Document Type : Research Paper
Authors
1 Assistant Professor, Department of Business Management, Faculty of Management and Economic, Tarbiat Modares University, Tehran, Iran.
2 Master of Business Management, Department of Business Management, Faculty of Management and Economic, Tarbiat Modares University, Tehran, Iran.
Abstract
Keywords
Introduction
Today, the concept of corporate sustainability has become an important and debatable issue in many industries and businesses because of the increasing awareness of its benefits and positive effects on the survival of companies. Many managers and researchers are concerned with corporate sustainability management based on the principles of sustainable development (Manninen and Huiskonen, 2022). In addition, one of the biggest challenges of organizations is the need to get adapted to a dynamic and high-demand environment. In fact, an organization can meet the expectations of its stakeholders if it consistently adapts its strategies and processes to the existing unsustainable environmental, social, and economic conditions (Van den Berg et al., 2019). On the other hand, due to globalization and the rapid development of technology, sustainability is a concept to which both big firms as well as small and medium enterprises are paying attention. Workspaces are drastically enhanced due to economic, social, and environmental development.
Paying attention to sustainability in strategies and corporate processes has become one of the significant ways to face the business’s changing perspectives. Therefore, based on the world reports, the business failure rate was 90%, and less than 50% of businesses could reach their fifth year of activity. In fact, the high rate of business failure has necessitated considering sustainability alongside technology. Corporate sustainability is defined by three economic, social, and environmental components i.e. businesses, in addition to economic benefits, must communicate with society and the environment from their perspective. Moreover, today's society is built upon businesses that affect presentation values, decisions, and measures. This important role of businesses in shaping societies has doubled the importance of sustainability in society (Hostettler and Van Maurik, 2020).
Businesses have recognized the need for technological changes in how they perform their activities. They attempt to keep up with digital transformation by integrating sustainability principles into the process. However, it is argued that to create the principles of sustainability in business, it is necessary to form the right mindset of sustainability in businesses and implement the principles of sustainability in the structure of businesses. In other words, sustainability is a very complicated matter and creates demand changes in all business principles (Narayanan and Adams, 2017). However, the changes made in the business based on technological evolution must be creative and involve different elements, which means that all elements of the business must have a similar attitude towards sustainability. If businesses have different attitudes towards sustainability, the process of change or modification will encounter problems and present value for stakeholders facing paradoxes (Greene et al., 2014). To overcome this problem, creating coordination among different aspects of businesses and building a comprehensive understanding is significantly important, and Gamification can be a tool to mount the existing challenges caused by a lack of common understanding in businesses. Regarding the advances in digital technology and social media, businesses have to turn the traditional process into game-like experiences to influence their stakeholders' behaviors (Nacke and Deterding, 2017; Alsawaier, 2017).
Gamification can be defined as the use of game design elements in a non-game context. In other words, Gamification includes the process of turning activities, systems, services, products, and business structures into an experience resembling playing games. Often the game experience facilitates a change in behavior and a reduction in erosion. Businesses use Gamification to motivate both stakeholders (staff and customers) (Wunderlich et al., 2019). Gamification gives businesses the opportunity to engage stakeholders and influence their activities. In fact, Gamification allows interaction with stakeholders in a new way that was not possible before with common formats. The gamification-related market is expected to grow by 30% from 2019 to 2024 (Mousavi and Shamizanjani, 2021). These findings demonstrate the importance of this issue in terms of how companies operate. The main purpose of Gamification is to increase interaction by adopting game techniques such as scoreboards, personalized feedback, and their general impact on the organization (Aziz et al., 2017). By making the business process more attractive and facilitating it, Gamification can improve the interaction between stakeholders and businesses and introduce a better approach to their survival (Hostettler and Van Maurik, 2020).
