DMU research authors receive excellence award

Research carried out by De Montfort University Leicester (DMU) academics have been named among of the best papers of 2016 in the prestigious Emerald Literati Awards 2016.



Dr Tracy Harwood and Dr Tony Garry‘s paper, ‘An investigation into gamification as a customer engagement experience environment’ was named as the Journal of Services Marketing’s Outstanding Paper for 2016.

And Dr Catherine Flick of DMU’s Centre for Computing Social Responsibility won Highly Commended for her paper ‘Mentorship in Computer Ethics’, published in the Journal of Information, Communication and Ethics in Society.

The awards, now in their 23rd year, celebrate and reward the outstanding contributions of authors and reviews to scholarly research.

Judges said Dr Harwood and Dr Garry’s research was “one of the most impressive pieces of work they had seen throughout the past year”. The paper, which has already been downloaded more than 1,200 times, will now be made available free to download for a year to share best practice in research.

Gamification is the process by which companies attempt to engage with customers using tactics associated with gaming such as leader boards, challenges and points awarded for completing activities.

By motivating customers to engage with the brand online and rewarding them for doing so, companies hope to increase sales and build brand loyalty.

Dr Harwood, Senior Research Fellow at DMU’s Institute of Creative Technologies, and Dr Garry, who was a senior lecturer at DMU from 1998-2008, based their work upon a campaign in 2011 launched by Samsung Nation to “gamify” its website.

Dr Harwood said: “The findings are particularly relevant for businesses thinking about how best to engage customers with their products and services through gamified platforms so the fact this paper is being made free for a year is excellent news. It means more businesses will have the chance to access our findings and think about potential impacts of it for them. 

“Since we did the research, gamification has become a well-known buzzword but we certainly found some key challenges that need to be addressed when devising this type of engagement strategy.”