It is Really Not a Game: An Integrative Review of Gamification for Service Research

Abstract

Gamification has attracted considerable practitioner attention and has become a viable tactic for influencing behavior, boosting innovation, and improving marketing outcomes across industries. Simultaneously, studies on the use of gamification techniques have emerged in diverse fields, including computer science, education, and healthcare. Despite the broad popularity of gamification in other fields, it has received only limited attention in the service literature. Moreover, the findings of extant studies on ga-mification in the service field are inconclusive and suggest an incomplete understanding of the employment of gamification in service contexts. Thus, this study aims to integrate the growing but scattered cross-disciplinary literature on gamification and to emphasize its relevance to service research. Specifically, we first conceptualize gamification for service and differentiate it from related concepts. Then, using a systematic literature review, we identify 34 empirical articles that reflect this gamification conceptualization and can be connected to relevant service research themes (e.g., customer participation, experience, and loyalty). Employing activity theory, we derive four higher-order functions of gamification: production, consumption, exchange, and distribution. Finally, we develop a research agenda to generate a better understanding of the central aspects within each of the identified gamification functions and stimulate future academic efforts on gamification in services.

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Journal of Service Research
2022, Vol. 0(0) 1–18
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DOI: 10.1177/10946705221076272
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It is Really Not a Game: An Integrative Review of
Gamification for Service Research
Robert Ciuchita
1
, Jonas Heller
2
, Sarah K ¨
ocher
3
,S
¨
oren K ¨
ocher
4
,
Thomas Leclercq
5
, Karim Sidaoui
6
, and Susan Stead
7

Abstract
Gamification has attracted considerable practitioner attention and has become a viable tactic for influencing behavior, boosting
innovation, and improving marketing outcomes across industries. Simultaneously, studies on the use of gamification techniques
have emerged in diverse fields, including computer science, education, and healthcare. Despite the broad popularity of gamification
in other fields, it has received only limited attention in the service literature. Moreover, the findings of extant studies on ga-
mification in the service field are inconclusive and suggest an incomplete understanding of the employment of gamification in service
contexts. Thus, this study aims to integrate the growing but scattered cross-disciplinary literature on gamification and to emphasize
its relevance to service research. Specifically, we first conceptualize gamification for service and differentiate it from related
concepts. Then, using a systematic literature review, we identify 34 empirical articles that reflect this gamification conceptualization
and can be connected to relevant service research themes (e.g., customer participation, experience, and loyalty). Employing activity
theory, we derive four higher-order functions of gamification: production, consumption, exchange, and distribution. Finally, we
develop a research agenda to generate a better understanding of the central aspects within each of the identified gamification
functions and stimulate future academic efforts on gamification in services.
Keywords
gamification, systematic literature review, activity theory, engagement, experience, loyalty
Introduction
“In every job that must be done, there is an element of fun.”
Mary Poppins (1964)
Defined as the use of game mechanics in non-game contexts
(Deterding et al. 2011), gamification has become a viable tactic
for influencing behavior, boosting innovation, improving
marketing outcomes, and driving value (Leclercq, Hammedi,
and Poncin 2018). Since its addition to the peak of Gartner’s
Hype Cycle for emerging technologies approximately a decade
ago (Fenn and LeHong 2011), gamification has been gaining
increasing momentum toward large-scale adoption in the
marketplace. Several international service providers, including
Amazon, Microsoft, and Uber, have successfully implemented
gamification techniques in their business activities (Milkman
2021). Technavio (2021) estimates that the worldwide gami-
fication market will more than double its value to $11.94 billion
in 2021 from $4.91 billion in 2016, reaching $32 billion by
2025. Gamification also entered the public debate in 2021, when
the Robinhood investing application’s ability to intrigue, edu-
cate, engage, and empower young people with stock trading
received considerable media attention (Massa and Robinson
2021). This example reflects the trend that younger users expect
and thrive in gamified consumption and work environments
(Deterding 2019).
Considering its potential for evoking persistent behavioral
changes among users (e.g., employees and customers), gami-
fication has also captured substantial research interest, and a
plethora of gamification studies have emerged from fields as
diverse as computer science, education, health and medicine,
and business management. These studies have described
1
Department of Marketing, Hanken School of Economics, Helsinki, Finland
2
Department of Marketing and Supply Chain Management, Maastricht
University, Maastricht, Netherlands
3
Department of Marketing, TU Dortmund University, Dortmund, Germany
4
Chair of Marketing, Otto-von-Guericke-University Magdeburg, Germany
5
Department of Marketing and Sales Management, IESEG School of
Management, Univ. Lille, CNRS, UMR 9221 - LEM - Lille Economie Management,
France
6
Department of Marketing, Institute for Management Research, Radboud
University, Netherlands
7
Institute for Technology and Innovation Management, TIME Research Area,
RWTH Aachen University, Germany
Corresponding Author:
Robert Ciuchita, Department of Marketing, Hanken School of Economics,
Arkadiankatu 22, 00100, Helsinki, Finland.
Email: robert.ciuchita@hanken.fi

gamification as a powerful means of activating or satisfying
users’motivations (e.g., Mitchell, Schuster, and Jin 2020;van
Roy and Zaman 2018), improving their experience (Feng et al.
2018;Robson et al. 2015), and engaging them in contexts that
are not commonly associated with games (e.g., Gutt, von
Rechenberg, and Kundisch 2020;Zimmerling et al. 2019).
However, despite the great enthusiasm among practitioners
and academics, gamification remains a problematic concept:
research in various disciplines has conceptualized gamification
differently, which has led to a lack of consensus surrounding its
conceptual and theoretical clarity (Landers 2019). For example,
some researchers do not distinguish gamification from full-
fledged (video) games or serious games, although the under-
lying purpose is fundamentally different. Although all forms
can influence attitude and behaviors, gamification is associated
with the performance of a core activity, which is not the case for
(serious) games (Deterding et al. 2011), leading to a misun-
derstanding of what gamification entails and how it works
(Landers 2019). Moreover, despite the broad popularity of
gamification in other fields, the concept still has received only
limited attention in the service literature despite several calls for
research on this topic (e.g., Cambra-Fierro et al. 2020;Ostrom
et al. 2021). This is surprising since gamification is strongly
associated with prominent contexts (e.g., healthcare and
e-services) and concepts (e.g., engagement, experience, and
value creation) relevant to the service field.
Moreover, the findings of extant studies on gamification in
the service field are inconclusive and indicate an incomplete
understanding of how gamification techniques may enhance
interaction and support users’overall value creation (Huotari
and Hamari 2017). More precisely, while some studies highlight
the favorable outcomes and benefits of implementing gamifi-
cation techniques in the service domain (e.g., Tanouri, Mulcahy,
and Russel-Bennett 2019;Hammedi, Leclercq, and van Riel
2017), others draw attention to unexpected and counterpro-
ductive effects (Leclercq et al. 2020;Mitchell et al. 2020).
Importantly, the extant gamification literature has focused
primarily on users’interactions with gamification elements
(e.g., leaderboards, points, and badges) while largely neglecting
the social context in which gamified interactions are situated.
However, considering social contextual factors (e.g., interac-
tions with other community members, the rules and norms
governing the community) may help researchers identify sit-
uational elements that users leverage to derive value from
gamified services and classify types of services that might be
successfully gamified. Thus, the purpose of this research is to
address these shortcomings through a systematic literature re-
view that integrates dispersed cross-disciplinary research on
gamification. We employ activity theory (Engestr¨
om 1987;
Vygotsky 1978), an established psychological framework that
has been used to study the contextual nature of interactive
activity systems, to analyze the gamification activity system by
examining its elements (e.g., related to the individual, the
technology, and the social context) and their relationships.
Consequently, we present gamification functions that may
support service research and management and address the
service research priority of technology and the customer ex-
perience identified by Ostrom et al. (2021).
We thus contribute to service research in three major ways.
First, limited work has been conducted on gamification from a
service research perspective despite its efficacy in improving
service objectives. Our review addresses this gap by concep-
tualizing gamification in service research and untangling it from
related concepts (e.g., classic, pervasive, or serious games).
Second, we draw from activity theory to structure the existing
yet highly fragmented gamification literature, providing a solid
foundation to better conceptualize this concept in service re-
search via its four derived functions (production, consumption,
exchange, and distribution). Third, we develop a well-rounded
research agenda geared toward generating a better under-
standing of the central aspects within each of the four identified
gamification functions to advance research on gamification in
the service domain.
In the remainder of this article, we position our study against
existing literature reviews on gamification, provide an overview
of prior conceptualizations, develop a novel conceptualization
of gamification for service research, and introduce activity
theory as an organizing framework for our analysis. We then
describe the systematic literature review strategy used to
identify and include articles in our analysis. Subsequently, we
present our results and highlight the four functions of
gamification—namely, production, consumption, exchange,
and distribution—derived from activity theory. We conclude
with a discussion about how each function can support service
research and formulate research questions to stimulate, struc-
ture, and guide future academic efforts on gamification in
services.
Conceptual Background
Extant Literature Reviews on Gamification
Over the past decade, gamification has interested both practi-
tioners in various industries and scholars from diverse academic
backgrounds. In attempts to understand gamified practices and
synthesize and synergize extant findings, scholars in different
disciplines have conducted selective and systematic reviews of
the academic literature. Many such reviews have aimed to
delineate gamification in a particular domain (e.g., business and
management, education, computer science, health science, and
psychology) but have not provided insights central to the
conceptualization of gamification: How users integrate gami-
fication and contextual elements to derive value from their
interactions (Huotari and Hamari 2017). For instance, in the
business context, Perryer et al. (2016) conduct a selective re-
view to investigate which elements of gamification impact
motivation in the workplace and identify how gamification
outcomes can be explained with theories such as self-
determination theory (Ryan and Deci 2000). Shi et al. (2017)
systematically (n = 88) review a decade of research (2005–
2015) to integrate gamification frameworks related to the
emotional mechanics of gamification with the adoption of
2Journal of Service Research 0(0)