Gamification elements create motivation for innovative collaboration and contribute to confronting the challenges that this motivation is essential for facing changes in the business environment. Quick feedback is another important aspect of Gamification in businesses. With strengthens positive behavior and moderates negative behavior, adding an amusing element and increasing innovation and cooperation (Stevens, 2013). As Gudiksen (2015) argued, Gamification in businesses will help carry out complex management activities and how businesses process because Gamification boosts staff motivation, has behavioral alignment with organizational strategies and new programs, and leads to a better acceptance of the programs and increase productivity. Regarding stated cases and the persuasive technology of Gamification, it will have an unprohibited effect on behavior. Sustainability in business is a process that must be achieved in all stages and activities. To make the business process sustainable, it is surmised that different executive units will implement their components well. The current study investigates the effect of Gamification on the sustainability of small and medium enterprises by determining the role of open innovation, digital transformation, and co-creation. Accordingly, research questions can be asked: How important is Gamification in the sustainability of small and medium enterprises? What roles do open innovation, co-creation, and digital transformation play in the sustainability of small and medium enterprises?
Literature review
Gamification
Gamification refers to the process of transforming activities, systems, services, products, or organizational structures into one of the game-like experiences, and it is considered a gaming experience that facilitates changes in behavior or cognitive processes (Wunderlich et al., 2019). The term gamification in the academic literature was not defined until 2011. The most common definition described the concept as game design elements in a non-game context which included various fields. Today, the context of the gamification business refers to "the application of the metaphors of the game in real tasks to influence behavior, improve motivation, and enhance engagement," which creates motivational and behavioral changes in individuals (employees or customers) (Silbar et al., 2018). Gamification uses game-design elements and game principles in non-game contexts (Kao and Chueh, 2022) as a motivational tool for individuals' participation in performing their duties, developing digital literacy and problem-solving skills, and improving hand and eye coordination. Gamification can be considered as a process of improving services to create a pleasant experience that can increase the overall value creation of users (Adhiatma et al., 2021). Organizations can use the gamification approach to achieve the benefits of employee and public consumer participation and promote behavioral change (Paravizo et al., 2018). Gamification involves some game design elements for different purposes, including interaction and behavioral changes in non-game contexts. This contradicts amusement and pleasure, which are the main reasons for games. Gamification does not include actual video games for important purposes. In fact, it has its own design principles and uses them in non-game situations (Silbar et al., 2018). However, only a good gamification experience that comes with rewards and emotions can make desired behavioral changes so that employees repeat the behavioral approach of the organization as usual. Gamification can be applied to internal operations (e.g., to improve employee participation) and external operations (e.g., product development with customers) (Patricio et al., 2020). Engaging stakeholders by encouraging them to adopt behaviors connected to gamification programs create value. Their engaging behaviors produce data and information that help companies understand customers more deeply. In general, Gamification applies game design elements in a non-game context to create experiences, influence users 'attitudes and behaviors, and provide interactive mechanisms to facilitate and support this change in users' overall behavior. Intrinsic motivation leads to behaviors that lead to achievements, such as feelings of enjoyment and other positive emotions. If intrinsic motivation leads to learning, it is more desirable; because Gamification should convey product or brand information to users, it is a motivation for participants. This involves learning information, joining, or continuing with an action. The desire for activity leads to enjoyment. Gamification also provides a space for users to compete and play and earn rewards and prizes that make them happy. People's desire to compete and win prizes can help improve their loyalty to a brand, products, and services. Social conditions also affect personal volition and engagement in activities, and if social needs are intertwined with play, users may be influenced by those factors in behavior and attitude (Yang et al., 2017).
Digital transformation
Digital transformation in a company would be carried out by using new digital technologies, such as social media, mobile devices, and analytics, i.e. factors that have made significant progress in business, including an increase in customer experience, simplification of operations, and creation of new business models (Horlacher and Hess, 2016). Therefore, digital transformation can be seen as the process of creating changes and significant development in business characteristics by combining data, computing, and communication technologies that promote business (Viyal, 2019). The exploitation and integration of digital technologies often affect many parts of the company and business processes, supply chains, and sales channels (Matt et al., 2015).
