Author: Janosch Schobin
Co-Authors ⁄ Presenters: Dr. Ana Cárdenas
Digital Gamification as a Trojan Horse: Are IT Departments Conquering Low and Middle Management?
The last few years have seen a substantial rise in publicity around digital gamification (DG) (Fuchs et al. 2014). DG is usually understood as the application of game elements (e.g. scoreboards, badges and quests) or even whole game mechanics (complex, integrated sets of game rules) to non-gaming contexts via software. Its purpose is usually to promote the involvement of social actors in a particular activity or a specific social entity (e.g. Deterding et al. 2011, McGonigal 2011, Walz und Deterding 2015). DG originated in marketing around 2010 as a tool to enhance consumer involvement (Linder 2010; Zichermann & Linder 2010). From there, it spread to almost all areas of business under the guise of a universal solution for the organization of almost all productive processes (e.g. Herger 2014; Jiménez Sánchez 2015; Reiners 2015).
What are the effects of DG on regulation of the labour process? In the context of increasing digitalization, information and information systems have become “the dominant reference system of management in firms” (Boes & Kämpf 2012: 326). IT departments have themselves developed as special stakeholder groups with their own agendas regarding competencies, workplaces and resources. IT departments also have their own professional standards, evaluation criteria and internal social dynamics. They are thus in a key position to guarantee their interests. However, the position of IT departments is also relatively precarious and their formal power prospects remain low. They usually take the form of subordinate, dispersed service providers without any formal authority and are under continual threat of being outsourced. In this regard, it can be argued that IT departments are in a constant struggle to achieve a more powerful and stable position within firms.
At the same time, DG is a regulation strategy that intervenes in the core business of low and middle management. Its objective is to distribute rewards and punishments, and create cooperation possibilities and fair competition conditions among workers. In this sense, it is reasonable to think that IT departments will attempt to use DG to further improve their position within firms. As Faust et al. have emphasized, managers as a group constitute the “subject as well as the object of rationalization” (Faust et al. 1998: 102). In this context, our thesis is that DG leads to a transformation of power relations between low and middle management and IT departments. If, in the future, labour processes are increasingly organized around gamified platforms, then IT professionals will in fact evolve from machine-interpreters to middle managers. Based on an online survey and semi-interviews of gamification experts, we have reconstructed and analysed DG and its consequences for IT departments and professionals, as well as for the regulation of labour processes.