as travel and entertainment, and social thing such as status. The drive to defend comes
from our primal instincts to fight or flee, but it manifests today in the need of financial stability,
resistance to change and a sense of vulnerability in uncertain times. The drive to Bond is what
motivates people to build and retain family and kinship ties. It also provides a sense of
belonging and pride in one’s work organization, a sense of fulfillment through the membership
of networks, clubs and association. Finally, the drive to comprehend covers the need to
understand and make sense of the world around us, the desire to make a meaningful
contribution and the desire to grow, to be challenged and to learn.
It seems clear that, from a company’s point of view, motivating employees implies to cater all
four needs that flow from those basic drives. Nohria, Groysberg and Lee (2008) assess that all
these four drives can be addressed through the elements of the following table:
Drive Primary Lever Actions
The Need to Acquire Reward System
Differentiate Performance
Tie Rewards to performance
The Need to Defend
Performance Management
and resource allocation
process
Build Trust
Increase Transparency
The Need to Bond Culture
Foster Mutual Reliance
Value Collaboration
The Need to Comprehend Job Design
Design Meaningful jobs
Design Challenging jobs

30
3.5 Conclusion
Games are linked to motivation. The purpose itself of a game, or the reason why a player
spends time in a game relies on internal motivation. Edward L. Deci, Richard M. Ryan and
Richard Koestner made a formal statement in the Cognitive Evaluation Theory (CET).
“CET asserts that underlying intrinsic motivation are the psychological need for autonomy and
competence.” Thus, the effect of a reward depends on how the user perceived it. If the player
sees it as a controller of his behaviour, then the reward does not stimulate the user’s need for
autonomy. And the intrinsic motivation is not stimulated.
In the next part, we are going to link motivation with performance, and particularly in a work
related context.

31
4 Performance
The purpose of this part is to discuss performance management in organizations, and
how this performance affects individuals. The idea of analyzing and measuring performance is
not new, and there has been considerable interest in performance management.
Many organizations have spent considerable amounts of time and money implementing
performance measurement systems, with more or less success. Performance is a key objective
for stakeholders. CEO, of course, but shareholders, investors, even managers and employees
are faced with performances problems every day. Several authors tried to propose
performance measurement systems.
4.1 Defining Performance
The Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development (CIPD) is a professional
association for Human Resources management professionals. For 20 years, this organization
has reviewed and published articles on performance management.
In 1992, the CIPD defined Performance Management as follows:
“A strategy which relates to every activity of the organization set in the context of its human
resources policies, culture, style and communication systems. The nature of the Strategy
depends on the organizational context and can vary from organization to organization”.
According to the CIPD, a company would carry out performance management when practicing
the following activities:
 Communicating a vision of the company to all employees
 Setting departmental and individual performance targets that are related to the
corporate’s strategy objectives
 Conducting formal reviews of progress towards these targets
 Using the review process to identify training development and reward outcomes
 Evaluating the whole process to improve effectiveness
 Expressing performance targets in terms of measurable outputs, accountabilities and
training/learning targets

32
 Using formal appraisal procedures as ways of communicating performance
requirements that are set on a regular basis
 Linking performance requirements to the salary, especially for senior management
This definition emphasizes the fact that performance management is the link between the
Corporate Strategy and its employee’s behavior. Performance Management is designed by the
Human Resources department, and applied by the managers.
For Armstrong and Baron (1998), performance Management is a “process that contributes to
the effective management of individuals and teams in order to achieve high levels of
organizational performance”.
Olivier de la Villarmois (2001) elaborates that Performance is a concept that management
literature has studied many times, but this concept lacks a clear and precise definition as it can
be seen through several dimensions. The most common is organizational performance. There,
the performance of a company can be the commercial and the financial results, the turnover
and the different financial ratios. But it is only the visible part of the iceberg. The author
proposes a summary of three other authors.
Scott (1977) proposed to define corporate performance by three models: The rational model,
the natural model and the systemic model.
The rational model is the amount of unit produced over a certain amount of time (productivity),
for a specific amount of resources (efficiency); The natural model focus on the support activities
of the company that helped the production activity of the company (moral and cohesion of the
employees). The Systemic model emphasizes the adaptability and the acquisition of the
resources.
Seashore (1979) also defined 3 models of Performance. The Objective model is very similar
to the rational model from Scott, but it also contains the systemic model in it. Finally, the
Decision model defines an efficient company if it owns a process able to gather, stock, find,
allocate, manipulate and destroy information in an optimal way.
Cameron (1978) identified 4 approaches, which are the objectives, the resources, the internal
process and the actor satisfaction. Every one of these models has been summed up by
Villarmois in the following diagram:

