IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/gam/jsusta/v15y2023i13p10506-d1186321.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Effects of Gamified Mobile Apps on Purchase Intentions and Word-of-Mouth Engagement: Implications for Sustainability Behavior

Author

Listed:
  • Hatice Doğan-Südaş

    (The Faculty of Economics and Administrative Sciences, Cukurova University, Adana 01330, Turkey)

  • Ali Kara

    (Business and Economics Division, The Pennsylvania State University, 1031 Edgecomb Avenue, York, PA 17403, USA)

  • Emre Karaca

    (Institute of Social Sciences, Cukurova University, Adana 01330, Turkey)

Abstract

In today’s competitive environment, stimulating and maintaining customer engagement through gamified apps seems essential for gaining a sustainable competitive advantage. Consequently, gamification in marketing apps has garnered increased attention from companies interested in exploring how gaming processes and experiences can be utilized to create more engaging digital platforms. The objective of this study is to examine how consumer experiences and satisfaction with mobile gaming apps influence their purchase intentions and propensity to participate in word-of-mouth (WOM) communication. A total of 351 study participants who have used gamified mobile apps completed an online survey. The study results indicate that user experience with the gamified mobile apps has a positive influence on consumers’ perceived value and satisfaction. Furthermore, perceived value and satisfaction mediate the relationships between gamified mobile app experience and marketing outcomes, specifically purchase intentions and WOM communication. The implications for sustainable behavior are also discussed.

