University of Amsterdam
Faculty of Economics and Business
Master Thesis M.Sc. Business Administration
Track: Entrepreneurship and Management in the Creative Industries
Managing pedagogy and entertainment in serious
game development: The role of the project leader
Dunya Ressang
11148306
June 2016
Supervisor: Mr. J.F.E. de Groot
Second assessor: Mr. E. Dirksen
Statement of Originality
This document is written by Student Dunya Ressang who declares to take full
responsibility for the contents of this document.
I declare that the text and the work presented in this document is original and
that no sources other than those mentioned in the text and its references have
been used in creating it.
The Faculty of Economics and Business is responsible solely for the
supervision of completion of the work, not for the contents.
Abstract
One of the key challenges for serious game development companies is to effectively balance pedagogy and entertainment within serious games. Since most studies so far have focussed on
the application of serious games when addressing this issue, this study assessed how project
leaders manage this issue within serious game development. To investigate this matter, twelve interviews were conducted involving project leaders in serious game development throughout
the Netherlands. Based on the findings, serious game development showed to entail four distinct
phases, namely a problem phase, a research phase, a concept phase and a prototype phase. The project leader forms the centre between the development team and client throughout these
phases. Within each phase, the project leader manages pedagogy and entertainment in different
ways. The findings show that project leaders replace controlling practises within serious game
development by undertaking different roles, namely an educating role for the client, a coaching role for the development team and a translating or facilitating role for managing the relationship
between client and development team. This is vital as the clients mainly emphasize the
pedagogic elements of serious gaming while the developmental teams have their focus on the entertainment aspect. Via the undertaking of different roles the project leader effectively
manages the balance between pedagogy and entertainment throughout the developmental phases of serious gaming.