33
In 1994, Morin, Savoie, Beaudin made a complete academic review of Performance in their
book “L’Efficacité de l’Organisation – Théories”. They define four majors school of thought for
defining performance.
 The Classical-Bureaucratic theories, who favors economic factors
 The Human Relationship school of thought who focuses on the integration of individual
objectives and organizational objectives
 The Systemic approach who defines corporations as a system where survival of the
organization is the only focus.
 The political approach put its efforts to analyses the satisfaction of all external groups
and shareholders of the company;
All of these schools of thoughts are partial and lack objectivity to analyze Performance as a
whole concept or notion. However, put together, these four notions gives a good overview of
performance.

34
4.2 Performance Measurement with the Balanced Scorecard
The most famous model of performance measurement model is the one designed by
Kaplan and Norton (1992): the Balanced Scorecard.
The purpose of this model is to complement financial measures of performance of business
units. The Balanced Scorecard (BSC) contains a diverse set of performance measures, among
them financial performance, internal business processes, and the organisation learning and
growing activities. This tool is used to “capture the firm desired strategy” and to implement
performance measures in all activities, and business units of the firm.
Kaplan and Norton identify four major steps in implementing the Balanced Scorecard in a
company:
 Clarifying and translating the vision and the strategy
 Communicating and linking
 Planning and target setting
 Strategic feedback and learning

35
The first step of implementing the BSC is generally realised by the top management of the
company as they define the vision and the strategy of the company. The difficulty of this task
is that very often, the company’s mission is vague. Corporate executives must translate this
mission in specific objectives, understandable for all business units that will follow and pursue
this mission. It is at this step that the measures of the BSC will be defined.
Once the design of the BSC is done, it is sent to each strategic business unit managers. They
must adapt the BSC objectives to their business unit. Kaplan and Norton add that the measures
on the units’ scorecard should be specifically designed to fit the unit’s “mission, strategy,
technology and culture”. The measures chosen for the business unit must be specific and thus
can change from other business units.
Managers will then set targets and budgets. Later, they will receive feedback on the strategies
designed for the business unit and on that basis, they will evaluate performance relatively to
the performance measure included in the BSC.

36
4.3 The limits of Performance Measurement
The Balanced scorecard is a very powerful tool, and several companies such as Mobil Corp
(Mc Williams 1996), AT&T Canada, General Electric (Kaplan & Norton 2001) have used it.
However the BSC is a very costly tool to develop, and it requires a lot of resources, coming
from all the parts of the company to be successfully implemented (Leigh 2013). The efficiency
of the BSC comes from the information given by the employees and the managers. Employee
resistance and managers reluctance coming from only one part of the company can ruin the
whole process.
Besides, the design of the BSC requires a full understanding of the tool and cannot be
implemented overnight. Actually, the implementation of the tool is more likely to be successful
if someone from the organization has some experience with the implementation of the BSC.
Otherwise an external consultant might be called to help the organization to set up this system,
adding even greater costs for the company.
The previous definitions of Performance emphasize on setting objectives and monitoring these
objectives. Several assumptions exist, among them the fact that increasing individual levels of
Performance will increase the overall performance of the Company (CIPD 2013).
However, Guest (1997) found this assumption wrong, as he was unable to establish a link
between developed performance management in organisation, and Performance in result.
Here Guest conclusion of his work:
“On the basis of the evidence provided by this survey, we are unable to prove that Performance
Management has a positive impact on organisational effectiveness. However, the strength of
opinion among managers and the examples of best practice collected by other means do
indicate that it is felt to play a positive role in the majority of organisation that engage in it. Our
failure to prove the case for it can be attributed, at least in part, to the lack of systematic
evaluation and the incredible diversity of actions that take place under the banner of
Performance Management.”

