The Dehumanising Consequences of Gamification

While gamification represents one of the largest technology trends of the last decade, only a limited selection of literature exists that explores the negative outcomes of contemporary gamified services, applications, and systems. This chapter explores the consequences of gamified systems and services, investigating contemporary implementations of gamification and acknowledging the ethical concerns raised by researchers towards contemporary gamified services. This chapter further explores these ethical concerns through a critical instance case study of China's Social Credit System and arrives at informed observations on the potential for gamified cycles of reward and punishment to encourage unethical activity within organisations as well as legitimise ideological objectives that violate fundamental human rights. Recommendations are then made for researchers to explore this potential further, while recognising how gamification may justify the authority and practices of organisations, particularly those engaged in unethical and dehumanising behaviour.

Revisiting How Perceived Uncertainty and Herd Behavior Influence Technology Choice

Understanding how herd behavior occurs in the information systems context is important because such behavior influences many choice decisions, is the reason for some decision anomalies, and explains the reasons behind the rise or collapse of technology trends. Perceived uncertainty is a critical factor that triggers herding, but despite its influential role, prior research has not adequately investigated this broad concept. This research contributes to the literature by decomposing perceived uncertainty to its dimensions and analyzing the influence of each one on triggering individuals’ herd behavior. Our findings show that unlike state uncertainty, only effect and response uncertainty are the triggers herd behavior.