A qualitative Meta-Synthesis Study on Challenges of Applying Gamified Organizational Training and Development (GOTD)

The present study was conducted to identify the challenges of applying gamification in OTD. The present study is an applied study with a qualitative approach. At first, the documents related to the gamification were collected. Initially, 325 scientific documents were identified using the keyword of gamification (2011-2019) 37 of which were selected as the study sample. Then, in order to understand the views and experiences of international gamification experts, 5 semi-structured in-depth interviews were conducted. The documents were described in a qualitative Meta-synthesis approach in terms of concepts and themes in a deductive manner within the research context and on the basis of a theoretical framework, and, then, they were analyzed along with the concepts and themes identified in the interviews in an interpretive (deductive and inductive) manner and in the last stage, the concepts and themes were inductively integrated and interpreted. Line-by-line coding in MAXQDA 10 was used to analyze the documents and interviews. In this study, 36 semantic units (open codes), categories and 9 themes were extracted which are as follows: Acceptance, Support, Designing, Implementation, Supervision and Evaluation. It is expected that awareness of these challenges can be useful for organizations that are willing to apply gamification in OTD plan and enable them to take proactive approach in this regard to lessen or avoid the identified challenges.