37
4.4 Conclusion
It has been shown that job performance and employee motivation is linked.
Vroom (1964) is the first scholar to actually link employee motivation and job performance. If
an employee is motivated, then it is likely that his job performance will increase.
Herzberg in 1959 proposed the two-factor theory. This theory discusses the fact that certain
factors can create job satisfaction while other factors create dissatisfaction. It is called the Two-
Factors theory as job satisfaction and job dissatisfaction act independently of each other.
The two factors are:
 The motivators that give positive recognition to the employee (challenging work,
recognition and responsibility, etc)
 The hygiene factors, that don’t bring satisfaction by themselves, but dissatisfaction by
their absences. Those external motivators such as the salary, the status of the function,
the work condition, etc)
The conclusion of this theory is very similar of the findings of the CET theory of Deci. As his
work recommendations are very similar to those promoted by Deci & Gagné:
 Removing the Control Management on employees
 Creating complete and Natural Work Unit
 Providing regular and continuous feedback
 Encouraging employees to take on new and challenging tasks

38
5 Culture
More than performance, culture is a very broad notion, and several authors intended to
give culture a definition, in order to study the dimension of cultures. For the framework of our
research, we are going to define culture, and then review the major theories of cultural
dimension, the contribution of Hofstede’s theory (1980) and Trompenaars’ Theory and their
limits.
5.1 Defining Culture
Kroeber and Kluckhohn (1952) defined culture from 164 definitions, intending to give the
most complete definition of the notion. Hall (1976) defines culture as something shared by the
members of a society. For Hall, culture cannot exist on its own, and must be inherited from our
parents. Culture is a means of communication.
For Hofstede (1984), Culture is the “collective programming of the human mind that
distinguishes the member of one human group from those of another. Culture in this sense I a
system of collectively held values”.
According to Trompenaars (1993), Culture is the “shared ways groups of people understand
and interpret the world”.
Lustig and Koster (1999) define culture as a “learned set of set of shared interpretations about
beliefs, values and norms which affects the behaviors of a relatively large group of people”. In
2003, they give a definition of Belief, Values and Norms:
 Beliefs “refer to the basic understanding of a group of people about what the world is
like, or what is true or false”.
 Values “refer to what a group of people defines as good and bad or what it regards as
important”
 And finally Norms “refer to the rules for appropriate behaviour, which provide the
expectations people have of one another and of themselves”

39
5.2 Theories of Culture
5.2.1 Gert Hofstede’s Theory on Cultural Dimensions
In 1980, Hofstede carried out a survey on 43 countries, where more than 8.000
managers and organization employees were observed. The purpose of this study was to
analyze 4 dimensions of culture identified by Hofstede.
First Hofstede analyzed the work goals of these organizations and acknowledged 2 majors
factors, Individualism and Masculinity. Two others factors completed them, power distance and
uncertainty avoidance. From these findings, Hofstede issued a questionnaire addressed to a
sampling composed of managers and employees on 43 countries. The purpose of this survey
was to analyze cultural differences based of these four cultural dimensions.
In 1987, The Chinese Culture Connection, led by Micheal Bond, identified another cultural
dimension, very relevant to the Chinese culture: long term orientation. This cultural dimension
is now used in the Geert Hofstede academic website to convey questionnaire to analyses
cultural differences.
The Gert Hofstede Centre4 define the cultural dimension as follows:
Individualism versus collectivism dimension refers to the “degree of interdependence a society
maintains among its members”. More precisely, how one would defines itself, as an individual
or, as a member of a larger group.
Maculinity versus Feminity refers to the values promoted by the society. If a society encourages
competition, achievement and success, the society is said to be masculine. Otherwise, if a
society cares about equality values and quality of life, it is said to be more feminine.
The Power distance dimension focus on the way members of a society reacts towards
inequality amongst themselves. It is defined as follows: power distance is the “extent to which
the less powerful members of institutions and organizations within a country expects and
accept that power is distributed unequally”.
4 Gert Hofstede Center website “http://geert-hofstede.com “ consulted the 09/11/2013

40
Uncertainty avoidance is the cultural dimension that emphasizes on the way members of a
society reacts to uncertainty, and unpredicted events. It is defined as “the extent to which the
members of a culture feel threatened by ambiguous or unknown situations and have created
beliefs and institutions that try to avoid these?”
Finally, the long-term orientation dimension focuses on the “extent to which a society shows a
pragmatic future-oriented perspective rather than a conventional historical short term point of
view”.
5.2.2 Trompenaars’ Theory on Cultural Dimensions
Trompenaars started his work from the following assumption: as markets globalize, the
need for standardization in organizational design systems and procedures increases. Thus,
the internationalization of business life requires more knowledge of cultural patterns.
Hofstede’s theory inspired Tompenaars theory (1985), as he organized a questionnaire based
on seven cultural dimensions. The five first items were inspired by Parsons and Shils (1951)
works.
The seven cultural dimensions are universalism-particularism, Achievement-ascription,
individualism-collectivism, affectivity-neutrality, specific diffuseness, internal-external control
and time perspective.
Universalism – Particularism
The Universalist cultures will says that there is one good way to do things, and thus all the
others ways are bad. Whereas the Particularisms cultures will rather focus further on the
obligations of relationships and unique circumstances (Trompenaars 1993).
Achievement - Ascription
Achievements cultures judge their members on their realisations and accomplishments,
whereas Ascription cultures are based on status given by birth. (Trompenaars 1993)
 Achievement: What did you study?
 Ascription: Where did you study?

