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The purpose of this paper is to investigate the effect of gamification design elements of virtual corporate social responsibility (CSR) game on customers’ continuance intention to participate in social value co-creation and the mediation effect of psychological benefit.

Three scenario simulation experiments of the between-subjects design were conducted to examine the influencing mechanism of reward mechanism of virtual CSR game on customers’ continuance intention to participate in social value co-creation.

The findings indicated that: there are significant differences between the effect of behavior-based reward and result-based reward on customers’ continuance intention to participate in social value co-creation; the psychological benefit plays a moderating role between game reward mechanism and customers’ intention to continuously participate in social value co-creation; the game narrative mode plays a moderating role in the influence of game reward mechanism on customers’ intention to continuously participate in social value co-creation; the background for game placement moderates the interactions of game narrative mode and game reward mechanism on customers’ continuance intention to participate in social value co-creation, namely there is significant interaction of gamification design elements on psychological benefit and customers’ continuance intention to participate in social value co-creation.

This research has the following limitations. First, restricted by research conditions, the game scene, as the experiment material, can only be exposed to the participants in the form of text, thus customers’ psychological benefit (especially the entertainment experience) may be affected. Second, theoretical argument and literature support were not enough when the authors put forward the research hypotheses, due to the lack of research on the application of gamification in the CSR field. Third, considering the complexity, the authors took the psychological benefit as a unidimensional variable, in this research; it may be funnier to divide it into three variables. Finally, because the game design elements form into a virtual customer environment that jointly influences customers’ psychological benefit, the method of qualitative comparative analysis can be considered in future research.

It provides insights for marketers on the planning and design of a CSR strategy. The conclusions of this research have a certain guiding significance to the formulation of CSR strategy and the practice of social value co-creation. First, enterprises can apply gamification to the design of virtual CSR projects to promote customers’ continuance intention to participate in social value co-creation. Second, on the consideration of customers’ psychological benefit, enterprises should reasonably match such game design elements as game placement background, game narrative mode and game reward mechanism, when designing a virtual CSR game, so as to promote customers continuously participating in a virtual CSR project.

Virtual CSR projects are in fact the activities that enterprise co-create social value with their stakeholders. So, the research on customers’ continuous participation in virtual CSR projects is helpful for increasing social welfare.

This study confirms the effect of reward mechanism of a virtual CSR game on customers’ continuance intention to participate in social value co-creation from the perspective of customer psychological benefit. It also provides insights for marketers on the planning and design of a CSR strategy.

This paper aims to examine the experiences of new users of Second Life in order to identify potential barriers and attractors to the expansion of the userbase and therefore the market for in‐world information services.

A multi‐faceted methodological approach was taken utilising two questionnaires (pre‐ and post‐immersion), non‐participant overt observation, structured interviews, and online diary keeping. Data was then analysed to identify barriers and attractors.

More negative experiences were recorded than positive, with the costs, time commitment, stigma of using, the lack of structure, social interaction, and the complexity of the control interface all provoking negative responses. Avatar creation, and the creativity and quality of graphical presentation produced positive responses.

Due to the investment in time required to participate in the research, the sample size is smaller than ideal thus limiting the conclusions that can be generalised. The research also did not directly include interaction with online library or information services.

For librarians using SL the research demonstrates that the response from new users is less than enthusiastic and that when designing virtual library services care should be taken to avoid the barriers identified here and to focus on the features found attractive by participants.

Previous studies have examined the implementation of in‐world information services without examining the experience of new users. Those studies that have looked directly at the user's interaction with virtual worlds are more focused on MMORPGs and on current users.

The purpose of this paper is to investigate how three core elements of critical management studies (CMSs), “de-naturalisation”, “reflexivity” and “(non)-performative intent”, can help expand the current debate in the supply chain management (SCM) field.

The authors used a systematic literature review to select 103 articles published in 12 high-ranking journals in the SCM field based on the Academic Journal Guide of the Chartered Association of Business Schools.

