Gamification in Greek Social Enterprises

Social enterprises are an important type of business. In recent years, several kinds of social enterprises have emerged in order to facilitate people—mainly with minor opportunities—to penetrate into the market. However, most of these social enterprises face serious internal problems in their operation that undermine their viability. The lack of members’ communication as well as of cooperative culture are among them. In Greece, there exists strong opportunistic behavior among members of social enterprises because of these attributes. It appears that the traditional methods of cooperative education are not appropriate. The aim of this paper is to examine whether gamification, as an innovative digital educational tool, can reduce opportunistic behavior that creates obstacles in interpersonal communication. According to the literature review, gamification can enhance the cooperative culture among members. Unfortunately, although this is applied in both developed and developing countries with impressive results on social enterprises, in Greece it is at an early stage. Qualitative research was conducted with cooperative and market experts as well as cooperative members/CEO in early 2022. The first results reveal that such methods are missing from the market and are an important methodological tool especially for categories of people with a wide range of interests and knowledge. Gamification can easily and pleasantly transfer knowledge and experiences to people for whom traditional methods of education are not suitable.