41
Individualism vs. Collectivism
Do people regard themselves primarily as individual, as the Anglo-Saxons cultures do? Or do
they look themselves as a part of a group, such as Asian culture? (Trompenaars 1993)
Affectivity-Neutrality
Should the nature of our interactions be objective and detached, or is expressing emotion
acceptable?
In Northern America, business relationships aim at achieving goals (sign a contract...) and thus,
we must resemble to our machine, and be instrumental, professional. In southern culture, it is
not unusual to hear loud laughter and slamming doors. (Trompenaars 1993)
Specific - Diffuse
In business relationship, some cultures will be more diffuse, creating a real, non-faked human
bond between business partners, whereas other cultures will be more specific in their
approach, more product-focused. (Trompenaars 1993)
Internal-External
Some cultures see the major focus affecting their lives and the origin of vice and virtue as
residing within the person. Here, motivation and values are derived from within. Other cultures
see the world as more powerful than individuals. They see nature as something to be feared
or emulated. (Trompenaars 1993)
Attitudes to time
Some cultures focus more on what somebody has achieved in the past (France), while others
consider the present and the future more important.
That is the reason why French does not understand the American Dream: Somebody who
succeeds and acquires wealth, starting from nothing is a model in the USA, but in France, it is
a “Nouveau Riche”. (Trompenaars 1993)

42
5.2.3 Limits of the theories
Mc Sweeney, in 2002 critics Hofstede’s approach, arguing that the main argument of
Hofstede’s Theory is flawed. As Hofstede build his theory on a survey convey across IBM’s
subsidiaries in several countries, Mc Sweeney argues that the methodology only allow to build
assumptions, and not scientific data.
For Hofstede, national culture is what mainly shape shared values. The main concern of Mc
Sweeney is that in Hofstede’s work, “National culture is not theorized as the only culture, or the
totality of cultures, within a nation. The population of a nation can be differentiated on many
grounds, but Hofstede claims that regardless of these division, every national population
somehow shares a unique culture.”5
It is this assumption, that all the members of the same nation share somehow a unique culture
that Mc Sweeney refutes. WIliamson took Mc Sweeney’s critic and schematized it below.
5 Mc Sweeney “Hofstede’s model of national cultural differences and their consequences : A triumph of Faith –
A failure of analysis” (2002) The Tavistock institute

43
5.3 Communication across Cultures
It is interesting to notice that the major authors in Culture such as Hofstede (1980),
Trompenaars (1986), The Chinese Culture Connection (1987) all of them work on culture and
how national culture shapes the workplace.
There is more to intercultural communication than a language barrier. There are norms and
values, beliefs and rituals, that all shape the individual members of the workplace. Even more,
these elements and dimensions of Culture are changing over time, as newer generations
adopt, then adapt the codes of the cultures, to appropriate it.
Cultural diversity is one of the biggest challenges to global corporations, and the key dimension
to approach this topic is communication.
Maria Lindqvist (2012), carried out a thesis in the theme of intercultural communication at the
workplace, where she emphasized the individual approach. As she mentioned in the
conclusion of her study, generalizations are at no interest in the field of culture as cultural
background layer themselves to shape the norms and values of an individual. Furthermore,
this cultural background shapes the perception of communication itself.
Rana Sinha (2012) analyzes the elements that form multicultural team leadership:
 National Culture
 Corporate Culture of the organization
 Nature of the Industry
 Stage of Team development
 Personal Attributes
Those elements seem more relevant to our research, as the study will focus on the individuals
aspect of performance. Rana Sinha’s work gives us insights in the cultural layer that constitute
the cultural framework of an employee.