advanced services. More recently, Warmelink et al. (2020)
investigated how gamification impacts production and logis-
tics operations, and their systematic review (n = 18) identified a
lack of experimental studies in the research area.
Beyond the business context, education researchers have
conducted various reviews on gamification. Hakak et al. (2019),
for example, review the literature on gamification applications
to describe a gamification architecture that contains different
game mechanics to improve learning outcomes. Huang et al.
(2020) systematically (n = 30) provide a review of a decade
(2009–2018) of quantitative gamification research in the context
of educational settings and student learning outcomes. With a
similar focus but a shorter time frame (2017–2020), Sailer and
Homner (2020) systematically (n = 58) reviewed how gami-
fication impacts cognitive, motivational, and behavioral
learning outcomes. Some reviews have combined a focus on
education and health science, for example, De Vette et al.
(2015), who provide a broad review of the academic and
practitioner literature to identify how elderly users of tele-
medicine offerings interact with gamification content and
conclude that significant future research is needed in this
specificfield. Miller, Cafazzo, and Seto (2016) review gami-
fication applications in a mobile health context to provide an
overview of the design principles and mechanics required to
improve the success of such applications. Other disciplines,
such as computer science and psychology, have also produced
reviews; however, most of these researchers have restricted their
search to narrow contexts (e.g., the gamification of surveys) or
time frames.
Although these reviews can provide gamification insights
into other domains, they suffer from several shortcomings that
signal the need for further research in the form of a systematic
literature review with a focus on service research and man-
agement (see Web Appendix A). First, one of the major deficits
of prior work on gamification is the lack of a consistent con-
ceptualization and clear differentiation from other related
concepts, such as classic games, pervasive games, and serious
games. Second, most literature reviews have focused primarily
on enumerating game elements (e.g., Alhammad and Moreno
2018;Hakak et al. 2019;Pedreira et al. 2015;Miller, Cafazzo,
and Seto 2016). However, game elements are not sufficient to
conceptualize gamification. In other words, focusing solely on
game elements does not provide a comprehensive under-
standing of gamification and may lead to some authors using
gamification and related concepts (e.g., pervasive and serious
games) interchangeably (e.g., Dias, Barbosa, and Vianna 2018;
Souza et al. 2018). We address these two shortcomings in the
next section, where we provide a conceptualization of gami-
fication for service research.
Third, some studies have focused on the effect of gamifi-
cation on specific outcomes (i.e., outcomes that have been
quantified in a comparable manner across studies). For instance,
two meta-analyses (Huang et al. 2020;Sailer and Homner 2020)
are conducted in the education domain to test the impact of
gamification elements on learning outcomes. Although such
studies show variation in how different gamification elements
impact an outcome, they do not aim to provide a holistic
perspective on gamification or focus on outcomes directly
relevant to service research.
Finally, most of the reviews have investigated the use of
gamification mechanics in a specific domain and consequently
overlook the extent to which the contextual factors that are
relevant to the service field (e.g., interactions with technology
and interactions with other community members) may influence
how these mechanics generate value for users (e.g., Leclercq
et al. 2020). However, situational factors are critical to un-
derstanding users’value creation through services (Vargo and
Lusch 2016). We address these two shortcomings in our
analysis by using activity theory (Engestr ¨
om 1987;Vygotsky
1978) to derive gamification functions. Through our analysis,
we achieve a holistic perspective on gamification for service
research and a better understanding of the role of contextual
factors in gamified services.
The Conceptual Evolution of Gamification
Initially, defined as “the use of game mechanics in non-game
contexts”(Deterding et al. 2011, p. 2), gamification describes
the combination of game elements such as leaderboards, points,
badges, levels, rewards, and virtual currencies to create game
mechanics such as quests or challenges to reach an objective.
This definition has been extended to include the objectives (e.g.,
creating engagement and fostering specific behaviors) of in-
troducing gamification elements in contexts initially distant
from gaming cultures, such as education, marketing, and human
resource management (Zichermann and Cunningham 2011). In
that respect, Dom´
ınguez et al. (2013, p. 381) define gamification
as “incorporating game elements into a non-gaming software
application to increase user experience and engagement
1
.”In
marketing, Hofacker et al. (2016, p. 26) suggest that gamifi-
cation refers to the “use of game design elements to enhance
non-game goods and services by increasing customer value and
encouraging value-creating behaviors such as increased con-
sumption, greater loyalty, engagement or product advocacy.”To
understand how gamification may be used to reach these ob-
jectives, many researchers have emphasized the abilities of
game elements to activate motivations and change behaviors
(Cardador, Northcraft, and Whicker 2017;Vesa and Harviainen
2019). As gamification has permeated the realms of organi-
zational strategy and performance, ethical concerns pertaining
to the manipulation and exploitation of user behavior in favor of
the firm have become a matter of debate (Kim and Werbach
2016;Thorpe and Roper 2019). Furthermore, the effects of
gamification on individual performance across varying domains
and user attributes seem to yield mixed results, ranging from
positive to neutral and, in some cases, counterproductive (Khan
et al. 2020;Landers 2019). In response to these concerns,
Huotari and Hamari (2017, p. 25) revise the definition of ga-
mification as “a process of enhancing a service with affordances
for gameful experiences in order to support users’overall value
creation.”This definition highlights two key characteristics of
gamification: (1) game mechanics integration (i.e., combining
Ciuchita et al. 3

