Cultural Values’ Influences on Users’ Preferences for Gamification Techniques

Abstract

Gamification techniques such as badges, levels, roles, are widely adopted in information systems (IS). Though researchers have noted that cultural values may influence users' usage of IS, there is a lack of research regarding the relationship of cultural values and gamification techniques. Our study aims to contribute to this area. We propose that users' cultural values may influence how they are motivated and further influence their preferences toward specific gamification techniques. In this research in progress, we review cultural values, examine the currently adopted gamification techniques, and then propose how cultural values influence users' preferences toward specific gamification techniques. We encourage designers to cater the adoption of gamification techniques in IS according to the users' cultural values, and researchers may further investigate the relation-ship between culture and gamification techniques. We propose a research agenda to investigate IS users' preferences toward different gamification techniques through an experiment with cultural values primed and a survey with participants from different cultural settings.