Some researchers have a specific emphasis on the "transformation" instead of "change," and they claim that an organization's digital transformation is much beyond operational thinking and generally consider comprehensive measures that need to be done to use the opportunities or avoid the threats from digital technologies (Warner and Wager, 2019). Digital transformation creates basic changes in company performance which are transformational technologies at the heart of these changes. It can be argued that digital transformation occurs when these technologies have revolutionized stakeholders' experiences, operational processes, and business models. Digital transformation as a systemic innovation based on three pillars: “the customer experience, which means creating an interactive relationship with the customer; and the customer's perception and feeling of facing the organization which can be a factor in supporting quality.” The organization must be able to provide customers with physical and virtual access to services. The reorganization of operational and organizational processes also means creating a form of interaction and exchange of information between different functions of the organization and extending these new interactive methods to external partners and business models which means introducing new and existing products and services to the market through the integration of digital technologies or innovation of existing technologies (Captain, 2018).
Open innovation
Open innovation refers to the targeted commercialization and absorption of internally developed ideas in the external environment of an organization (Lyu et al., 2020). In economic systems, open innovation shapes the dynamics of the system and becomes the driving force for sustainable development and growth (Yun et al., 2020). The main idea of open innovation is that an organization opens the innovation process to other firms, individuals, research institutions, universities, suppliers, and customers to ensure the flow of ideas inside and outside the organization. Therefore, organizations can benefit from discovering external sources and exploiting internal sources (Pustovrh et al., 2020). As SMEs are more flexible, quicker, and less bureaucratic in decision-making and reaction to market changes, open innovation is a practical and innovative strategy that managers adopt. These features can enable smaller enterprises to benefit from open innovation compared to larger enterprises. This view requires examining the role of managers in discovering and exploiting SMEs’ opportunities (Ali et al., 2020). To measure the open innovation variable, three components are used, which are organizational readiness, collaborative capabilities, and absorption capacity. Organizational readiness refers to factors that exist in innovative organizations and are related to dynamic capabilities for change, specific process designs, and technological improvement. Collaborative capabilities are at the core of the open innovation debate and can be described as the ability to integrate and leverage organizational factors to build organizational capacity and capacity for open innovation, and this includes three factors of internal collaboration, networking capability, and external-to-internal collaboration. It is the inside and out (Hafkesbrink and Schroll, 2010). Open innovation is a tool for companies to use targeted inputs and outputs of knowledge to accelerate domestic innovation and expand markets for external use of innovation. The use of Open innovation means that companies open their innovation activities to absorb more ideas and technologies from outside, achieve more internal knowledge, reduce innovation costs, accelerate market entry time, and share risks with other partners. In addition, the opener of innovation approaches relies on the organization's culture and mindset and the behavior and perspective of individuals, which are important elements in shaping innovation and organizational openness to external partnerships and relationships (Elia et al., 2020). Comparatively, it can be said that closed innovation is entirely due to the innovative internal activities of the company and are mainly in the form of organized research and development. In contrast, open innovation relies on the external resources of the company in combination with the innovative internal activities of the company (Mubarak and Petraite, 2020).
Value co-creation
For a firm to flourish co-creation of value is at the center of business activities, and understanding what is value for consumers is not easily achievable. Traditional marketing firms rely on their general understanding of the market opportunities. They used to offer products that they believed were valuable to consumers but realized that intangible processes, services, and relationships are more important in value co-creation (Saha et al., 2020). Value co-creation refers to the requirements and collaborative actions of customers and the organizations to create value and develop solutions to meet customer needs. One way to share, combine, and renew resources and mutual capabilities between active users and firms is to co-create value through new forms of services and interaction (Arnold, 2017). Consumers play an active role in value co-creation and create value in one or more stages of production and consumption (Ranjan and Read, 2014). Finally, it can be claimed that the company and customer create value by allowing the customer to create a service experience to appropriate their context (Mehera, 2017). Co-creation of value is a collective process in which people in organizations work together to create and develop new products, processes, or services. They introduce co-creation as a transition from industrial-age thinking to thinking based on human commitment. Complementary competencies, process alignment, behavioral alignment, perceived control, empowerment, and expectation matching are the components used to measure the value creation coefficient (Ng et al, 2010).