44
Chapter 2 The Empiric framework
6 Choice of the Qualitative study
6.1 Introduction
This part of the Thesis will emphasize the empirical work of the research, and the
qualitative study. We will describe the choice of the research approach and methodology, the
analysis process and the limits of this methodology to answer the central question and the 2
research questions.
In order to study the Central Question, a qualitative study has been chosen. In order to
study the effects of Gamification on Performance in a multi-cultural workplace, this approach
is more relevant. This approach allows an in-depth analysis of these two notions in a more
“humane” approach. As our main subject of research is individuals, it seems more relevant.
Carolyn Nicholls argues6 that qualitative methods convey a certain kind of richness and
intensity in details than the Quantitative approach does not bring.
Qualitative research suits detailed investigations and non-quantitative fields of research. Oddly
enough, I intent to study how performance is measured with a subjective approach. But I justify
my approach, as I am more interested in the effects and the feelings of individuals over their
own Performance.
6.2 Choice of the approach
The qualitative survey will be carried out with semi-directive interviews, as this form of
approach is the more practical, and more conclusive for our research. With this approach, we
will be able to analyze fully the answer given by the interviewee. We will be able to catch both
linguistic and non-linguistics signs of communication (such as the behavior, the tone, the
reaction, and the silences).
6 Carolyn Nicholls “The advantages of using Qualitative Research methods” (2011) Alexander Technique
College

45
The purpose of this approach to examine in depth the several dimension of Gamification,
Performance, and how it impacts individuals. Semi-directive approach is the best-suited tool to
assess individualized outcomes.
Several interviews will be carried out, with open-ended questions regarding the links between
the different notions.
6.3 Limits of the approach
One of the limits of the qualitative approach in a semi directive interview is that it can be
easy for the interviewer to get involved and to become subjective to the subject. The interviewer
must drive the interview, but don’t get too involved in the discussion. Otherwise it might be
possible that the interviewee will give the answer that interviewer expects, and not his own
insight.
Another limit to this kind of survey is to lose track and the conversation, and let it go off topic.
As this method is very time-consuming, if the interviewer let himself be carried out in the
conversation. It might become costly for both the interviewer and the interviewee.
6.4 Sampling
The objectives of the research determine the size and the population of the sample.
Here, regarding the notions and the method chosen, between 10 and 15 interviews must be
carried out in order to have conclusive data.
The survey will be addressed to professional of Gamification. Consultants, Human resources
executives, who works on a daily basis with this new way of management.

46
6.5 Hypothesis
This thesis focuses on the impact of Gamification on Performance, and specifically how it
impacts internal motivation of employees in a multi-cultural workplace. The research will
confirm or refute the following hypothesis:
Gamification and Performance:
 A gamified system is more suited to raise intrinsic motivation
 An increase of intrinsic motivation from employees is likely to increase overall
performance of the company
Gamification and Intercultural Workplace
 A gamified system increase team cohesion
 A gamified system reduces communication problem among multi-cultural team
members
7 Hypothesis Analysis
The purpose of this part is to confront the academic analysis fond in the first part of this
thesis with elements gathered from interviews. Several interviews have been conveyed with
professionals, managers, consultant and employees, in order to gather different approaches.

47
These approaches will allow us to confirm or refute the hypothesis proposed. To do so, we are
going to link several extracts to the key concepts. The Concept matrix can be found at the end
of this part, and the transcription of these interviews are present in the appendix
In conclusion of each hypothesis, we are going to concurr or refute the hypothesis.

Key Concepts Results Comments and extracts form the interview
A Gamified system is more suited to
raise intrinsic motivation
Games stimulates
intrinsic motivation
Games stimulates
extrinsic motivations
Interview 1
"Louis: okay, how were these targets based? I mean, regarding
the quality. Where is it some sort of survey among the clients?
Or something else?
Amandine: yes, there was some surveys, some quality surveys
given to clients and to the candidates. And it was also about
what we did. ... If you wanted to go the extra mile, you know?"
"It depended also how fast you were in your job, how fast you
were in order to find those candidates. And it was more like a
satisfaction aspect."
"All your actions during the recruitment process are noticed, by
the client, the candidate, and your boss. And you get rewarded
for that"
" With it was just for fun. See how many contact we could have
in one-day, trying to reach a well-known person in an industry
and see if we could land him. For instance, when you're trying
to call the CEO of a certain company. Of a very well-known
international company. And when you have that person on the
phone if you proud. You feel really enthusiast."
" It is an unofficial game."
"First of all, you feel very proud. And the second thing, even if
it is not an official game, well is to get a reward"