Table of Contents
Statement of Originality ... II
Abstract ...III
Table of Contents ... IV
1. Introduction...1
1.1. What is a serious game? ...1
1.2. Objective of the study...2
2. Literature Review ...5
2.1. Leadership in the creative industries...5
2.1.1. Different approaches to leadership ...6
2.1.2. The project leader...9
2.2. Creativity in serious games development ... 10
2.2.1 Practises in managing creativity... 11
3. Research Methodology... 14
3.1. Research strategy and design ... 14
3.2. Sample and data collection... 15
3.3. Method of analysis... 18
3.4. Quality of the Research ... 20
4. Results ... 22
4.1 Context of Serious Game Development ... 22
4.1.1. Relationships between Target Audience, Client and
Development Company... 22
4.1.2. Phases in Serious Game Development... 24
4.2. The Problem Phase... 27
4.3. The Research Phase ... 28
4.4. The Concept Phase... 31
4.4.1. Enabling creativity ... 32
4.4.2. Building on expertise ... 34
4.5. The Prototype Phase... 35
4.5.1. Management through communication ... 36
5. Discussion and Conclusion ... 39
5.1. Summary of Findings ... 39
5.2. Discussion of Findings... 39
5.3. Implications ... 43
5.4. Limitations and Recommendations for Future Research ... 44
References... 45
Appendix ... 49
Coding Tree ... 49
Interview Guide ... 50
1. Introduction
1.1. What is a serious game?
A video game that can help a major bank in crisis resolution sounds like a mere joke to many
people. Even so, NetEnquiry is an actual serious game project that is used by major banks and
finance companies to train employees to cope with these realistic scenarios. Serious games can even do a lot more. The numerous application possibilities of serious games are the new topic of
conversation in many industries, but what exactly makes these games so different? There are many definitions of serious games because the term overlaps with concepts such as eLearning,
edutainment and game-‐based learning, but most scholars agree that “serious games are (digital)
games used for purposes other than mere entertainment” (Susi, Johannesson & Backlund, 2007,
p.1). Just like entertainment games, serious games come in many different shapes: mobile applications, simple web-‐based solutions, complex combined applications (for example
combinations of social software applications) or mature computer games (Anderson,
McLoughlin, Liarokapis, Peters, Petridis & de Freitas, 2010). Even though technological
developments in serious games follow similar developments in entertainment game technology (Anderson et al., 2010), serious games offer more than story, art and software, namely pedagogy
(Susi et al. 2007). Pedagogy implies “activities that educate or instruct, thereby imparting knowledge or skill” (Zyda, 2005 in Susi et al., 2007, p.4. The serious games industry has been
growing rapidly the past few decades (Ritterfeld, Cody, & Vorderer, 2009). In this fast-‐paced
field, the United States, Canada and the Netherlands are leading countries with respect to
industry developments and innovations (Maatschappelijke Sectoren & ICT, 2007). Within the Netherlands alone, there are numerous research institutions, companies and freelance
developers that concern themselves with serious game development for a market that is strictly
separated from the market for entertainment games (Maatschappelijke Sectoren & ICT, 2007). Even so, the Serious Games Society (2014) pose the problem that there is promising research on
maturity. They suggest that successful developers are more likely to exploit niche markets
consisting of early adopters, such as health, military, manufacturing and pre-‐school education.
In all these vastly different niche markets, serious games have the same goal: to close the gap
between two vastly different fields, namely pedagogy and entertainment. This is an enormous difficulty in serious game development, since entertainment games are consumer driven and the
concept of learning is often student-‐centred, but educator driven (Becker, 2007). When failing to
achieve this balance, serious games can easily be perceived as boring games and kill-‐and-‐drill learning (Susi et al., 2007). On the other hand, if serious games focus too much on entertainment,
the pedagogic message is lost and the serious game is ineffective (Susi et al., 2007). Because of this tension, serious game developers are faced with the challenge to balance out pedagogy and
entertainment within their serious games. Failing to achieve this balance will result in a failed
product, which is why it is important to research how this balance is managed.
1.2. Objective of the study
The design of serious games is one of the most important aspects for developers in facing this challenge (Dickey, 2005; Rosas, Nussbaum, Cumsille, Marianov, Correa, Flores & Rodriguez,
2003). Tailoring serious games to the target audience’s needs concerning the pedagogic aspects
is one of the most basic requirements for developing an effective serious game (Paraskevopoulos, Tsekleves, Craig, Whyatt & Cosmas, 2014). Interestingly, the same study
showed that there is a lack of guidelines for doing so. As such, this it is difficult for serious game
developers to implement and manage pedagogy within serious games, since it requires very specific knowledge of the target audience, which in turn (1) can be used in an entertainment
setting and (2) can form a solid scientific basis for the pedagogical contribution of the game.
Moreover, most serious game development companies work project-‐based are confronted with different target audiences per project, which makes it very difficult to have a sound
Within such uncertain market development, volatile work structure and highly specific
needs for the product, these development companies are highly interesting subjects for research
on leadership. Project leaders may play an interesting role in the challenge to effectively manage
pedagogy and entertainment in serious games. It is shown that leaders in creative product development perform key roles in balancing different tensions inherent to creative industries,
such as market demand and available resources on the one hand and artistic freedom on the
other hand (Lampel, Lant & Shamsie, 2000). More specifically, Cohendet & Simon (2007) showed that project leaders play a decisive leadership role for successful entertainment game
development. Even so, no studies yet have shown the possible importance of project leaders within serious game development. This leads us to the main research question for this study:
How do project leaders within serious game development companies effectively manage the entertainment and pedagogy component in serious games?
Because no studies yet have given a clear overview of the serious game development
process as a whole, this study will first identify the different development phases. After, this
study will look into the practises of project leaders within those phases in order to understand
how management of pedagogy and entertainment takes place in serious game development. Not
only will this provide a structured overview of the serious game development process, it will help the reader to understand dynamics within development that can influence the management
of pedagogy and entertainment. Studies on serious games focus mainly on the application of serious games to show the difficulty in balancing entertainment and pedagogy, but overlook the
relevance of project leaders (Paraskevopoulos et al., 2014; Susi et al., 2007; Van Eck, 2006). Even
though this external orientation is relevant and useful for a better understanding of the workings and effects of serious games, there is a lack of understanding how leadership within
different development phases can have an effect on this balance. Identifying how project leaders
perceive this challenge and offer solutions to it provides valuable insights in both the serious
industries. Mainly, because it will assess contemporary leadership practises in a highly novel
and upcoming field within the creative industry, which is not researched in terms of leadership.
