Insights on Gamification in Business and Management Education: A Qualitative Evidence Synthesis

This paper aims to provide a qualitative evidence synthesis of research articles employing primary qualitative data on gamification in business and management education. The scholarly background portrays several reviews and mostly quantitative studies on this topic, dealing mainly with research performed on gamification in education within other subjects (i.e., computer science, IT-related, STEM). These observations enable the need to depict also current literature ground on qualitative studies within business and management education. We employed a qualitative thematic synthesis on 10 studies dealing with at least one form of qualitative methods, that revealed five descriptive themes, such as entrepreneurial self-efficacy, engagement, motivation, and social completion; selfrelated competencies; knowledge, skills, and abilities; interaction, enjoyment, fun; gamification downsides. The aggregated analytical themes revealed the importance of game elements, game quality and game’s real-life correspondence in influencing learning, motivation, engagement, in building up self-competencies, fostering participants’ involvement and sense of belonging. These results posit the need for further qualitative studies on gamification in business and management and a better understanding of gamification’s effects on education within this field