Corporate Sustainability
Corporate sustainability is related to a modern and multidisciplinary approach that states that companies should adopt green management strategies, community issues, and economic innovation, and use advanced technologies to develop environmentally friendly products and services. The social aspect of corporate sustainability focuses on enriching organizational communication with humans and society and promoting human health by understanding an organization's needs. The economic approach to corporate sustainability involves maximizing benefits by increasing sales and reducing operating costs (Abbas, 2019). Corporate sustainability is defined as meeting the direct and indirect needs of business stakeholders without compromising the ability to meet the future needs of the company and stakeholders (Sharaei et al., 2020). This definition has been used in several previous studies. A company is considered sustainable if it can quickly use innovation and optimally apply new technologies to use its resources (Townsend, 2017). Corporate sustainability is one of the company's approaches to creating value in the social economy and environmental fields from a long-term perspective, and it also supports more responsibility. Corporate sustainability refers to corporations’ attempt to make a balance between social, economic, and environmental goals (Pellizzoni et al., 2020). The concept of corporate sustainability can be intuitively understood; yet explaining it under operational conditions is relatively difficult. All firms are required to evaluate the sustainability of their current proceedings and future policies. There are many ways to measure sustainability. Corporate sustainability depends on the economic performance and long-term profitability of a company. Corporate sustainability is defined in three dimensions: economic, social, and environmental, which means that, in addition to economic benefits, businesses must also consider their relationship with the environment and society. Today's society is also based on businesses that influence how values decisions, and actions are presented, this important role of business in society has doubled the importance of corporate Sustainability (Hostettler and Van Maurik, 2020).
Development of hypotheses and theoretical model
Gamification seeks value co-creation in businesses by increasing innovation, creativity, strengthening participation, and teamwork (Milutinovic et al., 2018). Implementing open innovation in businesses requires Gamification to create motivational and beneficial partnerships by increasing creativity. Fernandez et al. (2021) conducted a study as "Gamification approaches for open innovation implementation" that investigated the effects of Gamification on open innovation. They concluded that Gamification in business creates open innovation by overcoming inertia. Also, Kauppinen et al. (2016), in their research titled "Involving citizens in the open innovation process through gamification," studied the role of Gamification in digital services. The findings of this study suggested that Gamification is beneficial for participating in open innovation processes and understanding new concepts. Patricio et al. (2020) also, in a study under the title of "Co‐creation of new solutions through gamification: A collaborative innovation practice," revealed that the gamification method advocates the innovation process in business and leads to co-creation. Their study showed that gamification methods, through collaboration with stakeholders and outsourcing activities, facilitate participation in creativity and refer to it as open innovation. Moreover, gamification leads to co-creation through business coordination and provides a platform for interaction to create new solutions. Based on the proposed research, the first and second hypotheses of the present study were developed as:
H1: Gamification positively impacts open innovation.
H2: Gamification positively impacts value co-creation.
Gamification is used to implement the digital transformation process and increase employee participation by making the activities attractive and adaption to the digital transformation process. The results of the study conducted by Monstad and Burman (2020), "Digital transformations carried out through games, showed that Gamification can motivate participation in digital organizational transformation, and it could help a successful digital transformation. Thus, the third hypothesis of this study was developed as:
H3: Gamification positively impacts digital transformation.
Open innovation expands business cooperation and makes businesses use external resources and technologies to increase research and development and value co-creation. The open innovation process provides a common understanding of co-creation. Martinez (2014), in his study "Co-creation of value by open innovation: unlocking new sources of competitive advantage," suggested that open innovation with the understanding of ideas and consumers’ experiences and creating a platform for the interaction of all stakeholders can provide value co-creation in business. In addition, De Silva and Wright (2019) claim that open innovation through entrepreneurship development to create a social impact will lead to value co-creation. Based on this, the fourth hypothesis of this study is developed.