49
Games stimulate
engagement
Games stimulate
engagement
Games stimulate
engagement
"Louis: Ok, Regardless of the rewards given by the company,
would you say that these games make you feel more engaged
towards the company?
Amandine: yeah, definitely. I think the games started because,
I don't know, it started just like that. You have a good
atmosphere within the company, everybody feels a little
competitive so everybody is a little bit playful. And thus have
the game. The company was really like a big family. There were
some competition, sure, but in a good way."
"Definitely, for now I would say that this company is the one I
feel more engaged to."
Interview 2
"It's a game like process, of moving people through different
activities that we want them to do for you."
"It is not necessarily a game, but its game like processes,
game like mechanics."
" And encouragement to continue along the process."
"Sometimes it's a program designed for internal employees, for
instance having better employees."
"Real motivation from Gamification comes from our natural
tendency to play."
"It is about increasing engagement, that's right."
"Either they are here for the rewards, they actually want to get
that weekend off, or legitimately want to help the business, that
is actually in their motivation."

50
Games stimulates
intrinsic motivation
Games stimulate
engagement
Games stimulate
engagement
"To be rewarded for going above and beyond."
"The great strengths of Gamification is that we can change your
vision, we can help you be engaged to the company."
"For being better, eating better, going to the gym, quitting
smoking, whatever. And so, we created a Gamification program
that helps the employees do those things ... And it worked ".
"That there is no outside motivating factor for achieving these
steps. Gamification help you and reward you for following these
steps. And we help you create that motivation. The pressure of
doing this became a social pressure because everybody in the
company is doing that. And if you don't do it, if you don't follow
the steps, well that's when you have social pressure."
Interview 3
"And, as far as I know, I'm the only one we use Gamification as
employee engagement tool".
"I guess it would make sense for the company if they want to
engage the people, the employees, in order to generate ideas,
to create games and competition,"
" Gamification is for, is to develop innovation mainly."
"When they tried to set up a big engagement system, at some
point you had to use game mechanics."
" You don't even need to call that a game, we just need to say:
"let's make a competition!". And that's it."

51
Games stimulate
engagement
Games mechanics
stimulates external
motivation
" and if it wasn't that fun there is no way now that these people
would be motivated and would try it. Gamification, for me is not
a simple excuse for what I call magnifications and
simplification. Because it's not the game that is important at all,
and I am not trying to make things fun for people, I just try to
make it simple. But, simple often means fun, for people, quite
luckilly. What we measure, what I can assure you with 100%
certainty, if that if it wasn't that simple and that's fun, 8000
people wouldn't be motivated thanks to this little object."
" My opinion is that Gamification even for an employee
motivation, is often used as a short-term solution"
"yes, there is no reason for people to continue playing the game
if they don't relate to it, if the game doesn't relate to their daily
work. If it doesn't make them feel important. I mean fun isn't
everything"
" My focus is the process of creation. On making, and creating.
Doesn't matter about the end result. And I know that I can
gamify this process because I know the process"
"Gamification is not about making things frivolous"
" It is simple, it's fun and it works. And this is what everybody
expect of Gamification."
Interview 4
"Would you say that those rewards are motivating?
Karoliina: yes. Yes I would say that. This is my first position
where I'm working where I have some sort of rewarding system,
and I have to say that it is very motivating."

52
Games stimulate
external motivation
Games stimulates
extrnal motivation
"I know that the more I give, the more I get in return. And that's
not always the case in companies where you will not have a
rewarding system. In this kind of company, you always have
some people were slacking off, and if you do your job better
than them, in the end you still have the same pay. And this can
be demotivating."
"But to be fair, this job is not my dream job. So I like the reward,
it gives me motivated event though I don't like the task"
" This reward system keeps me motivated, but it only last for so
long. It keeps me motivated because I'm not interested in the
job."
" When I am working on something I'm interested in, it's more
of a longer rush, and I don't need a reward system to do my job
well."
Interview 5
"But from me, the more important aspect is that you contribute
to the development of the company, this is more important."
"For me it is a very engaging project. That, for some
employees, it was just a job."
"If you're not interested in the achievement. Then nothing is
going to happen for you. You will not feel motivated or engaged.
For instance, for the iPad contest is an interesting reward if you
don't have it. If you don't have a tablet already. But for the
swedish guy who had two, then the achievement was not
interesting for him. He was pretty much not interested by the
process. He took part to the productivity contest. But he was
not there to win. he didn't try to go above and beyond."