This study answers the research question by conducting twelve semi-‐structured
interviews with project leaders in twelve different serious game development companies. This way, a rich understanding of both the field and differences or patterns amongst development
companies was obtained and used as a basis for inductive research. The results are supported by
the usage of different quotes from the interviews. This study has a descriptive and exploratory aim to identify present leadership practises that project leaders use in facing this challenge.
The structure of the study is as follows. In Chapter 2, an literature review of available
research on the relevant topics for this research is shown. In Chapter 3 an overview on the
research methodology is provided and the quality of this study is discussed. In Chapter 4, the
findings are presented from the interviews with project leaders within serious game
development. Finally, Chapter 5 discusses the findings by relating them back to the literature review and assesses the implications of this study. This chapter also provides a conclusion for
this study, including limitations and recommendations for further research.
2. Literature review
The following literature review has been conducted to assess the academic relevance of this study. First, an overview will be presented of studies on the topic of leadership in creative
industries and the role of the project leader. Second, literature will be assessed that discusses
management of creative and innovative practises within organizations. To conclude the
literature review, the literature is linked to the research question.
2.1. Leadership in creative industries
Within academic literature, leaders are defined as people, who guide, direct, motivate and inspire groups or individuals (Barrett, 2006; Hall, Wysocki & Kepner, 2008). Leadership within
creative industries has been a focus of research in numerous ways (Northouse, 2014), but not
specifically for serious games. For example, research has been done on the subject of dual
leadership structures within the creative industry (Bhansing, Leenders & Wijnberg, 2012),
which focuses on how to successfully combine artistic and business interests in higher
management. Another article on leadership within the creative industry as a whole shows the
challenge of managing different tensions that guide product development (Lampel et al., 2000). Here the article highlights the difficulty in assessing the quality of creative products, because
opinions of quality diverge even stronger in this industry compared to others. More specifically
in the area of games, a study focused on how entertainment game companies internally manage communities of specialists (Cohendet & Simon, 2007). Even though these articles show the
importance of leadership and management within creative industries, none of them focuses
specifically on leadership challenges within serious game development. This is important for this study, since academic literature also shows that effectiveness of leadership can highly vary
based on factors related to team, organization and environment (Morgeson, DeRue & Karam,
environments, target audiences, clients and product purposes, leadership within serious game
development arguably differs from entertainment game development. It is hard to predict from
the field of entertainment games how leaders within the field of serious games manage a tension
between pedagogy and entertainment, since this tension is not present in entertainment games. This is why exploring leadership in this specific field could offer more in-‐depth insights on
leadership differences between entertainment game development and serious game
development. Moreover, assessing leadership practises specifically in serious game development will prove highly valuable for further advancing leadership studies, since it will enable scholars
to contrast leadership practises in serious game development with other fields.
