Enterprise Systems & Gamification

Dear Colleagues,

Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) systems are fully integrated applications covering key functional areas, including finance, procurement, supply chain, sales and marketing, and human resources. ERP systems are critical to IT departments at the companies implementing them. ERP implementation projects may vary in size, scope, methodology, context [1], and structure. The implementation process is challenging and requires a systematic and careful management and monitoring [2]. While ERP systems represented a lucrative USD 82B market size in 2015, statistics show that considerably large number projects witnessed failures in meeting their allocated budgets and projected schedules! Failures could lead to bankruptcy in some cases, e.g., FoxMeyer Drugs' Bankruptcy.

ERP implementation projects are characterized by latency and setbacks due to delivery failures, and budget and time overruns [3]. The implementation project is a complex scenario whereby tri-party relationship—vendor, partner, beneficiary (and sometimes management consulting as fourth player)—goes on for long periods, e.g., months or years, in order to implement the system [4–6].

Research shows that, quite often, employees are not engaged in ERP implementations. Gamification could potentially turn this trend around and motivate employees through techniques using gaming scenarios and leaderboards. Gamification can be defined as the adoption of game mechanics into serious settings. Hence, implementing ERP system is a promising area where gamification could be highly utilized. For example, in a gamified accounts payable (AP) module, voucher entry users could be given invoice entry objectives in terms of quantity and quality. Scores for all clerks across locations are shared on a leaderboard. A gamified ERP has the potentials to exhibit better data entry, as well as lesser errors [7].

SI Topics and Areas of Interest (not limited to):

• The Gap: ERP systems—just as other apps—have the potential to provide reward mechanisms in the forms of points, scores, badges, progress bars, expert designation, leaderboard rankings or other visual enticements which could demonstrate accomplishments or permit redemption for financial and/or non-financial incentives. Gamification has been increasingly used in association with sales, training, and testing domains. However, gamification has not been yet fully explored and investigated in the context of enterprise systems implementations.

• The proven success of gamification at organizations, of changeable sizes and industries, signifies that it would be a viable option for those implementing enterprise systems. Accordingly, there exists a need for a theoretical framework, case studies, prototypical implementation and longitudinal studies exploring the topic.

• Future research: Research is required to provide answers to questions such as: “how could gamification enhance the lifecycle of enterprise systems’ implementation hence enable organizations to become more efficient and attain higher ROI?”. Related research questions may include:

• Which lifecycle phases of enterprise systems’ implementations are most likely to benefit the most from gamification?
• What are those potential benefits associated with the corresponding lifecycle phases?
• How gamification could support those lifecycle phases?
• How to measure and realize the anticipated added value of gamification to enterprise systems?
• How to gamify enterprise systems modules and associated business scenarios in order to enhance user experience and achieve higher adoption rates?

Call for Contributions

This Special Issue seeks to attract researchers’ work presenting novel approaches to inquiry into the technical, operational, economical, and social impact of gamification emerging technologies with regards to their connection to and impact on enterprise systems. The special issue is open to all types of research methodologies and especially encourages a diversity of theoretical and empirical approaches.

Basically, we are looking for theoretically well-defined research problems, which are relevant the topics intertwined in this Special Issue, with the objective to advance a theory, methods, or open the door for future knowledge to unfold. With that being explained, we differentiate between interesting and important research problems using the scholarly, as well as the utility. As a result, we expect manuscripts to be able to demonstrate scholarly value and in the meantime illustration of how the research contributes to businesses and the society in general.

* Note: submissions need to show the link to the two subject areas: enterprise systems & gamification, in whichever article/topic submitted to this SI. 

References

[1] Venkatraman, S.; Fahd, K. Challenges and Success Factors of ERP Systems in Australian SMEs. Systems 2016, 4, 20.

[2] Markus, M.L.; Tanis, C.; Van Fenema, P.C. Enterprise resource planning: multisite ERP implementations. Commun. ACM. 2000, 43, 42–46.

[3] Haddara, M.; Päivärinta, T. Why Benefits Realization from ERP in SMEs Doesn’t Seem to Matter? In Proceedings of the 2011 44th Hawaii International Conference on System Sciences (HICSS), Kauai, Hawaii, 4–7 January 2011.

[4] Esteves, J.; Pastor, J. An ERP Lifecycle-based Research Agenda. In Proceedings of the 1st International Workshop on Enterprise Management Resource and Planning Systems, Venice, Italy, 25–26 November 1999.

[5] Esteves, J.; Pastor, J. Enterprise resource planning systems research: An annotated bibliography. Commun. Assoc. Inf. Syst. 2001. 7, 8.

[6] Elragal, A.; Haddara, M. The Future of ERP Systems: look backward before moving forward. Elsevier Procedia Technol. 2012, 5, 21–30.

[7] Herzig, P.; Strahringer, S.; Amerling, M. Gamification of ERP systems—Exploring gamification effects on user acceptance constructs. Available online: http://www.digibib.tu-bs.de/?docid=00047485 (accessed on 19 March 2018).

Prof. Ahmed Elragal
Assoc. Prof. Moutaz Haddara
Guest Editors

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• Enterprise Systems
• Gamification
• Enterprise Systems Lifecycle
• Enterprise Systems implementation
• Benefits realization of implementing enterprise systems