The findings of this study suggest that SCM studies can be narrowed down into four major CMSs themes: “power”, “ethics and environmental issues”, “diversity” and “working conditions”, but even these themes are still under-discussed and undertheorized in SCM. The literature the authors reviewed is more concerned with explaining these phenomena than questioning them and proposing new agendas. This paper, therefore, will discuss how these three core elements of CMS can help transform the “hidden” issues of SCM, which it will do by illustrating it in the context of buyer–supplier relationships and lean manufacturing.

This research will encourage SCM scholars who are interested in conducting more critical studies and teaching the harmful effects of global supply chains.

This paper highlights that a combination of SCM and CMS approaches is important when we decide to adopt a more critical “constructive” view of supply chain challenges and engage practical and critical views, respectively, to generate knowledge that not only increases (corporate) performance but also highlights social needs and values.

Nucleic acid testing is an effective method of accurate prevention and control and a key measure to block the spread of the epidemic. However, the fraud in nucleic acid testing occurred frequently during epidemics. This paper aims to provide a viable scheme for the government to strengthen the supervision of nucleic acid testing and to provide a new condition for the punishment for the negative act of the government and the upper limit of the reward for nucleic acid testing institution of no data fraud.

This paper formulates an evolutionary game model between the government and nucleic acid testing institution under four different mechanisms of reward and punishment to solve the issue of nucleic acid testing supervision. The authors discuss the stability of equilibrium points under the four distinct strategies and conduct simulation experiments.

The authors find that the strategy of dynamic reward and static penalty outperforms the strategies of static reward and static penalty, dynamic reward and static penalty, static reward and dynamic penalty, dynamic reward and dynamic penalty. The results reveal the appropriate punishment for the negative act of the government can enhance the positivity of the government's supervision in the strategy of dynamic reward and static penalty, while the upper limit of the reward for nucleic acid testing institution of no data fraud cannot be too high. Otherwise, it will backfire. Another interesting and counterintuitive result is that in the strategy of dynamic reward and dynamic penalty, the upper limit of the penalty for data fraud of nucleic acid testing institution cannot be augmented recklessly. Otherwise, it will diminish the government's positivity for supervision.

Most of the existing evolutionary game researches related to the reward and punishment mechanism and data fraud merely highlight that increasing the intensity of reward and punishment can help improve the government's supervision initiative and can minimize data fraud of nucleic acid institution, but they fall short of the boundary conditions for the punishment and reward mechanism. Previous literature only study the supervision of nucleic acid testing qualitatively and lacks quantitative research. Moreover, they do not depict the problem scenario of testing data fraud of nucleic acid institution regulated by the government via the evolutionary game model. Thus, this study effectively bridges these gaps. This research is universal and can be extended to other industries.

The operation of water environment treatment Public-Private Partnership projects (WETP-PPP) is crucial to the project effectiveness. However, there are often problems in projects that attach importance to construction and neglect operation management, which seriously affect the project operation effect. To ensure the good operation effect of the WETP-PPP, an evolutionary game model of the regulation strategy during the operation period of WETP-PPP is constructed.

An evolutionary game model of regulation is established which considers the government, the project company and the public in water environment treatment Public-Private Partnership projects (WETP-PPP). Five scenarios of equilibriums and the game's evolutionary stable strategies are analyzed, and the corresponding stability conditions are then obtained. Finally, through the simulation, the influence of different factors on the choice of the three-party strategy is analyzed.

First, the key factors that affect the evolution game are the regulation costs and performance rewards of the government, the project company's operation costs and penalties for opportunism and the public supervision costs and rewards. Second, in order to ensure the operation effect, the government needs the performance incentive from the superior government. Third, the public's supervision enthusiasm needs to be mobilized by the government. Last, the penalty strength of speculative operation should be strong enough to play a deterrent role.

The theoretical research in this paper has some limitations. Initially, due to the large number of participants in WETP-PPP, in addition to the government department, the project company and the public studied in this paper, it also involves the consulting industry and financial institutions. In the future, more participants can be added to form four-party interest relationships and conduct four-party evolutionary game research. Second, the operation environment of WETP-PPP is complex and changeable, and various influencing factors are intertwined, the number of parameters involved in this paper is limited, and further detailed research is needed in the future.

