Abstract: This book is about the future of entrepreneurship and innovation education in gamified business and social environments. Entrepreneurship education promotes an entrepreneurial mindset and stimulates skills development beyond business. Everyone in the education space is eager to test and apply fresh approaches that can motivate educators, students, and professionals to drive entrepreneurship forward. This publication argues that game approaches respond to critical, societal, pedagogical, and business changes by providing active learning dynamics and narratives that engage and trigger future entrepreneurs. The main reason for writing this book is to provide entrepreneurs, educators, and trainers with actionable tools and guidelines to apply game approaches in entrepreneurship and innovation processes.

The present toolkit is one of the outputs of the project “Design and Game Approaches for Entrepreneurship” under a Grant by the Fundação para a Ciência e Tecnologia (FCT) No. UIDB/DES/00711/2020 to UNIDCOM/IADE – Unidade de Investigação em Design e Comunicação, Lisbon, Portugal. It is a partnership between IADE - Universidade Europeia and the Universidade de Aveiro.

Citation: Patricio, R., Daniel, A., Tsvetcoff, R., Negre, Y. (2023). From Player to Entrepreneur: Unlocking opportunities for applying games in entrepreneurship and innovation. IADE Press.

Abstract: The paper illustrates a case study of crisis-driven innovation that emerged in the age of COVID19 to help create the future for local and small businesses, which are extremely affected by this pandemic. Tied to the urgency of this situation, a one-week design sprint with 12 multidisciplinary teams, mentors and motivational speakers, involving more than 100 people, was launched with very short notice. The work was done in one week, in a 100% online environment with participants from 15 different nationalities, resulted in 12 concept solutions to support tourism, culture, events, restaurants, municipalities, shops, and services to children and families. This is a promising approach to address complex societal and business challenges with wide applications in the fields of education, capability building and stakeholder engagement.

Citation: Patricio, R., Neves, M. A. B., Gancho, S., Carella, G., Dias, J. C., & Ferreira, H. (2020). Support Local Businesses Through Design. ISPIM Innovation Conference – Innovating in Times of Crisis, (June).

Abstract: The paper proposes a gamified approach to innovative concept generation based on co-creation, including usage of a specific idea development method and tool (IdeaChef®), to address a complex company challenge. IdeaChef® fuelled the dialogue amongst competing multidisciplinary teams and with other supporting stakeholders to maximize the engagement in developing and converting high potential ideas to minimum viable concepts (MVC). Selected developed concepts were in a second step tested and validated on the market, including customer willingness to pay for the various services defined, as well as further fine-tuned based on the received market feedback. The gamified approach to co-creation demonstrates an alternative process to deal with complexity and uncertainty. The broader background research conducted and the robust and tangible concepts validated on the market mitigate the risk of market failure and contribute to expand the product and service roadmaps of the company.

Citation: Dag, S., Patricio, R., Melazzini, M., & Zurlo, F. (2020). Tackling Complex Drinking Water Challenge through a Gamified Concept Approach. ISPIM Innovation Conference – Innovating Our Common Future, Berlin, Germany, (June).

Abstract: The paper aims to explore the relationship between gamification and design thinking approach to innovation in the context of the early stage of innovation process (ESoIP). Design thinking is conceptually appropriate to support innovative, complex and uncertain business environments. Still, its practices have demonstrated some difficulties in managing the ESoIP, such as lack of structure and clarity around goals. This paper argues that gamification can enhance and complement design thinking in the management of firms' ESoIP. Given the need to achieve a deeper understanding of the linkages between gamification and design thinking, the paper follows an exploratory theory building approach for this complex reality of innovation. The case study research method was conducted in three firms (Trivalor, Novartis and Microsoft) that applied a gamification approach to the ESoIP. The results demonstrate that gamification has the power to enhance and complement design thinking practices by getting tasks more organized and improving coordination and employees' engagement in the innovation process.
The paper provides critical managerial contributions on how firms can use gamification to improve design thinking approaches to ESoIP. Its consequences are also crucial to innovation, R&D, and product/service development managers interested in using gamification to support the ideation and concept development of new solutions complementing traditional design thinking approaches. Merging the gamification and design thinking approaches is novel, particularly on firms' ESoIP. The paper provides a comprehensive discussion of design thinking shortcomings and the role that gamification can play in overcoming them.

Citation: Patrício, R., Moreira, A.C. and Zurlo, F. (2020), "Enhancing design thinking approaches to innovation through gamification", European Journal of Innovation Management, Vol. ahead-of-print No. ahead-of-print.

Abstract: The creation of a strategic design tool to develop multidisciplinary teams’ gamification capability can contribute to a better understanding of this concept, stimulate collaborative work, and contribute to the ideation of creative gamified solutions. In this context, the paper proposes a structured method - ‘7 P’s of gamification’ - which offers a broad and comprehensive perspective of gamification based on a step-by-step process. It allows team members with limited knowledge of gamification to understand it and start to use it in a real case scenario. This method was tested in a fully online workshop that challenged four teams (nineteen students in total) to ideate gamified solutions for a Lisbon municipality, which established the conditions and desired goals. The collaborative effort between team members and facilitators during the entire process was supported by digital collaborative tools (digital workspace and communication platform). Before the workshop, a training session was conducted with all participants, followed by a survey and semi-structured interviews, conducted immediately after the workshop. Based on the findings, it was possible to conclude that participants positively assessed the ‘7 P’s of gamification’ method. This type of approach engages participants in the ideation process and facilitates the ideation of gamified solutions. The presence of facilitators was also positively highlighted, which reinforces the importance of having this type of ‘actors’ when conducting gamification practices. Further research is needed to assess this method in other work contexts as well as the influence on adoption, implementation, and outcomes of gamification.

Citation: Ferreira H., Roseira C., Patrício R. (2020) 7 P’s of Gamification: A Strategic Design Tool for Ideation of Gamified Solutions. In: Marfisi-Schottman I., Bellotti F., Hamon L., Klemke R. (eds) Games and Learning Alliance. GALA 2020. Lecture Notes in Computer Science, vol 12517. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-63464-3_14