Suggested Citation

  • Hatice Doğan-Südaş & Ali Kara & Emre Karaca, 2023. "Effects of Gamified Mobile Apps on Purchase Intentions and Word-of-Mouth Engagement: Implications for Sustainability Behavior," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 15(13), pages 1-17, July.
    • Handle: RePEc:gam:jsusta:v:15:y:2023:i:13:p:10506-:d:1186321
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www.mdpi.com/2071-1050/15/13/10506/pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://www.mdpi.com/2071-1050/15/13/10506/
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Peattie, Ken & Peattie, Sue, 2009. "Social marketing: A pathway to consumption reduction?," Journal of Business Research, Elsevier, vol. 62(2), pages 260-268, February.
    2. Lim, Weng Marc & Rasul, Tareq & Kumar, Satish & Ala, Mamun, 2022. "Past, present, and future of customer engagement," Journal of Business Research, Elsevier, vol. 140(C), pages 439-458.
    3. Babin, Barry J & Darden, William R & Griffin, Mitch, 1994. "Work and/or Fun: Measuring Hedonic and Utilitarian Shopping Value," Journal of Consumer Research, Journal of Consumer Research Inc., vol. 20(4), pages 644-656, March.
    4. Hsi-Peng Lu & Hui-Chen Ho, 2020. "Exploring the Impact of Gamification on Users’ Engagement for Sustainable Development: A Case Study in Brand Applications," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 12(10), pages 1-19, May.
    5. Dan J. Kim & Donald L. Ferrin & H. Raghav Rao, 2009. "Trust and Satisfaction, Two Stepping Stones for Successful E-Commerce Relationships: A Longitudinal Exploration," Information Systems Research, INFORMS, vol. 20(2), pages 237-257, June.
    6. Eppmann, René & Bekk, Magdalena & Klein, Kristina, 2018. "Gameful Experience in Gamification: Construction and Validation of a Gameful Experience Scale [GAMEX]," Journal of Interactive Marketing, Elsevier, vol. 43(C), pages 98-115.
    7. Mulcahy, Rory & Russell-Bennett, Rebekah & Iacobucci, Dawn, 2020. "Designing gamified apps for sustainable consumption: A field study," Journal of Business Research, Elsevier, vol. 106(C), pages 377-387.
    8. Sadia Khatoon & Xu Zhengliang & Hamid Hussain, 2020. "The Mediating Effect of Customer Satisfaction on the Relationship Between Electronic Banking Service Quality and Customer Purchase Intention: Evidence From the Qatar Banking Sector," SAGE Open, , vol. 10(2), pages 21582440209, June.
    9. Kai Huotari & Juho Hamari, 2017. "A definition for gamification: anchoring gamification in the service marketing literature," Electronic Markets, Springer;IIM University of St. Gallen, vol. 27(1), pages 21-31, February.
    10. repec:ucp:bkecon:9780226316529 is not listed on IDEAS
    11. Pereira, Hélia Gonçalves & Salgueiro, Maria de Fátima & Rita, Paulo, 2016. "Online purchase determinants of loyalty: The mediating effect of satisfaction in tourism," Journal of Retailing and Consumer Services, Elsevier, vol. 30(C), pages 279-291.
    12. Bitrián, Paula & Buil, Isabel & Catalán, Sara, 2021. "Enhancing user engagement: The role of gamification in mobile apps," Journal of Business Research, Elsevier, vol. 132(C), pages 170-185.
    13. Hsu, Chia-Lin & Chen, Mu-Chen, 2018. "How does gamification improve user experience? An empirical investigation on the antecedences and consequences of user experience and its mediating role," Technological Forecasting and Social Change, Elsevier, vol. 132(C), pages 118-129.
    14. Overby, Jeffrey W. & Lee, Eun-Ju, 2006. "The effects of utilitarian and hedonic online shopping value on consumer preference and intentions," Journal of Business Research, Elsevier, vol. 59(10-11), pages 1160-1166, October.
    15. Dan-Cristian Dabija & Luiela Magdalena Csorba & Florin-Lucian Isac & Sergiu Rusu, 2023. "Managing Sustainable Sharing Economy Platforms: A Stimulus–Organism–Response Based Structural Equation Modelling on an Emerging Market," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 15(6), pages 1-22, March.
    16. Tu, Rungting & Hsieh, Peishan & Feng, Wenting, 2019. "Walking for fun or for “likes”? The impacts of different gamification orientations of fitness apps on consumers’ physical activities," Sport Management Review, Elsevier, vol. 22(5), pages 682-693.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Jinzhi Zou & Khairul Manami Kamarudin & Jing Liu & Jiaqi Zhang, 2024. "Towards Sustainable Mobility: Determinants of Intention to Purchase Used Electric Vehicles in China," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 16(19), pages 1-20, October.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Behl, Abhishek & Jayawardena, Nirma & Pereira, Vijay & Islam, Nazrul & Giudice, Manlio Del & Choudrie, Jyoti, 2022. "Gamification and e-learning for young learners: A systematic literature review, bibliometric analysis, and future research agenda," Technological Forecasting and Social Change, Elsevier, vol. 176(C).