2.1.1. Different approaches to leadership
The concept of leadership has been approached in many ways. While some scholars focus on the
impact of the leaders’ personality traits (Chidester, Helmreich, Gregorich & Geis, 1991; Hogan, Curphy, & Hogan, 1994), research on leadership style and behaviour is most dominant
(Northouse, 2014). Leadership styles are distinguished from one another according to how they
influence organizational performance within an organizational structure (Barret, 2006). The two
most prevalent leadership styles in academic literature are transactional leadership and transformational leadership. Transactional leadership is a style of leadership that is
characterized by three dimensions: contingent reward, active management by exception and passive management by exception (Judge & Piccolo, 2004). Contingent reward is the degree to
which a leader engages in the exchange of rewards contingent with performance. Active
management by exception is the degree to which a leader undertakes corrective actions before follower behaviour creates serious difficulties. Passive management by exception is the degree
to which a leader undertakes corrective action after follower behaviour has created serious
difficulties. On the other hand, transformational leadership is a style of leadership in which the
leader “transforms and inspires other followers to perform beyond expectations, while transcending self-‐interest for the good of the organization” (Avolio, Walumbwa & Weber, 2010,
p. 243). This latter style contains four different factors, namely idealized influence inspirational
motivation, intellectual stimulation and individualized consideration (Northouse,
2014). Idealized influence describes good role model behavior of leaders that are trusted and
respected by their employees. Inspirational motivation describes leaders that motivate employees to commit to the organization. Intellectual stimulation describes leaders that
encourage innovation and creativity through challenging beliefs and views of employees and
promote critical thinking. Finally, individual consideration describes managers who act as coaches for the employees and help them with setting goals and reaching them.
Both leadership styles have been studied on their impact on employee creativity. Studies
show that transformational leadership styles have a significantly positive impact on creativity at
both the individual and organizational level (Gumusluoglu & Ilsev, 2009). Moreover, other
scholars such as Amabile, Hadley & Kramer (2002) and Shalley, Zhou & Oldham (2004) argued
that a focus on enhancing follower motivation is highly preferable over extrinsic reward systems when it comes to enhancing creativity in organizations, which is essential within creative
industries. Even so, Scholars such as Byron & Khazanchi (2012) did show that under the right
conditions, reward systems could stimulate creativity as well. These two leadership styles are
the most prevalent throughout the literature, because of their universality. That is, because within a wide range of organizations and cultures the same conception of phenomena and
relationships can be observed (Bass, 1997). Even so, Bass (1997) also mentioned that exceptions could be made because of unusual attributes to the company or culture. This is of crucial
importance for this study, since apparently no academic studies are available on the topic of
leadership within serious game development, nor is known whether serious game companies operate with unusual attributes. Because of this, this study cannot assume that either
transactional or transformational leadership styles are present in serious game development.
Another way to look at leadership within creative industries is in terms of leadership
behaviour in innovation management through the approach of exploration and exploitation
Both are key approaches for leaders to create a competitive advantage for the company (Chen, et
al., 2010; Rosing et al., 2011). On the one hand, product exploration is defined as “an
organizational emphasis on introducing radical innovations that extend existing product
competencies” (Voss et al., 2008, p. 148). On the other hand, product exploitation is defined as “an organizational emphasis on marketing existing or incrementally modified products that
capitalize on existing product competencies” (Voss et al., 2008, p. 148). When a company is
doing both at the same time, the organizational emphasis is referred to as “ambidexterity” (Voss et al., 2008, p. 161). According to Rosing et al. (2011), exploration, exploitation and
ambidexterity can be related to leadership in three different ways, namely by opening leader behaviours to foster exploration, closing leader behaviours to foster exploitation and a temporal
flexibility to switch between both in accordance to specific situations. They argue that “opening
leader behaviour” is leadership behaviour that encourages experimenting and critical thinking,
especially when the innovation task requires creativity. On the other hand, “closing leader behaviour” is argued as leadership behaviour that includes taking corrective action, monitoring
goal achievement and setting guidelines, especially when the innovation task requires
implementation. To relate this back to game companies, the entertainment game companies that
were researched by Cohendet and Simon (2007) showed signs of organizational emphasis on ambidexterity to nurture the creative potential within different domains of knowledge. In order
to do so, the authors emphasized the importance of project leaders to bind the different creative units together. Since serious game development companies are still part of the creative
industries, creativity should play an important part within these companies. Moreover, as shown
by Cohendet and Simon (2007), project leaders play a key role in game development. Therefore, it is necessary to specifically focus on the role of project leader within this literature review.
