Using gamification to overcome innovation process challenges: A literature review and future agenda

Innovation is crucial to ensure firms’ competitiveness in constantly changing environments. Innovation processes help organize and systematize innovation in firms, thus facilitating the adaptation of new technologies and input sources. However, firms encounter many challenges during different phases of the innovation process, which can prevent them from implementing innovations successfully. Based on a systematic literature review, this paper aims to analyze the ability of gamification to serve as an effective and efficient tool for overcoming the various challenges encountered during different phases of the innovation process. First, we synthesize the intrinsic, extrinsic, cognitive and emotional mechanisms that are activated by gamification interventions as well as the business outcomes achieved during each of the innovation phases into a framework based on context-intervention-mechanism-outcome (CIMO) logic. Then, we critically evaluate the efficiency and efficacy of current gamification interventions with respect to innovation to provide recommendations for improving the integration of these methods in the future. Following our analysis, we explore avenues for future research, and we suggest future implementation opportunities for organizations.