Facilitating Ideation and Knowledge Sharing in Workplaces: The Design and Use of Gamification in Virtual Platforms

Large organizations often constrain their innovation quests only inside the silos of dedicated departments. However, in the rapidly changing world, innovation processes need to be opened to wider circles suggesting involving virtual environments in workplaces that trigger employees' to be highly engaged. This empirical study investigates the facilitation of knowledge sharing in large organizations and the effect of gamification elements on the perceived level of engagement of users. The case study takes place in one of the largest banks in the Scandinavian countries, Nordea bank. The case study involves an innovation platform (i.e., a virtual place where the employees can share their ideas) within two variations: a conventional and a gamified one. Despite the contradiction between the results from the quantitative approach and the qualitative one, the outcome of this study suggests that in large organizations, there is a potential of opening up the innovation processes and make employees more engaged.