    2. Yumei Luo & Qiongwei Ye, 2019. "Understanding Consumers’ Loyalty to an Online Outshopping Platform: The Role of Social Capital and Perceived Value," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 11(19), pages 1-18, September.
    3. Sharma, Wamika & Lim, Weng Marc & Kumar, Satish & Verma, Aastha & Kumra, Rajeev, 2024. "Game on! A state-of-the-art overview of doing business with gamification," Technological Forecasting and Social Change, Elsevier, vol. 198(C).
    4. Bitrián, Paula & Buil, Isabel & Catalán, Sara, 2021. "Enhancing user engagement: The role of gamification in mobile apps," Journal of Business Research, Elsevier, vol. 132(C), pages 170-185.
    5. Hammedi, Wafa & Leclercq, Thomas & Poncin, Ingrid & Alkire (Née Nasr), Linda, 2021. "Uncovering the dark side of gamification at work: Impacts on engagement and well-being," Journal of Business Research, Elsevier, vol. 122(C), pages 256-269.
    6. Dzandu, Michael D. & Hanu, Charles & Amegbe, Hayford, 2022. "Gamification of mobile money payment for generating customer value in emerging economies: The social impact theory perspective," Technological Forecasting and Social Change, Elsevier, vol. 185(C).
    7. Qian, Tyreal Yizhou & Matz, Robbie & Luo, Lei & Xu, Chenglong, 2022. "Gamification for value creation and viewer engagement in gamified livestreaming services: The moderating role of gender in esports," Journal of Business Research, Elsevier, vol. 145(C), pages 482-494.
    8. Miao, Xiaoyu & Niu, Ben & Yang, Congcong & Feng, Yuanyue, 2023. "Examining the gamified effect of the blindbox design: The moderating role of price," Journal of Retailing and Consumer Services, Elsevier, vol. 74(C).
    9. Lubart, Allan & Capelli, Sonia, 2024. "Gamification of the point of sale using hybrid-reality games: Non-players' negative influence on players' service experience," Technological Forecasting and Social Change, Elsevier, vol. 203(C).
    10. Hsu, Sheila Hsuan-Yu & Tsou, Hung-Tai & Chen, Ja-Shen, 2021. "“Yes, we do. Why not use augmented reality?†customer responses to experiential presentations of AR-based applications," Journal of Retailing and Consumer Services, Elsevier, vol. 62(C).
    11. Carlson, Jamie & Rahman, Mohammad M. & Taylor, Alexander & Voola, Ranjit, 2019. "Feel the VIBE: Examining value-in-the-brand-page-experience and its impact on satisfaction and customer engagement behaviours in mobile social media," Journal of Retailing and Consumer Services, Elsevier, vol. 46(C), pages 149-162.
    12. Merle, Aurélie & St-Onge, Anik & Sénécal, Sylvain, 2022. "Does it pay to be honest? The effect of retailer-provided negative feedback on consumers’ product choice and shopping experience," Journal of Business Research, Elsevier, vol. 147(C), pages 532-543.
    13. Muthaffar, Aisha & Vilches-Montero, Sonia, 2023. "Empowering retailers: A bounded rationality perspective to enhancing omnichannel journey satisfaction," Journal of Retailing and Consumer Services, Elsevier, vol. 75(C).
    14. Han-Jen Niu & Fei-Hsu Sun Hung & Po-Ching Lee & Yensen Ni & Yuhsin Chen, 2023. "Eco-Friendly Transactions: Exploring Mobile Payment Adoption as a Sustainable Consumer Choice in Taiwan and the Philippines," Sustainability, MDPI, vol. 15(24), pages 1-18, December.
    15. Chun-Tuan Chang & Zhao-Hong Cheng, 2015. "Tugging on Heartstrings: Shopping Orientation, Mindset, and Consumer Responses to Cause-Related Marketing," Journal of Business Ethics, Springer, vol. 127(2), pages 337-350, March.
    16. Yuan, Chunlin & Zhang, Chenlei & Wang, Shuman, 2022. "Social anxiety as a moderator in consumer willingness to accept AI assistants based on utilitarian and hedonic values," Journal of Retailing and Consumer Services, Elsevier, vol. 65(C).
    17. Soren, Anup Anurag & Chakraborty, Shibashish, 2023. "The formation of habit and word-of-mouth intention of over-the-top platforms," Journal of Retailing and Consumer Services, Elsevier, vol. 75(C).
    18. Xi, Nannan & Hamari, Juho, 2020. "Does gamification affect brand engagement and equity? A study in online brand communities," Journal of Business Research, Elsevier, vol. 109(C), pages 449-460.
    19. Carlson, Jamie & O’Cass, Aron & Ahrholdt, Dennis, 2015. "Assessing customers’ perceived value of the online channel of multichannel retailers: A two country examination," Journal of Retailing and Consumer Services, Elsevier, vol. 27(C), pages 90-102.
    20. Ong, Chorng-Shyong & Chang, Shu-Chen & Lee, Shwn-Meei, 2015. "Development of WebHapp: Factors in predicting user perceptions of website-related happiness," Journal of Business Research, Elsevier, vol. 68(3), pages 591-598.

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:gam:jsusta:v:15:y:2023:i:13:p:10506-:d:1186321. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: MDPI Indexing Manager (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://www.mdpi.com .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.