The design of meaningful workplace environments through gamification

Today’s workplaces are experiencing a critical gap in employee engagement and given the importance of engagement for employee satisfaction and organisational performance for competitive advantage, a different approach to addressing engagement in workplaces is required. The approach of ‘gamification’ - the use of game mechanics in non-game contexts – is a an increasingly popular approach to increase engagement and holds promise to address current engagement gaps in the workplaces. Applying gamification to the complexities and idiosyncrasies of the workplace presents challenges for researchers and designers, particularly in understanding and dealing with the complex, social and changing nature of workplaces. Cultural-Historical Activity Theory (CHAT) is a commonly used theory and research methodology in educational settings, and this dissertation seeks to apply CHAT to the gamification of workplace activity. Coupled with a design-based research approach to data collection and analysis, this study investigates the implementation and effectiveness of gamification in three organisations.