53
Games rely on
engagement "On the opposite, the guy who won the iPad, it was very
engaged in a company."
An increase of intrinsic motivation from
employees is likely to increase overall
performance of the company
Result quality
Improvement
Result Quality
improvement
Interview 1
" When you find those 5 or 6 candidates. When you shortlist
them and send them to the client. Well, you knew you did a
great job."
"When you send a draft of the first shortlist to your boss and
then, one or two weeks later, we see the final shortlist. The one
actually sent to the client. And when you see only your
candidates in this shortlist. Well, basically, you did a great job.
More than a good job."
"Sometime the game was about who could write the best profile
description for a position."
"And sometimes, the game was trying to find a contact before
the manager."
"My candidates were better than the managers'."
Interview 2
"You receive points for every reaction that you trigger or actions
you take."
"That is usually up to the clients, that's not our decision to make.
We just designed the elements in order to reach what the client

54
Engagement
Improvement
Productivity
improvement
Productivity
Improvement
wants. But to be clear, I think that motivation comes from the
clarity of communication."
"Specific goals change from clients to clients."
" If the members of your team are genuinely interested in
helping the company then we are going to take another route.
Is going to be more company based, company focused kind of
incentives."
"Louis: once you find a way to motivate people, to find what
really drives them, once the team is really engaged, would you
say that an engaged team increase the performance of the
organisation?
Martin: oh, yes yes! Absolutely!
Louis: would you even say that engagement is an element of
performance? Even though it is not easy to measure
engagement. Engagement is not as quantitative as the turnover
of the productivity ratio.
Martin: yes, absolutely. You are correct when you say that
engagement is not easy to measure. But it does speak to a
personal satisfaction element in the employee."
" The more engaged people are, the more motivated there are,
and they work more. If we can create a game that increases
team happiness you are going to get more productivity of your
employees."
Interview 3
". In this situation, at the end of the day, it was not about the
productivity of the employees."

55
ROI Improvement
Work Quality
improvement
And, until I made this object, this Gamified tool. It took people
five days to learn that system. And now, a seven years old
could do it."
" This little object Gamifies a learning process"
" Thanks for this system, I have a huge return on investment.
This is not Gamification that we measure. At least what I
measure. I have no idea if people using Gamification measure
performance, at all. Except maybe for the employee
engagement."
" I think nobody understand innovation in order to gamify it."
"People and companies have different focus, they focus on
profit, they focus on turnover which is fine. But in order to
gamify the system nobody really believes in that. Maybe this is
false, and that's why they don't manage it"
" So I think that when companies say all we need to do is try to
be like Google, we should be like Apple, or something... They
want to copy, a highly creative way of being and thinking it
would be the same for their company. Like they can just do it.
Like Flip up the head and pour everything that Google do.
Google has a gamified culture, and it works because it's been
here since the very beginning. Since the creation of the
company. Because it grew that way."
Interview 4
"Given the quality of the work we have done for them, the client
might give us some sort of reward"

56
Productivity
improvement
Productivity
improvement
Productivity
improvement
" but in my dream job ? I'm more interested in the success of
the company."
"Well, I think that, especially if your job is linked to customer
service it might make you rush to the communication and not
good in quality. It's going to make you the worst communicater,
just you trying to get as many call as possible. Instead of
focusing also on the quality.
Also, it puts people in a pressure, some people can handle it,"
" And it goes on and on. It's about different people and what
motivates them."
Interview 5
"But also, it would and could encourage developper to reach a
certain level of progression. And it would really push you
forward, for instance, issue to reach 45% of the project, then
the developer is going to push forward, to reach 50%. Just
because it looks better, you know? It was good and
encouraging extra work. To reach milestones"
" So, it was good for productivity"
" yes, when we used Red Mine, we were trying to set up some
sort of game. For developers who were lacking productivity. We
wanted to reach a very important milestone in the development
process, and we decided to turn it into a game. We said, this is
the goal. This is our deadline.... the developer who would take
care of most tasks would win an iPad."
" And the game went well. We reached the milestone, we
finished in time, that was it."

57
"We had the impression that this is the new evolution of
technology. We thought having different levels of completion, a
percentage of progression by filling up your profile. See how far
you've read the tutorial. It was things that were done, but not by
that many people, remember it was five years ago. LinkedIn
already did that, they had the completion percentage of the
profile. It was just starting. And people were talking about it.
There were articles about Gamification, and how Gamify
processes are the next big thing. We felt that we needed to use
Gamification in in our software.
So when we had a productivity issue it just felt natural for us to
use Gamification to solve this issue. To have this competition."
A gamified system increase team
cohesion
Better Atmosphere
Interview 1
"The value is the same but you could choose regarding your
own needs and what you want."
"And between different executives there was some kind of
game. Of unofficial game. Everybody had a good mood, and
everybody was willing to help each other but also to do better
than everyone else."
"The atmosphere was very good. And every executive
researcher had only one contract. Your colleague is not
working on the same recruitment process than you. So there
was no direct competition between each other."
" we did help each other."