Based on the evolutionary game theory, this article discusses the evolution law of the tripartite game behavior of the government department, the project company and the public, which is helpful to clarify the strategy evolution path of the tripartite in the WETP-PPP, and the generation condition and evolution mechanism of the equilibrium strategy of the tripartite game. The key parameters affecting the tripartite strategy selection are analyzed through simulation, which can provide reference for the government department to formulate relevant measures. At the same time, it broadens the application field of evolutionary games and supplements the research on the management mechanism of WETP-PPP during the operation period.

Based on the evolutionary game theory, this paper introduces the supervision behavior of the public, which can provide a new perspective for researchers to conduct relevant research. Secondly, for the regulation during the operation of WETP-PPP, this paper can provide reference for the government department to establish a scientific public supervision system, improve the government supervision mechanism and other relevant measures, which can help promote the public supervision willingness, improve the regulation efficiency of the government and guide the project company to reduce speculation, so as to ensure the effect of water environment management.

This paper focuses on the regulation of WETP-PPP during the operation period to research interactions among the government, the project company and the public. Based on the analysis of the evolutionary game, some suggestions are put forward, such as perfecting the government regulation mechanism, optimizing the reward and punishment system for the project company and broadening the channels of public supervision. The research results of this paper can provide support for the government's regulation of WETP-PPP and ensure the project operation effect.

The motivation to participate in crowdsourcing (CS) platforms is an emerging challenge. Although researchers and practitioners have focused on crowd motivation in the past, the results obtained through such practices have not been satisfactory. Researchers have left unexplored research areas related to CS pillars, such as the evolution of the crowd’s primary motivations, seekers applying effective policies and incentives, platform design challenges and addressing task complexity using the synchronicity of the crowd. Researchers are now more inclined to address these issues by focusing on sustaining the crowd’s motivation; however, sustaining the crowd’s motivation has many challenges.

To fill this gap, this study conducted a systematic literature review (SLR) to investigate and map the challenges and factors affecting sustained motivation during CS with the overcoming implications. Studies that satisfied the inclusion criteria were published between 2010 and 2021.

Important sustainable factors are extracted using the grounded theory that has sustained participation and the factors' cohesion leads to the identification of challenges that the pillars of CS face. Crowds being the most vital part of CS contests face the challenge of engagement. The results reported the factors that affect the crowd’s primary and post-intentions, perceived value of incentives and social and communal interaction. Seekers face the challenge of knowledge and understanding; the results identify the reason behind the crowd’s demotivation and the impact of theories and factors on the crowd's psychological needs which helped in sustaining participation. Similarly, the platforms face the challenge of being successful and demanding, the results identify the latest technologies, designs and features that seekers proclaim and need the platforms designer's attention. The identified task challenges are completion and achievement; the authors have identified the impact of trait of task and solving mechanisms that have sustained participation.

The study identifies, explores and summarizes the challenges on CS pillars researchers are facing now to sustain contributions by keeping participants motivated during online campaigns. Similarly, the study highlights the implication to overcome the challenges by identifying and prioritizing the areas concerning sustainability through the adoption of innovative methods or policies that can guarantee sustained participation.

The purpose of this paper is to analyze the role of four different incentives in improving hedging effectiveness and propose an alternative regulatory mechanism for China’s futures market.

The research method that this study uses is a laboratory experiment, and this study follows the basic norms of experimental research. In addition, this paper designs and conducts a game experiment between hedgers and futures brokerage firms (FBFs) under different incentive mechanisms.

By analyzing the experimental data, it is found that compared with other incentive mechanisms, hedgers’ willingness to hedge and FBFs’ regulatory intention are both significantly higher for the dynamic linkage updating mechanism, indicating that hedgers have a stronger willingness to follow their hedging plan, and FBFs are more responsible for their regulatory behaviors. Additionally, the dynamic linkage updating mechanism has a long-term impact on effective hedging in the futures market.

