Journal Screenshot

International Journal of Academic Research in Business and Social Sciences

Open Access Journal

ISSN: 2222-6990

Narrative Gamification as a Method of Increasing Sales Performance: A Field Experimental Study

Jaroslaw Grobelny, Joanna Smierzchalska, Krzysztof Czapkowski

http://dx.doi.org/10.6007/IJARBSS/v8-i3/3940

Open access

There is ongoing dispute whether gamification is an effective tool in increasing sales performance. Furthermore, there is a lack of evidence of gamification being a job performance management tool. After the discussion of elements of gamification (with a focus on narration) and the mechanism of this procedure, a field study was conducted to investigate whether implementing narrative gamification within a company will increase sales performance.
The study involved 81 employees of two comparable franchise units. Over a period of two months, in one franchisee the employees were working on their regular basis, while narrative gamification took place in the second franchisee. The basic measures were the sales volume data and sales change rates of the two telecommunications products.
Tests for difference and effect size were employed. The results of the intervention conducted have shown that narrative gamification had a positive impact on sales performance after two months. Not only did the sales performance in the gamified franchisee increase, but the increase exceeded that of the other franchisee.

Aguinis, H., Joo, H., & Gottfredson, R. K. (2013). What monetary rewards can and cannot do: How to show employees the money. Business Horizons, 56(2), 241–249. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.bushor.2012.11.007
Allam, A., & Sutton, M. J. D. (2017). Gamification, serious games, simulations, and immersive learning environments in knowledge management initiatives. World Journal of Science, Technology and Sustainable Development, 14(2/3), 78–83. https://doi.org/10.1108/20425941211223624
Armstrong, M. B., Landers, R. N., & Collmus, A. B. (2016). Gamifying recruitment, selection, training, and performance management: game-thinking in Human Resource Management. In H. Gangadharbatla & D. Z. Davis (Eds.), Emerging Research and Trends in Gamification (Vol. i, pp. 140–165). Hershley: IGI Global. https://doi.org/10.4018/978-14666-8651-9.ch007
Balcerak, A. (2015). Gamification as a Management Fad. Zarz?dzanie Zasobami Ludzkimi, 2(103), 65–76.
Bogost, I. (2015). Why Gamification Is B******t. In S. P. Walz & S. Detering (Eds.), The Gameful World. Approaches, Issues, Applications (pp. 65–80). Cambridge: The MIT Press.
Briner, R. B., Denyer, D., & Rousseau, D. M. (2009). Evidence-Based Management: Concept Cleanup Time? Executive Overview. Academy of Management Perspective, 23(4), 19–32.
Campbell, J. K. (1990). Modeling the performance prediction problem in industrial and organizational psychology. In M. D. Dunette & L. M. Hough (Eds.), Handbook of Industrial and Organizational Psychology (pp. 688–732). Palo Alto: Consulting Psychologists Press.
Chen, E. T. (2015). The Gamification as a Resourceful Tool to Improve Work Performance. In T. Reiners & L. C. Wood (Eds.), Gamification in Business and Education (pp. 473–488). London: Springer.
Deterding, S., Dixon, D., Khaled, R., & Nacke, L. (2011). From game design elements to gamefulness. In Proceedings of the 15th International Academic MindTrek Conference on Envisioning Future Media Environments - MindTrek ’11 (pp. 9–15). Tampere, Finland. https://doi.org/10.1145/2181037.2181040
Dignan, A. (2011). Game Frame: Using Games as a Strategy for Success. New York: Free Press.
Domínguez, A., Saenz-de-Navarrete, J., De-Marcos, L., Fernández-Sanz, L., Pagés, C., & Martínez-Herráiz, J. J. (2013). Gamifying learning experiences: Practical implications and outcomes. Computers and Education, 63, 380–392. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.compedu.2012.12.020
Fors, P., & Lennerfors, T. T. (2017). Gamification for Sustainability. Beyond the Ludo-Aesthetical Approach. In M. Dymek & P. Zackariasson (Eds.), The Business of Gamification: A Critical Analysis (pp. 163–181). New York: Routledge.
Genoseve, D., & Mayer, C. (2001). Loss Aversion and Seller Behavior: Evidence from the Housing Market. The Quarterly Journal of Economics, 116(4), 1233–1260. https://doi.org/10.1162/003355301753265561
Glenroy unwraps gamification solution to motivate sales performance. (2015, May 5). Retrieved from http://www.motivation.cloudapps.com/glenroy-increase-sales-performance/
Hamari, J. (2013). Transforming homo economicus into homo ludens: A field experiment on gamification in a utilitarian peer-to-peer trading service. Electronic Commerce Research and Applications, 12(4), 236–245. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.elerap.2013.01.004
Hamari, J., Koivisto, J., & Sarsa, H. (2014). Does Gamification Work? — A Literature Review of Empirical Studies on Gamification. In Proceedings of the 47th Hawaii International Conference on System Sciences (pp. 3025–3034). Hawaii, USA. https://doi.org/DOI 10.1109/HICSS.2014.377
Herzig, P., Ameling, M., & Schill, A. (2015). Workplace Psychology and Gamification: Theory and Application. In T. Reiners & L. C. Wood (Eds.), Gamification in Business and Education2 (pp. 451–472). London: Springer.
Hunicke, R., LeBlanc, M., & Zubek, R. (2004). MDA: A Formal Approach to Game Design and Game Research. In Workshop on Challenges in Game AI (pp. 1–4). https://doi.org/10.1.1.79.4561
Kapp, K. (2014). Gamification: Separat

In-Text Citation: (Grobelny, Smierzchalska, & Czapkowski, 2018)
To Cite this Article: Grobelny, J., Smierzchalska, J., & Czapkowski, K. (2018). Narrative Gamification as a Method of Increasing Sales Performance: A Field Experimental Study. International Journal of Academic Research in Business and Social Sciences, 8(3), 449–465.