Gamification in human resources- can gaming elements influence the critical success factors of knowledge management, change management and performance management to increase employee motivation?

Gamification has been a hotly debated topic since 2010, when it was coined as an official term. The promising effects of the application of gaming elements in a non-game context include enhancement of motivation and performance. For this reason, interest aroused especially for the application of gamification in a corporate context. However, to date there has been only little academic research on the assessment of particular gaming elements and their motivational implications in specific fields of management. On this status quo grounds the aim of this thesis. In a comprehensive literature review the motivational background of games is assessed. Based on this analysis, the particular gaming elements were matched with the theories of motivation to assess the ways in which game elements that can trigger motivation. To gain further insights into valuable application fields of gamification, the previous findings about the analyzed gaming elements are matched with the critical success factors of knowledge management, change management and performance management. The information acquired of the respective application fields reveal relevant insights to consider for a practical implementation