The findings suggest that the dynamic linkage updating mechanism is beneficial for effectively restricting both hedgers’ over-speculation and FBFs’ regulatory slack and improving the hedging efficiency of the futures market.

To solve the problem of inefficient hedging in China’s futures market, i.e., hedgers’ over-speculation and FBFs’ passive collusion with hedgers, the regulators of China’s futures market should reform the existing incentives and adopt a dynamic linkage updating mechanism to encourage all the participants to actively improve hedging effectiveness.

This paper analyzes and verifies, for the first time, the role of the dynamic linkage updating mechanism in the investing behaviors of hedgers and the regulatory behaviors of future brokerage firms. The futures market experiment that was designed and used in this study is a pioneering and exploratory experiment that applies game theory and mechanism design theory to the field of behavioral finance.

Many marketplace examples suggest that using gamification in the online retail shopping context boosts sales and positively affects customer loyalty. Nevertheless, more research is needed to understand the effects of digital games on consumer behavior and their underlying psychological mechanisms. Therefore, this article explores how combining games and monetary rewards impacts customer satisfaction, loyalty and word-of-mouth (WOM) intentions.

To test our hypotheses, we designed two online laboratory experiments to stimulate an online shopping situation, as gamification in online retailing has the potential to affect an important set of outcomes for service firms throughout the consumer decision process (Hofacker et al., 2016).

The results of two lab experiments demonstrate that playing a shopping-related game without monetary participation incentive positively influences all three relational outcomes because games enhance consumers' enjoyment of the overall shopping experience. However, our findings also show that monetary rewards used to incentivize game participation diminish these effects. Gamification loses its positive effects if games are combined with monetary rewards, as consumers no longer play games to derive inherent enjoyment, but rather the extrinsic motivation of receiving a discount. We draw managerial implications about how gamification effectively and profitably fosters strong customer relationships and thus increases customer lifetime value and equity.

This research is the first to investigate the combined effects of gamification and price discounts that require consumers to play the game in order to receive the discount. Focusing on an online shopping context, this article contributes to research on motivation by providing new and more nuanced insights into the psychological process underlying the gamification effects on consumer' long-term attitudes (i.e. satisfaction) and relational behaviors (i.e. positive WOM and loyalty) toward a retailer.

Based on our findings, we provide recommendations for marketers that explain how gamification can be a profitable and efficient tool to foster strong customer relationships. Retail managers should use gamification as a less costly alternative to typical price discounts.

Two laboratory experiments investigate how the separate and combined use of games and price discounts affects consumers' satisfaction, positive WOM intentions and loyalty. Playing a shopping-related game increases satisfaction with the retailer and positive WOM intentions as well as loyalty. Monetary rewards used to incentivize game participation eliminate the positive effects of gamification.

Social live streaming services (SLSS) have infused gamification into interface design and feature applications. Firms adopt gamification mechanisms to win customer loyalty in the live streaming and SLSS markets. Based on the mechanics-dynamics-aesthetics (MDA) framework and uses and gratifications 2.0 theory (UGT 2.0), this study aims to investigate the effects of game mechanics (mechanics) on enjoyment and user retention (aesthetics) through rewards and social interaction (dynamics) in the context of SLSS.

This study used an online survey via Google Forms, SurveyCake and social media platforms like Facebook, Instagram and Line to collect data from 232 SLSS users in Taiwan. Partial least squares structural equation modeling (PLS-SEM) was adopted to analyze the data.

The results validated the relationships between game mechanics and dynamic elements (rewards and social interaction) that triggered aesthetic elements (enjoyment feelings) among users. In addition, users experienced a sense of enjoyment that led to usage retention when using the gamified SLSS. Further, this study found enjoyment crucial for users to stay interactive with gamified services.

Driven by UGT 2.0, this study closed the gaps by integrating the MDA framework into the SLSS context and better understanding how game mechanics are connected to rewards and social interaction, leading to enjoyment and user retention when using SLSS. This study provides fresh insights into gamification-oriented SLSS practices. It offers significant theoretical and managerial implications and provides guidelines for SLSS platform operators on fostering user retention.