H4: Open innovation positively impacts value co-creation.
By revising the policies and processes of businesses, digital transformation provides a simpler user experience and improves digital service offers, and more interaction with stakeholders brings value co-creation (Mergel et al., 2018). The study by Malar et al. (2019) suggests that digital transformation processes operate by introducing new online services, and considering all business stakeholders will result in co-creation. Based on this, the fifth hypothesis was developed.
H5: Digital transformation positively impacts value co-creation.
Value co-creation, with an emphasis on the importance of the involvement of all stakeholders, helps to change the performance of the business towards sustainability; there is a way to share and combine resources between all stakeholders and making awareness about products and services creates sustainability in business. Arnold (2017), in his study, " Fostering sustainability by linking co-creation and relationship management concepts," investigated how to create sustainability in business through value co-creation and communication management. The results showed that value co-creation by building collaboration and facilitating innovation minimizes negative social and environmental impacts and leads to corporate sustainability. The findings of Cannas et al. (2019) in "Fostering corporate sustainability in tourism management through social values within collective value co-creation processes," indicated that social values and value co-creation can strengthen social orientation and lead to social responsibility and corporate sustainability. The sixth hypothesis was developed based on this content.
H6: Value co-creation positively impacts corporate sustainability.
The research's conceptual model was developed using the six-hypothesis-model (Figure 1.).
Gamification |
Open innovation |
Digital Transformation |
Value co-creation |
Corporate Sustainability |
H1 |
H2 |
H3 |
H4 |
H5 |
H6 |
Fig. 1. The Conceptual Model
Methodology
The current study is applied in terms of purpose and data collection and is descriptive and correlational. It describes the effect of Gamification on corporate sustainability by explaining the roles of open innovation, digital transformation, and value co-creation. The statistical community of the study comprised of the top managers and experts in electronic businesses who use Gamification in their processes. The statistical sample includes 117 active managers and experts who were chosen using the available sampling method. Research scales for measuring variables were first extracted from theoretical foundations, and then a questionnaire was designed based on the Likert spectrum. Academic experts reviewed and confirmed the face and content validity of the questionnaire. The construct validity was confirmed using confirmatory factor analysis. Convergent and divergent validity were also checked using PLS software. Cronbach's alpha coefficient and composite reliability were used to ensure the sustainability of the measurement scales, and its results were as follows: The structure of the questionnaire is illustrated in Table 1.
Table 1: Questionnaire resources
Resources |
Variable |
Number |
Hafkesbrink and Schroll. (2010) |
Open innovation |
1-6 |
Ng et al. (2010) |
Value co-creation |
7-12 |
Yang et al. (2017) |
gamification |
13-17 |
Westerman et al. (2014) |
Digital transformation |
18-25 |
Khomba and Vermaak. (2013) |
Corporate Sustainability |
26-30 |
Confirmatory factor analysis results (Table 2) indicates that all factor loadings related to the items of all research variables were more than 5%, and their validity was confirmed. To test convergent validity and construct reliability, the average variance extracted, composite reliability and Cronbach's alpha were calculated. Based on Table 2, the average variance extracted for all variables was higher than the satisfactory point of 0.5, and the composite reliability was above 7%, indicating suitable reliability. The Cronbach’s α values were above 0.7, demonstrating acceptable reliability.