game elements based on user resources and motivations to
create affordances for a gameful experience) and (2) the creation
of user value from a gamified service.
Game Mechanics and Value Creation
Regarding game mechanics integration, Floryan, Ritterband,
and Chow (2019) distinguish between the exogenous and en-
dogenous use of digital or physical game mechanics in con-
sumption contexts. Specifically, exogenous use refers to game
mechanics that are detached from the core activity to support the
performance of the core service (e.g., using a serious game
platform to improve learning outcomes). Endogenous use, on
the other hand, embeds game mechanics in the core activity
(e.g., gaining points and competing on leaderboards while using
a health tracking app).
The distinction between exogenous and endogenous uses of
game mechanics, however, does not capture the extent to which
value is created for the user. For instance, classic games (e.g.,
Monopoly or League of Legends) engage players in an alter-
native and ephemeral reality governed by rules, goals, logics,
and roles that differ significantly from those characterizing
ordinary life. This bounded reality, including the user and his or
her context, is commonly referred to as the “magic circle”
(Consalvo 2009). The activities performed by players cannot
generate any outcomes outside the magic circle (Caillois 1958).
Accordingly, classic games are exogenous to users’ordinary
consumption context and do not contribute to their value cre-
ation beyond the magic circle. Pervasive games (e.g., Pok´
emon
GO or Treasure Hunt) tend to expand the magic circle to in-
tegrate game mechanics into users’ordinary life (Montola,
Stenros, and Waern 2009). Although these games may be en-
dogenous to users’non-game activities, they do not aim to
create value for the user beyond the game boundaries. In
contrast, serious games (e.g., Lego Serious Play or SuperBetter)
suggest the implementation of game mechanics to achieve
educational and informative aims beyond the magic circle
(Michael and Chen 2005). However, the usage of game me-
chanics is exogenous, as they are distinct from the performance
of the non-game activity (Dickey 2015). Finally, gamification
ties game mechanics to the core activity, making it endogenous.
It aims to improve user outcomes and performance, enabling
users to derive value from their interactions with the service
(Koivisto and Hamari 2014). While serious and pervasive
games share common game mechanics with gamification, the
key distinction lies in the value creation for the user within the
service activity (Huotari and Hamari 2017; see Figure 1).
Aligned with this study’s focus on service research and
management and considering the distinctions between the use of
game mechanics (i.e., endogenous or exogenous) and their
influence on user value creation (i.e., inside or outside the user’s
magic circle), we adopt the following gamification perspective:
The endogenous use of game mechanics that contributes to
users’value creation within the core activity of a service. Value
is socially and contextually created and consequently demon-
strates a complex system in which users derive value from their
interactions with many elements present in their environment
(Vargo and Lusch 2016). To identify these contextual elements,
structure our analysis and derive gamification functions that can
support service research, we draw on activity theory (Engestr ¨
om
1987;Vygotsky 1978).
Fundamentals of Activity Theory
This theoretical framework is rooted in social psychology and
has been employed to study interactive and complex activity
systems in different areas of research, including management
(e.g., Engestr¨
om 2000;Jarzabkowski 2003), information sys-
tems (e.g., Allen et al. 2013;Clemmensen, Kaptelinin, and
Nardi 2016), and education (e.g., Chung, Hwang, and Lai 2019;
Cowan and Butler 2013). Gamification is an intentional activity
that requires an individual to interact with an artifact (e.g., an
application, a fitness tracker, etc.) in a broader social context to
produce an outcome: Therefore, activity theory provides an
appropriate framework to study gamification. In the following,
we briefly introduce the tenets of activity theory and explain
how this approach helps derive gamification functions.
According to activity theory (Engestr ¨
om 1987;Vygotsky
1978), an activity system in its most basic form is defined by
three nodes: subject, instrument, and object. The central idea is
that a subject (e.g., a student) interacts with an instrument (e.g.,
a mediating tool such as a mobile application) to act on an object
(e.g., course content). This process brings about an outcome
(e.g., final course result). This basic model was extended to
include three additional nodes of social context (see, e.g., Allen
et al. 2013;Holt and Morris 1993): community (i.e., an in-
terdependent aggregate of individuals who, at least to some
degree, share a set of social meanings), rules (i.e., formal or
informal guides or norms for action or activity), and division of
labor (i.e., the division of tasks and the division of power across
members within the community).
More important to our analysis, activity theory also describes
four dominant functions that arise from the relationships be-
tween neighboring nodes of activity systems (see Figure 2):
Production, consumption, exchange, and distribution (e.g.,
Cowan and Butler 2013;Engestr¨
om 1987;Holt and Morris 1993).
Figure 1. Conceptual positioning of gamification and other forms of
games.
4Journal of Service Research 0(0)

Production creates artifacts according to the needs or desired
object of the activity system, while consumption relates to the
subject achieving the object within the community or system.
Exchange refers to social interactions between community
members. Finally, distribution divides activities and outcomes
according to the social laws of the community. In sum, activity
theory provides our analysis framework and is especially relevant
to our research objective, as it incorporates all contextual factors
people interact with and the relationships among them through
higher-order functions.
Literature Search Strategy
Figure 3 outlines the steps of our systematic literature search
following the procedure recommended by Torraco (2016).In
March 2021, we searched for the term “gamif*”at the topic
level (i.e., title, abstract, and keywords) in the Web of Science
Core Collection, and the search returned 3154 references. After
filtering for peer-reviewed articles written in English, we were
left with 2415 articles. To be as inclusive as possible but also
maintain publication quality criteria, we focused on 1062
Figure 2. Activity theory functions applied to gamification.
Figure 3. Systematic search strategy and inclusion process.
Ciuchita et al. 5

articles published in journals with an impact factor of two or
higher according to the Journal Citation Report (Clarivate
2020).
We first screened these articles at the title and abstract level.
Pairs of researchers identified and excluded articles in which
gamification was not mentioned in the title or abstract; gami-
fication was not the focus; the focus was the (technical) de-
velopment of a gamified application; the focus was classic
games, pervasive games, or serious games; or the purpose of the
article was to introduce a special issue. The exclusion intercoder
reliability for the teams of coders ranged from 88% to 91%.
Each article on which there was initial disagreement was dis-
cussed and agreed upon. Thus, 245 articles proceeded to a
second screening phase in which each pair of researchers
screened a different set of included articles at the content level.
In addition to the exclusion criteria from the previous screening
phase, we excluded articles with no or limited theoretical un-
derpinning, articles that focused primarily on describing a
gamified application, and articles in which gamification was
used only as a data-collection method or context to study other
phenomena. For example, we excluded studies with no clear
hypotheses as to how or why gamification elements were ex-
pected to perform in a particular way. Intercoder agreement on
exclusion was high, ranging from 87% to 88%. Once more, each
disagreement was discussed and resolved. Thus, the second
phase of screening yielded 74 articles for full-text analysis.
For our final sample, we selected 34 articles that were rel-
evant to service research and that were not conceptual or lit-
erature review articles. The relevance to service research was
established based on the most prolific research themes identified
by Donthu et al. (2020) in Journal of Service Research (JSR)
articles published between 1998 and 2019. Specifically, we
excluded articles that could not be classified under at least one of
the 45 research themes
2
(e.g., loyalty, experience, and partic-
ipation) resulting from Donthu et al.’s (2020) bibliometric
analysis.
Analyses and Results
The 34 articles in our final sample were published between 2014
and 2021 in 21 journals (see Web Appendix B for an overview),
and 14 journals (including three service journals) were repre-
sented by just one publication each. In terms of journal cate-
gories (using the primary classification in the Web of Science
Master Journal List; Clarivate 2020), most of the articles were
published in business and management journals (38%), fol-
lowed by psychology (21%) and computer science and infor-
mation research (21%). The most frequent journals in our final
sample were Computers in Human Behavior and Journal of
Business Research, with five articles each.
To understand the key characteristics of each article (e.g.,
scientific domain, focus, and methodology), a content analysis
was applied (Strauss and Corbin 1998). Teams of two re-
searchers manually coded each empirical article for research
context, perspective (e.g., firm/organization or user/customer),
gamification conceptualization (e.g., gamification definition),
gamification operationalization (e.g., gamification measure-
ment), gamification application (e.g., mobile application, online
platform, and electronic learning environment), conceptual
background (e.g., theory and theoretical reasoning), outcomes
and antecedents (e.g., variables of direct relevance to gamifi-
cation clearly described in the article through hypotheses or
analysis) and findings. Starting from the research themes
identified by Donthu et al. (2020), we coded the relevance of
each article to service research in more depth, for example,
differentiating between specific service-relevant outcomes (e.g.,
loyalty and job satisfaction), broader service-relevant concepts
(e.g., experience and participation/engagement) and service-
relevant contexts (e.g., e-service and healthcare).
Finally, through the lens of activity theory (Engestr¨
om 1987;
Vygotsky 1978), we classified each of the 34 articles in our
sample into one or more of the higher-order functions that arise
from the relationships between neighboring nodes of activity
systems. Most articles in our sample cover elements of pro-
duction, consumption, exchange, and distribution in parallel
and thus are classified into more than one of the four functions
(see Web Appendix B for an overview). However, there are
considerable differences in several nodes comprising each
function, which we describe in the following and summarize in
Table 1. This finding is closely in line with activity theory, as the
six nodes and four dominant functions are meant to be in
constant flux, interacting with and impacting each other (Cowan
and Butler 2013;Holt and Morris 1993).
Production
Conceptually, the production function of activity theory refers
to the relationship between subject and object that is mediated
by instrument. Thus, in a gamification context, this function
describes a user’s execution of a task using a gamified in-
strument. Out of the 34 articles in our sample, 17 address the
production function (see Web Appendix B). Most of these
studies (1) examine users’evaluations of gamified applications
comprising a fixed set of gamification elements (e.g.,
Eisingerich et al. 2019;Hamari and Koivisto 2015;Harwood
and Garry 2015;van Roy and Zaman 2018;Kunkel, Lock, and
Doyle 2021;Xi and Hamari 2020); (2) test their effectiveness
relative to a non-gamified condition (e.g., Ferriz-Valero et al.
2020;Hammedi et al. 2021;H¨
ogberg, Shams, and W¨
astlund
2019;Passalacqua et al. 2020); or (3) investigate potential
changes in the effectiveness of specific gamification elements
by adding, removing, or varying features (e.g., Li, Chau, and Ge
2020;Zimmerling et al. 2019).
As a theoretical foundation, several studies of this function
draw from variations in the technology acceptance model
(TAM; Davis 1989). This model posits that individuals’atti-
tudes toward and, by extension, usage intentions toward and
actual use of a new technology are determined by attributes of
the technology, such as perceived ease of use and usefulness,
which, in turn, are driven by a variety of external variables,
including technology-related (e.g., reliability) or personal
characteristics (e.g., technology readiness). Accordingly,
6Journal of Service Research 0(0)

