Gamification in a Democratic Pro-Environmental Behaviour Model towards achieving effective ESG corporate strategies.
Authors: Markopoulos Evangelos , Vera Ramirez Alexandro , Markopoulos Panagiotis , Vanharanta Hannu 
Published: June 2022

The climate crisis has received high levels of attention from the public and scholars over the last few decades. While the search for solutions involves strict regulations and innovation in clean energy sources, changing individual behaviours towards sustainability could prevent us from reaching a point of no return. Inarguably, there is a need for strong involvement of the public and private sector organizations, changing individual organizational behaviours towards sustainability might foster a great impact in terms of lowering the effects of the climate crisis. In this context, a democratic pro-environmental behaviour (DPEBs) is introduced to enable green behaviours with individual and voluntary actions within organizations that benefit the preservation and recovery of the environment. Recycling, efficient energy consumption, reduction of meat consumption and sustainable transportation are examples of actionable PEBs that need to be fostered to contribute to the reduction of the human impact on climate change.Nevertheless, the adoption of new behaviours is a complex goal that requires the application of mechanisms to address employee intrinsic and extrinsic democratic motivation. In this vein, gamification, as a process that enhances projects and service with affordances for gameful experiences., might provide a viable alternative. The purpose of this paper is to analyse the extent to which gamification is an effective alternative to promote the adoption of democratic pro-environmental behaviours and contribute to the creation of the relative organization culture. The accepted definition of gamification for this paper is the process of enhancing a service with affordances for gameful experiences in order to support user's overall value creation. This marketing perspective approach, has more focus on the effects obtained as a consequence of activating intrinsic and extrinsic motivation through the use of gamified systems rather than the analysis of the characteristics of the game design elements, and the incentives for its practical and actual adaptation and utilization within organizations.A systematic literature review was conducted in order to exclusively retrieve - after a thorough selection process - case studies that evaluated the psychological and behavioural effects of gamified information technology systems. Psychological outcomes are related to intrinsic motivation; in the case of gamification, positive outcomes are described by gameful experience. These, in turn, are categorized in this work according to the motivational need to which they correspond and their adaptation likeness in a corporate context. On the other hand, behavioural outcomes are related to extrinsic motivation; these are the desired pro-environmental behaviours promoted extrinsically with the use of the gamified application.Fifteen studies were analysed in detail, which overall provided positive results regarding gamification’s capability to engage users by appealing to intrinsic motivation and to effectively promote the adoption of extrinsically motivated PEBs. As a result the paper presents a methodological approach and a process model that integrates democratic organizational culture elements that utilize gamification to achieve employee pro-environmental behaviours that can benefit both the economy and the society. Furthermore the proposed model is linked with the ESG criteria as a further incentive for its organization adaptation from theory to practice. The paper also indicates limitations and areas of further research on the proposed model towards green ocean strategies that can maximize its applications and impact.