Table 2: Measurement Model Validity and Reliability
Cronbach's alpha |
CR |
AVE |
Factor Loading |
Item |
Variable |
0.830 |
0.880 |
0.723 |
0.791 |
1 |
Value co-creation |
0.523 |
2 |
||||
0.635 |
3 |
||||
0.881 |
4 |
||||
0.888 |
5 |
||||
0.691 |
6 |
||||
0.721 |
0.815 |
0.590 |
0.702 |
1 |
Corporate sustainability |
0.746 |
2 |
||||
0.672 |
3 |
||||
0.674 |
4 |
||||
0.636 |
5 |
||||
0.834 |
0.869 |
0.601 |
0.545 |
1 |
Digital transformation |
0.690 |
2 |
||||
0.601 |
3 |
||||
0.701 |
4 |
||||
0.714 |
5 |
||||
0.802 |
6 |
||||
0.805 |
7 |
||||
0.511 |
8 |
||||
0.805 |
0.863 |
0.647 |
0.674 |
1 |
Gamification |
0.750 |
2 |
||||
0.839 |
3 |
||||
0.624 |
4 |
||||
0.838 |
5 |
||||
0.802 |
0.852 |
0.636 |
0.681 |
1 |
Open innovation |
0.757 |
2 |
||||
0.739 |
3 |
||||
0.639 |
4 |
||||
0.628 |
5 |
||||
0.750 |
6 |
In the main diameter of Table3, the root of the mean extracted variance of each of the other cells in the table and the degree of correlation between the variables are listed. The values of the elements in the original diameter of the matrix were greater than those of all the elements of the rows and columns corresponding to them. Therefore, divergence past confirmed. SPSS software version 23 was used to examine the research model for the demographic data analysis. Structural equation modeling with the partial least squares approach and Smart PLS software version 2 was used.
Table 3. Discriminant Validity
5 |
4 |
3 |
2 |
1 |
Variable |
|
|
|
|
0.850 |
Value co-creation |
|
|
|
0.768 |
0.701 |
Corporate sustainability |
|
|
0.775 |
0.655 |
0.708 |
Digital transformation |
|
0.804 |
0.691 |
0.673 |
0.643 |
Gamification |
0.797 |
0.673 |
0.608 |
0.687 |
0.759 |
Open innovation |
Results
In the present study, 96 of 117 respondents (82.06 %) were men, and 21 (17.94 %) were women. Twenty-nine participants (24.78 %) were younger than 30 years of age. Forty-seven people (approximately 40.17 %) were between 30 and 40 years old, and 41 (35.05 %) were over 40 years old. In terms of education, people with master's degrees are the most frequent, with 52.15% (61 people). Demographic information is presented in Table 4.
Table 4. Demographic characteristics of respondents
Demographics |
n |
% |
|
Gender |
Male |
96 |
82.06 |
Female |
21 |
17.94 |
|
Age |
>30 |
29 |
24.78 |
30-40 |
47 |
40.17 |
|
<40 |
41 |
35.05 |
|
Education |
Bachelors’ |
27 |
23.07 |
Masters |
61 |
52.15 |
|
PhD |
29 |
24.78 |
After examining the internal structure and status of the studied variables through confirmatory factor analysis, the correctness of the hypothesis was examined in the form of a structural model of the research. According to the interpretive structural equation modeling, if the value of t for each path is greater than 1.96%, it can be said that the relevant path is significant at the 95% confidence level, and the hypothesis of that path is confirmed. The model test results showed that the values of all hypotheses were higher than 96.1, and all paths were significant. Figure 2. illustrates the significance of this model.
Fig. 2. Hypothesis Testing (T-Value Model)
Table 5 and Figure 3. Illustrate the research hypothesis tested by structural equation testing.