several studies have highlighted the crucial role of gamification
characteristics (e.g., Koivisto and Hamari 2014;Hamari and
Koivisto 2015;Silic et al. 2020;Tanouri et al. 2019). For ex-
ample, investigating users’evaluations of gamified fitness
software, Hamari and Koivisto (2015) find that attitudes toward
using the service are positively related to perceived usefulness,
while continued use intentions are determined by ease of use.
Other gamification researchers have built on variations of
self-determination theory (SDT; Ryan and Deci 2000). This
approach acknowledges the importance of intrinsic and ex-
trinsic motivations and particularly the satisfaction of the basic
human needs for autonomy, competence, and relatedness as a
means of motivating individuals to undertake an activity. Re-
search has shown that the presence of gamification elements,
such as challenges, badges, and rewards, that address these
needs is positively related to users’motivation and, conse-
quently, outcomes when performing an activity (e.g., Ferriz-
Valero et al. 2020;Kunkel, Lock, and Doyle 2021;Passalacqua
et al. 2020;van Roy and Zaman 2018;Xi and Hamari 2020;
Zimmerling et al. 2019). For instance, while investigating the
development of ideas for new products, Zimmerling et al.
(2019) find that game elements in an idea contest can im-
prove the number of comments a participant leaves but not the
quality of participants’contributions and ideas because extrinsic
motivations—which tend to positively influence the quantity
but not the quality of performances—rather than intrinsic
motivations are triggered by the use of gamification elements.
Consistent with this finding, Ferriz-Valero et al. (2020) dem-
onstrate that the use of gamification elements in an educational
context can enhance extrinsic but not intrinsic motivations.
Consumption
The consumption function of activity theory focuses on the
relationship between subject and object that is mediated by
community. In a gamification context, this function describes
the subject achieving the object within the community or
system. Out of the 34 articles in our sample, 25 address the
consumption function. Most of these studies discuss achieving
objects through (1) different forms of fun (e.g., Koivisto and
Hamari 2014;Hamari and Koivisto 2015;Harwood and Garry
2015;Mulcahy, Zainuddin, and Russell-Bennett 2021;Silic
et al. 2020) or (2) different forms of experience (e.g., Liu
et al. 2019;Suh et al. 2017;Wolf, Weiger, and
Hammerschmidt 2020). The communities and systems in
which consumption occurs include classrooms (Hanus and Fox
2015), workplaces (Suh and Wagner 2017), fitness platforms,
(Koivisto and Hamari 2014), healthcare platforms (Tanouri,
Mulcahy, and Russell-Bennett 2019), crowdsourcing commu-
nities (Feng et al. 2018), cultural events (Liu et al. 2019), and
supermarkets (H¨
ogberg, Shams, and W¨
astlund 2019).
Most studies of this function capture the fun part of gami-
fication through enjoyment and/or playfulness (Dindar, Ren,
and J¨
arvenoja 2021;Feng et al. 2018;Hamari and Koivisto
2015;Li et al. 2020), fun (Lu and Ho 2020) or hedonic value
(Tanouri et al. 2019;Suh and Wagner 2017). Enjoyment is
treated primarily as an antecedent of other outcomes (e.g.,
involvement in Mulcahy, Russell-Bennett and Iacobucci 2020,
continuance intention in Hamari and Koivisto 2015 and psy-
chological empowerment in Lu and Ho 2020). Some articles
classified under the consumption function also focus on the self-
development dimension of the user experience (e.g., Trang and
Weiger 2021), as it enables them to assess the extent to which
objects are acted upon. Wolf, Weiger, and Hammerschmidt
(2020), for instance, show that gamified applications that fa-
cilitate self-development experiences drive customer commit-
ment, willingness to pay, and customer referrals (i.e., different
aspects of firm performance).
Some of the articles classified under the consumption
function also consider the production function and naturally
draw from similar theoretical backgrounds (e.g., TAM or SDT).
Such articles study consumption and production elements in
parallel (e.g., enjoyment relating to consumption and usefulness
relating to production in Silic et al. 2020 or enjoyment and
playfulness relating to consumption and usefulness and ease of
use relating to production in Hamari and Koivisto 2015). Other
articles (e.g., Harwood and Garry 2015;Lee 2019;Silic et al.
2020;Trang and Weiger 2021) draw on variations of flow theory
Table 1. Overview of gamification functions.
Gamification
function Gamification focus Focal theories Focal constructs Representative studies
Production Effectiveness of
gamification
elements
Self-determination theory (SDT; Ryan and
Deci, 2000), technology acceptance model
(TAM; Davis 1989)
Usefulness (TAM),
competence (SDT)
Eisingerich et al. (2019);Xi
and Hamari (2020)
Consumption Fun experience Cognitive absorption (Agarwal and
Karahanna, 2000), flow (Csikszentmihalyi,
1990)
Enjoyment, playfulness, fun,
hedonic value,
Self-development
Suh et al., (2017);Trang
and Weiger (2021)
Exchange Social interaction Self-determination theory (SDT; Ryan and
Deci, 2000), social comparison (Festinger,
1954)
Relatedness (SDT), social
comparison, social
connectedness
Koivisto and Hamari
(2014);Leclercq et al.
(2018)
Distribution Allocation of
benefits
Social influence (Cialdini and Goldstein,
2004)
Reciprocal benefits. Self-
benefits
Hamari and Koivisto
(2015);Lu and Ho
(2020)
Ciuchita et al. 7

