Personality Traits, Needs and Cultural Background as Influencing Factors on the Usage Intention of Gamification : a cross cultural study comparing India and Germany
The lack of specialists when looking for highly qualified labor (e.g. IT) has become globally omnipresent. Well educated team members need to be attracted and remain motivated to perform and stay satisfied. The goal of this research is to analyze possible cause and effect relationships between personality traits, human work-related needs, cultural background and the preference for specific gamification mechanics in order to address motivation and ultimately knowledge flow and collaboration in organisations. This is addressed by combining and interweaving the status quo of research in the fields of knowledge management, social capital, motivation, personality, culture, and gamification. Goal dimensions of this research model is to measure different effects on the individual’s intention to use internal gamification at the workplace. Building on this research’s results the insights shall help to improve work environments by fostering engagement, social interaction and hence, knowledge flow and creation. The results of the multivariate analysis indicate that BIG5 personality traits do not exhibit a substantial relationship in most models (neither on need nor on the preference for gamification elements). But there is a considerable relationship and effect of human work-related needs on the preference for belonging game elements. Also, cultural background is strongly influential on the preference of specific game mechanics. Finally, a strong effect between the preference for gamification elements and the intention to use gamification is identified, thus preferences for certain elements impact the intention to work in a gamified environment.