Fig. 3. Path coefficients
Table 5. Hypothesis Testing
Result |
T-value |
R2 |
β |
Path |
Supported |
25.498 |
0.557 |
0.764 |
Gamification Open innovation |
Supported |
3.966 |
0.870 |
0.427 |
Gamification Value Co-creation |
Supported |
28.411 |
0.726 |
0.852 |
Gamification Digital transformation |
Supported |
2.279 |
0.870 |
0.204 |
Open innovation Value Co-creation |
Supported |
2.880 |
0.870 |
0.360 |
Digital transformation Value Co-creation |
Supported |
14.799 |
0.617 |
0.786 |
Value Co-creation Corporate Sustainability |
The coefficients of determination of and the GOF was used to determine the fit of the research model. The coefficient of determination was calculated for dependent variables, which is within the acceptable range for the digital transformation variable with a value of 0.726, the open innovation variable with a value of 0.557, the co-creation variable with a value of 0.870, and the corporate sustainability variable with a value of 0.617 to fit the general model. In addition, the Q2 index was 0.403 for open innovation, 0.353 for the digital transformation variable, 0.429 for the co-creation variable, and 0.471 for the corporate sustainability variable. These numbers indicated the optimal predictive power of the model. The GOF index was used, and the values of 0.01, 0.25, and 0.36 were introduced as weak, medium, and strong, respectively.
=
The GOF index indicated a strong fit for the research model.
Discussion and Conclusion
Gamification in business is based on an environment involving stakeholders and motivating them, making their roles and responsibilities more attractive. This study investigated the effect of Gamification on businesses’ corporate sustainability by explaining the roles of open innovation, digital transformation, and value co-creation. The findings showed that Gamification could lead to corporate sustainability of businesses, which has not been extensively researched. The results of the first hypothesis confirmed Gamification's positive and meaningful effect on open innovation, which was consistent with the findings of Fernandez et al. (2021) and Kauppinen et al. (2016). Along with the previous studies, this result confirmed that Gamification helps flow ideas inside and outside the organization. Therefore, it can be concluded that Gamification is a tool for using technology to accelerate the innovation flow. Based on the results of the second hypothesis, the positive and meaningful impact of Gamification on value co-creation is confirmed, consistent with the findings of Milutinovic (2018) and Patricio et al. (2020). Therefore, Gamification can add entertainment to the work process by involving stakeholders and building positive motivation, thus creating value co-creation.
The results of the third hypothesis showed that Gamification has a positive and meaningful impact on digital transformation, which is consistent with the findings of Monstad and Burman (2020). Based on the fourth hypothesis, open innovation's positive and meaningful effect on value co-creation was somehow consistent with the findings of the study by Martinez (2014) and De Silva and Wright (2019). Together with the previous consistent results, this confirmed that open innovation could affect employee engagement in processes and build value co-creation. Based on the fifth hypothesis, the positive and meaningful impact of digital transformation value co-creation was confirmed. This was consistent with Mergel et al. (2018) and Malar et al. (2019). It was confirmed that new digital transformation tools could be used to exploit and store stakeholder information and increase the interaction between stakeholders for value co-creation. Based on the sixth hypothesis, positive and meaningful value co-creation in corporate sustainability was confirmed, consistent with the findings of Arnold (2017) and Cannas et al. (2019). Accordingly, the researchers concluded that Gamification could help the dynamics and stakeholders' participation and support innovative activities to make an efficient interaction among stakeholders' shape and create value co-creation and sustainability.
With the outbreak of the covid-19 pandemic, the process of digitalizing businesses has increased, and it has provided a great opportunity to use Gamification in businesses. Therefore, using Gamification as a driving force of business to facilitate the process of digitalization to create more sustainable businesses is recommended.
Businesses can go through innovation and digitalization faster through Gamification, and staff will be situated in constant interaction with processes. The purpose of gamification tools is to strengthen stakeholders’ sustainable behavior and greatly emphasize boosting internal motivation. Based on the acquired results, the following conclusions were drawn:
It is worth mentioning that copying gamification tools without considering the business's situation is useless because gamification tools can be efficient when a game design is produced considering the terms and status of the company.
Conflict of interest
The authors declare no potential conflict of interest regarding the publication of this work. In addition, the ethical issues including plagiarism, informed consent, misconduct, data fabrication and, or falsification, double publication and, or submission, and redundancy have been completely witnessed by the authors.
Funding
The author (s) received no financial support for the research, authorship, and /or publication of this article