(Csikszentmihalyi 1990), which postulates that an optimal
experience is characterized by users’perceptions of a balance
between their competences and the challenge evoked by ac-
tivities. In some studies, flow is conceptualized as an experience
(Liu et al. 2019) or as cognitive absorption (Eppmann, Bekk and
Klein 2018;Trang and Weiger 2021), while in others, flow is a
component of user engagement (Suh et al. 2017) or customer
engagement emotions (Harwood and Garry 2015).
Exchange
The exchange function of activity theory addresses the rela-
tionship between subject and community thatis mediated by rules
and norms and thus refers to the social interactions between
community members. The most prolific rules and norms relate to
competition and cooperation (e.g., Dindar, Ren, and J¨
arvenoja
2021;Hammedi et al. 2021;Leclercq, Hammedi, and Poncin
2018;Suh et al. 2017;Suh and Wagner 2017;van Roy and
Zaman 2018). Almost all studies in our sample (i.e., 30 out of 34)
discuss aspects that concern this function. The most prevalent
theory used in this area is SDT (e.g., Ding 2019;Feng et al. 2018;
Liu et al. 2019;Dindar, Ren, and J¨
arvenoja 2021;Passalacqua
et al. 2020;Wolf, Weiger, and Hammerschmidt 2020)becauseit
acknowledges the basic psychological need for relatedness (i.e.,
the desire to feel connected to others). Other theoretical ap-
proaches build on variations of Festinger’s(1954)social com-
parison theory (e.g., Hanus and Fox 2015;Leclercq, Hammedi,
and Poncin 2018), which explains how individuals evaluate their
own opinions and abilities by comparing themselves to others.
Several studies on this function investigate users’response to
socially related gamification elements such as competition,
cooperation, and social networking features (e.g., Dindar, Ren,
and J¨
arvenoja 2021;Feng et al. 2018;Leclercq, Hammedi, and
Poncin 2018;Suh et al. 2017;Suh and Wagner 2017;van Roy
et al. 2018;Xi and Hamari 2020), albeit with mixed findings.
For instance, Dindar, Ren, and J¨
arvenoja (2021) show that
competition reduces perceptions of social-relatedness, while Xi
and Hamari (2020) find that social-related gamification features
can evoke feelings of relatedness. Furthermore, Leclercq,
Hammedi, and Poncin (2018) demonstrate that competition
can be a double-edged sword: the use of competition mechanics
in an idea-generation activity has a positive effect on users’
experience after winning, but this effect is reversed after losing.
Finally, aspects of social interaction, such as relatedness, social
support, and recognition, have been found to be positively
related to users’engagement, attitudes, value perceptions, and
usage intentions (e.g., Hamari and Koivisto 2015a,2015b;Li,
Chau, and Ge 2020;Lu and Ho 2020;Tanouri, Mulcahy, and
Russell-Bennett 2019;Trang and Weiger 2021;Xi and Hamari
2020;Zimmerling et al. 2019), emphasizing the important role
of the exchange function in gamified activities.
Distribution
Finally, the distribution function of activity theory comprises
the relationships between community, object, and division of
labor and thus describes how tasks and outcomes are distributed
among those who are involved in the activity. Compared to the
other three functions, the distribution function is highly un-
derrepresented in the literature. Specifically, out of the 34 ar-
ticles in our final sample, only four address this function. These
studies focus on reciprocal and self-benefits, referring to the
extent to which users and other community members perceive
the benefit of the activity (e.g., Koivisto and Hamari 2014;Lu
and Ho 2020). The main theoretical lens employed is social
influence (e.g., Cialdini and Goldstein 2004).
Highlighting the role of the distribution of benefits, Silic
et al. (2020) demonstrate in a workplace context that percep-
tions of reciprocal benefits (i.e., the extent to which a gamified
human resource management system is seen as helpful and
advantageous to oneself and to other people) are positively
related to job satisfaction and engagement. Further conse-
quences of benefit perceptions include favorable attitudes to-
ward using a gamified application (Hamari and Koivisto 2015),
fun, and continued use intentions (Lu and Ho 2020). Regarding
potential antecedents, prior research has found that perceived
benefits are determined by both self-achievements and team
achievements (Lu and Ho 2020). In addition, receiving rec-
ognition positively influences the experience of reciprocal
benefits (Hamari and Koivisto 2015). Finally, Koivisto and
Hamari (2014) analyze responses to gamified fitness software
and demonstrate that benefit perceptions differ by users’gender;
female participants perceive more reciprocal benefits than male
participants.
Service Research Themes Reflected in
Gamification Functions
Three service research themes resulting from Donthu et al.’s
(2020) bibliometric analysis were identified as predominant
across the gamification functions: participation, experience,
and loyalty. The prevalence of these themes illustrates the
relevance of gamification to service research: participation
(including engagement) is one of the most popular research
themes trending in JSR, while experience and loyalty are very
important service research themes (Donthu et al. 2020.Par-
ticipation (present in nine articles; see Web Appendix B)and
then loyalty (present in four articles) were the most prevalent
service research themes under the production function. Loy-
alty (present in 11 articles) and then participation and expe-
rience (each present in 10 articles) were the most prevalent
service research themes under the consumption function.
Participation(presentin13articles)andthenloyalty(present
in 12 articles) and experience (present in eight articles) were
the most prevalent service research themes under the exchange
function. Finally, loyalty (present in two articles) was the most
prevalent service research theme under the distribution
function. These results reflect conceptual work by Hofacker
et al. (2016), who suggest that gamification may encourage
value-creating behaviors, including greater loyalty or
engagement.
8Journal of Service Research 0(0)

The service research theme of value (creation) is present in
seven articles classified under the consumption and exchange
functions; the service research theme of emotion is present in
four articles classified under production, consumption, and
exchange functions; and the service research theme of satis-
faction is present in three articles classified under the con-
sumption and exchange functions. Some contextual service
research themes (Donthu et al. 2020) are also present in several
articles across the functions, for example, healthcare and e-
service are themes in eight articles each, while frontline appears
in three articles.
Participation/Engagement. In service research, the con-
ceptual domain of engagement has expanded from customer
engagement (e.g., affective, cognitive, or behavioral) resulting
from interactive experiences with firmsorbrandstoactor
engagement or an actor’s disposition to invest resources in
interactions with other actors connected in a service system
(Brodie et al., 2019). The conceptualizations of engagement in
most articles in our review do not exactly match the con-
ceptualizations used in service research because they originate
from different research domains. Nevertheless, the under-
standing of engagement as some sort of investment made (e.g.,
of time or effort) is still consistent across research areas. For
example, some articles operationalize participation in a ga-
mified activity as behavioral engagement (e.g., click-through
rate in H¨
ogberg, Shams, and W¨
astlund 2019)orcognitive
engagement (e.g., Eisingerich et al. 2019), while in others, it is
a multidimensional construct (e.g., implicit and explicit en-
gagement in Passalacqua et al. 2020; customer engagement
behaviors and emotions in Harwood and Garry 2015). En-
gagement has been an antecedent of performance in work
settings (Passalacqua et al. 2020) and a determinant of pur-
chase intentions (i.e., loyalty) in consumption settings
(Eisingerich et al. 2019). Findings regarding the use of ga-
mification include both positive (e.g., Eisingerich et al. 2019;
Ferriz-Valero et al. 2020;Xi and Hamari 2020) and negative
effects (e.g., Hammedi et al. 2021;H¨
ogberg, Shams, and
W¨
astlund 2019) on participation (i.e., attitudinal, cognitive,
or behavioral engagement) and other outcome variables.
Achievement-related gamification features are positively as-
sociated with brand engagement in online communities (Xi
and Hamari 2020), engagement with a third-party sports ap-
plication (Kunkel, Lock, and Doyle 2021), and engagement
with a health application and a dating service (Eisingerich et al.
2019). In an offline retail setting, H¨
ogberg, Shams, and
W¨
astlund (2019) find that while gamification has a negative
impact on the effectiveness of in-store mobile advertisements,
high levels of behavioral engagement can make gamification
more effective. Finally, in a work setting, Hammedietal.
(2021) find that the implementation of a performance-based contest
had a negative effect on sales employees’job engagement and
performance.
Experience.Defined as non-deliberate, spontaneous re-
sponses and reactions to stimuli embedded within a specific
context (Becker and Jaakkola, 2020), customer experience has
become one of the most important marketing concepts (De
Keyser et al. 2020). Like the conceptualizations of engagement
discussed previously, there is some variance in how experience
is conceptualized across research domains. In some articles in
our review, the experience of a gamified activity has been
conceptualized in line with service research theorizing (e.g., the
cocreation experience in Leclercq, Hammedi, and Poncin
2018), while other studies have presented different conceptu-
alizations with some degree of overlap with service research
(e.g., affective experience in Li, Chau, and Ge 2020;flow
experience in Lee 2019;Liu et al. 2019;Suh et al. 2017; user
experience in Lu and Ho 2020). Wolf et al. (2020) draw from
service-dominant logic (Vargo and Lusch 2016) and SDT (Ryan
and Deci 2000) to conceptualize motivational user experiences
(i.e., self-development, social connectedness, expressive free-
dom, and social comparison). Eppmann, Bekk, and Klein
(2018) develop GAMEX, a gameful experience (i.e., a more
game-like consumer experience) scale comprised of enjoyment,
absorption, creative thinking, activation, absence of negative
affect, and dominance items. The relationship between en-
gagement and experience also varies across articles: Leclercq,
Hammedi, and Poncin (2018) see engagement as the outcome of
the customer experience in an online community, H¨
ogberg,
Shams, and W¨
astlund (2019) see engagement as a dimension of
the gameful experience in an offline supermarket setting,
Harwood and Garry (2015) study branded content over different
social media platforms as a customer engagement experience
environment, while Suh et al. (2017) conceptualize flow ex-
perience and aesthetic experience as dimensions of user en-
gagement in frontline employee encounters. These different
perspectives on engagement and experience during gamified
interactions (i.e., engagement as an outcome or as a dimension
of experience) suggest that gamified experiences imply active
resource investments from participants. This type of experi-
ence reflects the high-participation quality of customer ex-
perience, as characterized by De Keyser et al. (2020).The
gamified experience then affects participants’ensuing en-
gagement toward a focal object. Such engagement may be
reflected in the relationship customers develop with the
service provider.
Loyalty. Most studies reflecting this service research theme
have captured some form of attitudinal loyalty. Suh et al.
(2017) study various gamified applications and show that the
aesthetic experience is more salient than the flow experience in
explaining continuance intention. Studying a gamified exer-
cise application, Hamari and Koivisto (2015b) show that
continuance intention is directly and positively impacted by
ease of use and enjoyment. In a similar context, Hamari and
Koivisto (2015a) show that social factors (e.g., subjective
norms, perceived reciprocal benefit) positively impact inten-
tion to recommend the technology and intention to use it as
mediated by attitude. Although studying a gamified website
for a brand, Eppmann, Bekk, and Klein (2018) show that
factors in their GAMEX scale can predict purchase, revisit and
WOM intentions. Across different types of gamified appli-
cations, Wolf, Weiger, and Hammerschmidt (2020) show that
all dimensions of the motivational user experience positively
Ciuchita et al. 9