58
Raise in Engagement
Better atmosphere
Better synergy
Better synergy
"It's always nice to have some holidays. You spend some time
out of the office, and when you come back you have some
pictures to show to your colleagues, so it's great. You talk about
it. It creates a relation, a personal relation. With the managers,
with your colleagues."
Interview 2
"And we start our program with what we believe will get their
attention."
"We change in order to increase engagement."
"They legitimately want to help their fellow employees, there is
always an element of connecting with each other's"
" If it's really about helping each other out, then we are not going
to focus about paid rewards. We are going to focus on what
makes that team moving."
"If you're not doing it, then you are the odd person. So, you
have the social pressure to conform to the group. We also
design group goals. For instance the amount of miles on a
bicycle per group. Everybody has to contribute. You have
everybody working as a group together. Which leads to
everybody working as an individual"
" And game themselves, they become the motivator. Because,
speaks to social cohesion."
"When real challenge are faced, you are going to use that team
cohesion. To come together as a group, and the more you can
practice this cohesion as a group they playing games, the more
powerful the group is."

59
Better synergy
Better atmosphere
Better synergy
Better atmosphere
Interview 4
"When they reward the whole team, the also rewarde the team
manager for his leadership skills."
"It is more, it is better for me if my team is the best, does well.
And it is more important to me because I'm a part of this, I can
affect the outcome. If the team fails, nonetheless if the
company is thriving, this situation is worse to me."
"I will not call it a game, but we do have some sort of
competition spirit. Among some employees.
Louis: but you don't see it as a game?
Karoliina: no I don't."
Interview 5
"And we knew that these tools would compose most of our
corporate culture."
" And it is what creates the environment, of the work"
" yes, it would make us feel like we were a team."
" And, it would make everybody feel like they are part of the
team"
" Could you think of some limits to Gamification?
Minnie: first of all, not everyone was excited about it."
" I think it is linked to the competitive nature of people. You
have to want to win the goal. If you don't want to achieve, to win
the achievement".

60
"This guy was just doing his job. It was not very engaging for
him, he was not very engaged in the company. Was not really
a
team player."
A gamified system reduces
communication problem among multi-
cultural team members
Less norms
Games are a form of
communicating
Interview 1
"And the company had the policy of the open doors. Meaning
you can go and talk and ask questions to your manager or
anybody really. Regardless of your rank you could ask many
questions about the company or your position."
"From the secretary, to the managing partners of the office. It
wasn't during meetings, but it was a mechanism, a policy that
made you able to talk to anyone."
Interview 2
"There is always incentives to do more, there is a competitive
element that you are aware of other people doing the same
activities."
" This is a little bit controversial as far as what people might
think, but play is like the natural communication form for
people."
"Babies know how to play the game. It's natural. It's our natural
way of communication. To relate with each other is to play, is
the very first way we relate to our parents, it is to play. We see
it more as a language, to play."

61
Games stimulate
team cohesion
Games stimulate
team cohesion
Games stimulate
team cohesion
"We try to figure out which team, how the team work, how the
team is motivated."
"The mechanism remain the same, though the communication
change, it is not about changing the structure. But is about
changing the rewards that, the incentives to match those one,
to match the motivation of the team were working on."
" Being part of the company, being part of the team."
" It is the same with group goal. When the team reach the goal,
everybody is a member of the team. Of a winning team. And
you're bonding."
" And you can destroy the country, you can destroy those
Buddhist statues, and do horrific things to the country. But the
local population, in a way they said, "we are not going to let you
take away this game.""
" It speaks to having something in common. With your
neighbour, with your cousin, with your friends. In an extend, it
shows that you have a common challenge to overcome."
Interview 3
" And it is completely strange for me, it is a completely foreign
notion for me that there is a French way of doing things, there
is an English way, a German way, or a Spanish. I though it was
a joke. They were just people. However I do find the difference
in the way countries are prepared to play games. French and
Spain are infinitely better than German and the UK for this."

How can gamification increase the Performance of employees in a multicultural organisation

How can gamification increase the Performance of employees in a multicultural organisation

Recommended

Recommended

More Related Content

Similar to How can gamification increase the Performance of employees in a multicultural organisation

Similar to How can gamification increase the Performance of employees in a multicultural organisation (20)

How can gamification increase the Performance of employees in a multicultural organisation