impact willingness to pay, but only self-development impacts
intention to recommend. In one study capturing behavioral
loyalty, Eisingerich et al. (2019) show that customer
engagement mediates the impact of the psychological states of
hope and compulsion on the actual purchase behavior of users
of a gamified health application.
Table 2. Overview of gamification’s contributions to service research and research agenda.
Gamification
function How the function supports service research Future research questions
Production Gamification fosters customer participation
in services
•How can gamification stimulate active customer participation in complex and/
or vulnerable service context such as healthcare?
•What is the impact of gamification on patients’engagement and compliance
with medical instructions?
•How can gamification increase employee’s performances, without harming
their well-being at the workplace?
•What are amplifiers and boundaries for the effectiveness of employing
gamification in service contexts (e.g., to what extent do perceived skills
moderate the effectiveness of gamification on customers’participation?)
•What role can gamification play to leverage new technologies (e.g., AR/VR) in
service delivery processes, both, from a customer and a provider
perspective?
•What are situations in which gamification that is not based on technology (e.g.,
offline gamified training) is more effective than gamification that is based on
technology?
•How can gamification assist in service transformation processes?
Consumption Gamification offers appealing customer
experience during services
•How do gamified touchpoints or gamified journeys impact the customer
experience? To what extent does a gameful experience evolve through the
customer journey?
•What role can gamification play to engage vulnerable groups such as children,
elderly, or impaired customers in routine but important service tasks?
•How to avoid gamification initiatives being perceived as “mandatory fun”in the
workplace?
•To what extent can gamification improve the customer or employee
experience during service recovery?
•What is the role of technology-enabled engagement in the (self- and remote)
service gamification context?
•To what extent can gamified service experiences create positive outcomes
(e.g., long-term loyalty) in competition-dense service environments?
Exchange Gamification enhances customer
engagement in communities
•To what extent can conversational agent technology engage customers using
gamification social exchange narratives?
•How do customers’age, personality traits, or cultural orientations affect
gamified services’effectiveness?
•To what extent can exchange, customer-customer, or customer-employee
interactions contribute to the effectiveness of gamification?
•How can technology enable social gamification experiences that engage
service communities? To what extent can gamification empower consumer
collectives?
•How can gamification be leveraged to scale up service offerings?
•What is the impact of gamification on customer engagement in online
communities?
Distribution Gamification reconfigures institutional
arrangements of service ecosystem
•Which service elements are relevant to design a multi-actor inclusive gamified
service offering?
•How can gamification optimize service distribution between frontline and
backstage actors?
•What are the effects of gamified services from the provider side (e.g., due to
the reconfiguration of institutional arrangements)?
•How does gamification align the divergent motivations of actors within a
service ecosystem to create value?
•To what extent is customer engagement in gamified service processes affected
by the distribution of tasks and benefits?
•What are the effects of gamification-enabled digital transformation
technologies (e.g., chatbots) on various actors in a service ecosystem (e.g., in
relation to the distribution of benefits)?
10 Journal of Service Research 0(0)

Discussion
This study presents an examination of the extant literature on
gamification through the lens of activity theory (Engestr ¨
om
1987;Vygotsky 1978). Gamification studies relevant to service
research are classified and discussed in relation to the four
functions of activity systems (production, consumption, ex-
change, and distribution). In the following, we discuss how
these functions can support service research and consequently
encourage future research on gamification in service. We also
present our contributions to service research, provide several
managerial recommendations, and finally discuss some limi-
tations of our approach.
How Gamification Functions Support Service Research
Each of the four functions reveals how gamification can help
address important challenges discussed in service research. We
highlight these propositions and accordingly formulate sug-
gestions for future research on gamified services, as summarized
in Table 2.
First, the production function suggests the use of gamifi-
cation as an instrument to activate motivations and facilitate
behaviors. Guiding customers’actions is central for many
services because of the substantial participation of customers in
their production (Bolton and Saxena-Iyer 2009). Customer
participation affects the core service performance and conse-
quently the value that can be derived from these interactions
(Menguc, Auh, and Wang 2020). Successful customer partic-
ipation in service production leads to better service quality,
higher customer satisfaction and improved relational outcomes
(Dong et al. 2015). Managing customer participation has been
highlighted as a key topic for service research (Donthu et al.
2020). Although Dong et al. (2015) outline the role of perceived
extrinsic benefits in enhancing customer participation, the
production function of gamification aims to address this chal-
lenge by making participation in the service motivational.
Therefore, gamification relies on game elements to activate the
psychological needs for autonomy, competence, and relatedness
and ensure participation in the long run (Ryan and Deci 2000).
By addressing these motivations to stimulate participation,
gamification may generate a greater investment in time and
effort from customers in service production (Xi and Hamari
2020) and from employees in service delivery (Hammedi et al.,
2021). Hence, additional efforts are needed to explore the
opportunity to use gamification to improve customer partici-
pation in services where customers are, by definition, highly
involved, such as interactive or self-services (e.g., self-tracking
of one’s health or fitness), as well as in contexts where there is a
greater demand for increased participation (e.g., waste reduction
as suggested by Ostrom et al., 2021). For instance, the inves-
tigation of gamification as a strategy to increase patient en-
gagement and compliance with medical instructions (e.g.,
vaccination recommendations, social distancing, and hand
hygiene in a pandemic context) would help improve the quality
of care, which remains a challenging task for the healthcare
sector (Berry et al. 2020). In addition, whereas gamification may
be a powerful driver for increasing customers’investment in
effort in the service, the skills and confidence they possess may
vary (Chowdhury and Endres 2010). Accordingly, customers’
resources (e.g., perceived competence) should be further ex-
amined as moderators of gamification’s ability to improve
customer participation in the service domain, an aspect that
could also enrich the current discussion on customer vulnera-
bility (Boenigk et al. 2021).
Second, the consumption function highlights the use of
gamification to deliver an appealing experience to customers
and the associated community. Although the notion of expe-
rience is strongly associated with gamification, it is not nec-
essarily theorized from a service research perspective (e.g., user
experience from human-computer interaction rather than cus-
tomer or service experience). Customer experience has been
studied extensively in the service literature, especially because
of its closeness to the value creation process (Becker and
Jaakkola, 2020). Designing touchpoints to offer a meaningful
experience to customers at various stages of the consumption
process is a key ingredient for service management (De Keyser
et al. 2020). Future research could explore how gamified
touchpoints or gamified journeys impact the customer experi-
ence. Furthermore, little research has investigated how the
customer experience with gamified services may evolve over
time. Therefore, the time-flow quality of the customer experi-
ence (i.e., duration and dynamism; De Keyser et al. 2020) can be
mobilized to go beyond the cross-sectional gameful experience
and understand the gamification journey (e.g., learning a new
language with Duolingo or practicing mindfulness with
Headspace). The gamification journey implies considering
gamification beyond punctual participation to integrate con-
secutive gamified interactions (Leclercq et al., 2020). Service
research can also benefit from other types of experiences as-
sociated with activities that might be demanding or repetitive,
such as learning (Huang et al. 2020), work (Silic et al. 2020), or
physical exercise (Kelders, Sommers-Spijkerman, and Gold-
berg2018). For example, the gameful experience has been
explored through flow theory (e.g., Suh et al. 2017;Lee 2019).
People experiencing a state of flow demonstrate deep im-
mersion and strong engagement in the tasks they execute
(Csikszentmihalyi 1990). Furthermore, gamification tends to
induce an aesthetic experience through meanings and symbols
associated with games. The pleasure derived from such ex-
perience is commonly named fun or playfulness (Feng et al.
2018;Harwood and Garry 2015;Suh et al. 2017). Gamifi-
cation has been identified as a powerful strategy for enhancing
users’experience during tasks they are reluctant to perform,
so further research efforts should be devoted to investigating
the use of this strategy in settings relevant to service research.
To illustrate, best practices to manage customer complaints
in the service recovery process remain limited (Gr´
egoire
and Mattila 2020), and gamification offers a promising op-
portunity to address this challenge (e.g., gamified feedback
forms for consumers and gamified service recovery steps for
employees).
Ciuchita et al. 11

Third, the exchange function indicates that gamification
provides norms and rules to shape social interaction with peers.
These interactions are key considerations for service re-
searchers, given the importance of dynamic network structures
implied by services, beyond a dyadic interaction (Brodie et al.
2019). Online communities play a critical role in this network,
as they, for example, influence customers’relationship with the
brand (Bowden et al. 2017). Generating a deeper understanding
of how to engage customers in online communities is critical for
managers and researchers, as customers engaged in a com-
munity share information, advocate the brand, socialize, learn
practices, and codevelop solutions (Brodie et al. 2019). Dessart,
Veloutsou, and Morgan-Thomas (2015) report that a com-
munity’s characteristics affect customers’intentions to engage.
In that respect, gamification leverages social interactions to
increase customer engagement. Therefore, two social dynamics
are part of the gamification strategy and frame relationships
among peers: competition and cooperation. Although in com-
petition, the success of a member implies others’losses, in
cooperation dynamics, every participant is rewarded as soon as
the group achieves an identified objective. Most current re-
search reports the ability of gamification to induce social
comparisons among users, influencing their intentions to engage
further (e.g., Leclercq et al. 2018). Although such comparisons
may generate some sense of injustice and disengagement within
the community, they are nonetheless considered central to the
value creation process in services (Leclercq et al. 2020). Ad-
ditional research is thus needed to explore the conditions
leading to successful or harmful uses of competition and co-
operation dynamics in communities. For instance, personality
traits, such as cooperativeness and competitiveness, and cultural
dimensions, namely, individualistic and collectivist orienta-
tions, may affect how customers integrate gamification dy-
namics into their interactions with peers and should
consequently be further analyzed. Additionally, age may play an
important role, as younger users are expected to hold more
favorable attitudes toward gamified services (Deterding 2019).
Thus, future research could examine to what extent gamification
can empower collective consumers in settings from which they
are typically excluded (e.g., young Reddit users investing as a
cooperating collective via a gamified application; Massa and
Robinson 2021).
Finally, the distribution function reveals how gamification
affects the generation of outcomes among customers, service
providers, and other stakeholders. Our review indicates that
research investigating this function of gamification is scarce.
Creating value beyond customer-service provider interaction
has yet to arise as a priority for scholars investigating service
ecosystems (Vink et al. 2021). A service ecosystem is defined as
a“relatively self-contained, self-adjusting system of resource-
integrating actors connected by shared institutional arrange-
ments and mutual value creation through service exchange”
(Vargo and Lusch 2016, p. 10-11). In such ecosystems, cus-
tomers can influence, at least partially, how value is created
(Nenonen, Gummerus, and Sklyar 2018). Therefore, Vargo and
Lusch (2016) emphasize the role of institutional arrangements,
namely, rules, norms, meanings, and symbols, in guiding ap-
propriate behaviors to create value for all stakeholders of the
service ecosystem (Koskela-Huotari et al. 2016). Gamification
operates as a reconfiguration of these institutional arrangements
by providing rules, norms, meanings, and symbols commonly
associated with games to design interactions among ecosystem
actors and guide value creation. Current research has high-
lighted the ability of gamification to draw users’attention to the
benefits other actors may derive from gamified interactions
(e.g., Koivisto and Hamari 2014;Lu and Ho 2020;Silic et al.
2020). Future research should investigate the impact of gamified
interactions on more complex ecosystems, including actors such
as employees, providers, and communities. The distribution
function can be assessed by considering studies in different
contexts. A comparison of studies that focus on gamification in
health or educational contexts wherein self-benefits might be
more prevalent and those conducted in organizational contexts
wherein outcomes are more likely to represent mutual benefits
could be informative as well. Prior research has suggested that
the effectiveness of the use of gamification might be somewhat
diminished (e.g., Zimmerling et al. 2019) or even reverted (e.g.,
H¨
ogberg, Shams, and W¨
astlund 2019) in business contexts. For
instance, Hammedi, Leclercq, and van Riel (2017) provide
initial insight into how gamified care may transform the role of
medical staff by becoming a coach, ensuring that the patients
properly use the gamified service that is delivered.
Based on this conceptual discussion, each function of ga-
mified activities may support a distinct layer of service design
(see, e.g., De Keyser et al. 2020). The production function
examines gamification as an instrument to shape customers’
interaction with service providers by motivating them to invest
time and effort in service production. The exchange function
goes beyond the dyadic interaction between customers and the
service provider to include (online) communities. In that re-
spect, gamification is described as a set of rules to govern
customers’interactions with peers and engage them within
brand communities. The consumption function broadens our
understanding of gamified services by covering the overall
experience of customers. Accordingly, gamification aims to
provide customers with an appealing (e.g., fun) experience.
Finally, the distribution function points out the contributions of
gamification to the entire service ecosystem as a reconfiguration
of institutional arrangements to guide actors’behaviors and
affect overall value creation.
Theoretical Contributions
With this research, we aim to make three key contributions to
service research. First, despite the increasing popularity of
gamification in practice and other disciplines, there has been
limited research on this concept in the service field. Our review
addresses this issue by identifying the evolution of gamification
conceptualizations, highlighting the endogenous usage of game
mechanics as a core contributor to the customer’s overall value
creation in a service research context. Furthermore, by ana-
lyzing prior definitions of gamified services (e.g., Huotari and
12 Journal of Service Research 0(0)

Hamari 2017), our conceptualization distinguishes gamification
from related concepts, such as classic games, pervasive games,
and serious games that have been used interchangeably in the
literature. These distinctions also emphasize that the process of
value creation in gamified services is strongly affected by
contextual elements, an aspect current research overlooks (Khan
et al. 2020).
Second, adopting a cross-disciplinary approach, our review
captures contextual elements that affect the value derived from
gamified interactions. By drawing from activity theory
(Engestr¨
om 1987;Vygotsky 1978), we identify four gamifi-
cation functions for services (production, exchange, con-
sumption, and distribution) outlined by their relationships with
gamification elements, gamified tasks, users’motivations, the
community users are interacting with, and the rules or norms
governing the community as well as the division of labor within
it. Current and important service research themes (i.e.,
participation/engagement, experience, and loyalty) are high-
lighted across these functions, and conceptual challenges
stemming from the multidisciplinary nature of the literature
review are signaled. In doing so, we achieve a holistic and in-
depth perspective on gamification in service research and a
better understanding of the role of contextual factors in gamified
services.
Finally, for each emerged gamification function, we high-
light service domains in which gamification should be further
investigated (e.g., service recovery, self-service, and service
ecosystems). Our research agenda aims to structure future ac-
ademic efforts and stimulate the development of knowledge on
gamified services. We identify rich opportunities for research in
various service environments, such as digital transformation
processes that involve attitude and behavioral changes from
ecosystem actors, as well as transformative service research and
giving voice to more vulnerable groups such as children or the
elderly (Boenigk et al. 2021). Furthermore, the ever-increasing
impact of technology in developing a better understanding of
experiences and stimulating engagement (e.g., chatbots and
augmented reality) strongly impacts opportunities for gamifi-
cation practices in various (self- and remote-) service envi-
ronments and requires further investigation (Heller et al. 2021,
Sidaoui, Jaakkola, and Burton 2020).
Managerial Recommendations
In the following section, we present an outline of managerial
implications derived from our analysis of the functions of
production, consumption, exchange, and distribution.
Considering the production function, prior research has
highlighted that users’perceptions of aspects that are well
known from technology acceptance research, such as a gamified
instrument’s usefulness and ease of use, drive adoption and
continued usage intentions. Thus, service providers aiming to
engage their customers using gamification should highlight the
benefits users may derive from taking part in the service. For
instance, Kinto, a Toyota car subscriptions service operating in
Japan, uses gamification to reward safe and eco-friendly drivers
with lower monthly fees. Another opportunity to activate
motivations and thereby foster customer participation is ad-
dressing customers’needs, such as autonomy and competence,
with gamification elements, such as points or badge systems.
This can be especially useful in sensitive services, where
customer engagement is highly relevant, such as healthcare
treatment processes, which require continuous participation and
information sharing from customers (i.e., patients). In addition,
service providers should be aware that the effectiveness of
gamifying activities could diverge across different types of
activities. Given that research has shown that gamification is
most effective for low-effort tasks (e.g., symptom check-in for
chronic patients), service providers should focus their attention
on such activities when developing a gamification strategy.
In a similar vein, prior research classified under the con-
sumption function has highlighted the important role of hedonic
aspects such as enjoyment, fun, and flow when performing a
gamified task as an essential part of customer experience.
Hence, these aspects should become central considerations in
the implementation of gamification in service practices. An
important consideration for service providers is to implement
gamification as optional rather than compulsory to avoid em-
ployees feeling forced to participate in “mandatory fun”
(Milkman 2021). In addition, the exchange function emphasizes
the relevance of social aspects in gamified activities, a facet that
is typically implemented through instruments of competition
and cooperation. Furthermore, this function also recognizes the
different types of social interactions in gamified service settings,
namely, customer-service provider and customer-customer inter-
actions. Based on prior research on the relevance of social aspects,
service providers should try to create and promote users’feelings
of relatedness and belonging as well as mutual recognition of
performances or contributions among community members. For
instance, the direction application Waze asks users to cooperate by
submitting data about driving conditions in real-time in exchange
for points and the opportunity to be on a leaderboard.
Finally, services are becoming increasingly complex, and they
typically involve contributions from multiple actors. Considering
the distribution of tasks and outcomes among those who are
involved in a gamified activity, prior research has shown that the
extent to which users and other community members perceive the
benefit of a gamified activity is an important and crucial driver of
users’engagement. Thus, service providers employing gamifi-
cation techniques should ensure that customers are aware of the
benefits provided by a gamified service.
Limitations
The nature of systematic literature reviews poses some limi-
tations in our research, such as the criteria defined for article
inclusion (e.g., peer-reviewed articles in English-language
journals with an impact factor of two or higher), somewhat
limiting our findings yet allowing us to analyze the articles in
our final set in greater depth. Furthermore, we acknowledge that
our findings could be subject to publication bias, that is, the
phenomenon that significant findings are much more likely to be
Ciuchita et al. 13

published than nonsignificant findings (e.g., Rosenthal 1979).
Consequently, although our review of the literature indicates
that the use of gamification to induce favorable outcomes seems
to be relatively effective, it is possible that its actual effec-
tiveness is overestimated because of publication bias. Despite
such limitations, we are confident that our in-depth analysis of
the key literature on gamification through the lens of activity
theory as well as the research implications derived from this
examination may stimulate future research on this highly
managerially relevant topic.
Author Contributions
All authors contributed equally and are listed in alphabetical order by
their last name.
Acknowledgments
This research originated at the seventh Let’s Talk about Service
Workshop at the University of Ghent, December 5–7, 2018. The au-
thors thank the organizing committee (Bart Larivière, Paul Gemmel,
Wafa Hammedi, Sertan Kabadayi and Annouk Lievens), the keynote
speakers (Mike Brady, Melissa De Regge, Jay Kandampully, Chiara
Orsingher, Katrien Verleye and Yves Van Vaerenbergh) and the par-
ticipants for their feedback and support. The authors thank Daria
Novikova for her invaluable help with data-collection and early stages
of the analysis. The authors also thank the organizers and track chairs of
the SERVSIG 2020 conference and the 2020 La Londe International
Conference in Services for their feedback. Finally, the authors thank the
current and the previous editor-in-chief, the coeditor, and the anony-
mous reviewers for their constructive feedback and helpful comments.
Declaration of Conflicting Interests
The author(s) declared no potential conflicts of interest with respect to
the research, authorship, and/or publication of this article.
Funding
The author(s) received no financial support for the research, authorship,
and/or publication of this article.
ORCID iDs
Robert Ciuchita https://orcid.org/0000-0001-5532-0157
Jonas Heller https://orcid.org/0000-0002-3214-0724
Sarah K¨
ocher https://orcid.org/0000-0003-1561-1106
S¨
oren K¨
ocher https://orcid.org/0000-0002-7277-238X
Thomas Leclercq https://orcid.org/0000-0002-2171-8690
Karim Sidaoui https://orcid.org/0000-0002-5511-0528
Susan Stead https://orcid.org/0000-0001-5001-0221
Supplemental Material
Supplemental material for this article is available online.
Notes
1. Unsurprisingly, the conceptualizations of experience and engage-
ment used in other disciplines do not always align exactly with
recent theorizing on customer experience (e.g., De Keyser et al.,
2020) or customer/actor engagement (Brodie et al., 2019) in service
research. We highlight and discuss these discrepancies in the
Service Research Themes Reflected in Gamification Functions
section.
2. Donthu et al. (2020) identified 49 research themes, but we deemed 4
(structural equation modeling, meta-analysis, internet, and scale
development) as too generic. It should be noted that, in contrast with
Donthu et al. (2020), in our presentation of the results, we primarily
employ the term user as it better reflects the terminology outside the
service field while being overarching (i.e., the user can be an
employee, a consumer, or a customer). We employ the term cus-
tomer if specifically mentioned in the source article.
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Author Biographies
Robert Ciuchita is an Assistant Professor of Marketing at
Hanken School of Economics (Helsinki, Finland). His research
and teaching interests lie in the areas of service management,
user engagement, digital service innovation, and mobile mar-
keting. His work has appeared in Journal of Service Research
and Journal of Business Research.
Jonas Heller is Assistant Professor for Marketing at the School
of Business and Economics, Maastricht University (Maastricht,
the Netherlands). He researches how digital technologies impact
customer experiences and publishes in leading journals such
as Journal of Service Research, Journal of Retailing, and Journal
of Interactive Marketing.
Sarah K¨
ocher is a Postdoctoral Researcher at TU Dortmund
University (Dortmund, Germany). Her research focuses on the
impact and validity of online reviews, the infusion of frontline
service technologies, and influencer marketing. Her work has
appeared in Journal of Service Research, Journal of Service
Management and Journal of Marketing Behavior.
S¨
oren K ¨
ocher is an Interim Professor of Marketing at Otto-
von-Guericke-University (Magdeburg, Germany). His re-
search interests include consumer behavior in digital envi-
ronments and context effects in judgment and decision
making. His work has been published in leading journals such
as Journal of Service Research, Journal of Retailing, and
Journal of Consumer Psychology.
Thomas Leclercq is an Associate Professor of Marketing at
IESEG School of Management (Lille, France). He received his
PhD. in Economics and Management Sciences from the Lou-
vain School of Management (Belgium). His research interests
relate to value co-creation, online communities, customer en-
gagement, and gamification
Karim Sidaoui is an Assistant Professor of Marketing at the
Nijmegen School of Management, Radboud University (Nij-
megen, Netherlands). His research interests include data-driven
customer experience and conversational agent technology in
services marketing. His earlier work has appeared in journals
like the Journal of Business Research and Journal of Service
Management.
Susan Stead is Assistant Professor at the Institute for Tech-
nology and Innovation Management, TIME Research Area, at
RWTH Aachen University (Aachen, Germany). Her research
interests include multisensory customer experiences, and
technology innovations in healthcare settings. Her early work
appeared in the Journal of Service Management, and Journal of
Services Marketing.
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