2.1.2. The Project Leader
As mentioned earlier, one of the most important leadership positions within game development
is the position of project leader. Project leaders differentiate from traditional project managers,
because they do not only handle the operational side of a project, but also the strategic and
‘human’ side (Shenhar, 2004). Even so, scholars sometimes use the term project managers, while their research actually shows more overlap with characteristics of project leaders (Shenhar,
2004). For this reason, this section will examine studies focussed on project management and
project leadership. According to El-‐Sabaa (2001), effective functioning of the project leader
depends on three skills, namely human skills, organization skills and technical skills. These skills respectively concern ability of the project leader to manage a team within the organizational
framework, to envision the project as a complex and interdependent whole and to have a profound understanding of the required technology for the project. Notably in this article is that
technical skills were rated lowest and human skills highest concerning their perceived
importance within project management. When studying leadership roles within the field of
software development, one could argue that technical skills of the project leader are of higher importance, as shown in a study by Ropponen and Lyytinen (2000) concerning risk
management within software development. According to them, project leaders need to be
educated, experienced and have a profound understanding of the environmental context to deal with risk in software development. Serious game development companies not only deal with
risk management concerning software development, but also concerning the involvement of
multiple stakeholders such as their clients and target audiences. The field of serious games is complex, especially because of the lack of references concerning their unique and tailor-‐made
products. It can be argued that the highest risk factors within general software development
apply for serious game development too, namely commitment by higher management and reception by the target audience (Schmidt, Lyytinen & Cule, 2001, as shown in Keil, Tiwana &
Bush, 2002). Keil et al. (2002) highlight an important issue related to performing the role of
other stakeholders. This is why it is important for this study to assess which parties are involved
in serious game development and how the project leader manages these parties and their risk
perceptions. Moreover, there are relatively small budgets for serious game development
compared to entertainment game development. These budget constrains limit the designer, which is why the use of existing technologies is preferred over the development of game-‐
engines, content and tools from scratch (Stapleton, 2004). Because of this complexity and
limited availability of resources such as finances, game developers need creativity stimulating leaders in developing solutions for their products.
Taken together, it does show that project leadership is widely associated with project
control (Barber & Warn, 2005). Challenges concerning risk management (Ropponen and
Lyytinen, 2000), finance (Stapleton, 2004), skills (El-‐Sabaa, 2001), effective leadership style
(Avolio et al., 2010; Judge & Piccolo, 2004; Bass, 1997; Gumusluoglu & Ilsev, 2009; Northouse,
2014) and leadership within creative industries (Bhansing, Leenders, & Wijnberg, 2012;
Cohendet & Simon, 2007; Lampel et al., 2000) need to be managed correctly in order for a
project to succeed. However, It is widely common that projects go over-‐budget, over-‐time, fail
completely and are faced with unexpected events that disrupts the project plan (Barber & Warn,
2005). This shows that control in project leadership is necessary, but also a real challenge. When it specifically comes to managing pedagogy and entertainment within serious games, literature
on leadership within creative industries suggests there might be a close association with managing creativity within the company. This will be shown in the section below.
2.2. Creativity in serious games development
Since serious games are still creative products, just like entertainment games, it could be argued that how pedagogy and entertainment is managed in serious games shows overlapping
characteristics with how development of creative products is managed. Creativity can be a plausible key factor in serious game development as many business scholars define it as “the
an effective definition of creativity for this study, since this study concerns itself with the
development of novel and socially valued products, namely serious games. Moreover, it is shown
that creativity is also a significant aspect of a game design process, especially when it comes to
solving design-‐related problems (Dorst & Cross, 2001). In serious game design, an example would be the implementation of pedagogy and entertainment within the game by the
developers. What is most interesting for this study is that creativity can be actively influenced
through leadership practises (Amabile et al., 2002; Versaevel, 2015). First of all, it should be noted that other studies make a clear distinction between creativity and innovation, where
innovation is mostly seen as the successful implementation of creative ideas (George, 2007). Keeping in mind that some relevant studies rather use the term innovation, this literature will
focus on how leaders manage creativity in organizations, because of the great relevance this
might have for this study. This way, a solid background can be provided to research how project
leaders manage entertainment and pedagogy within serious game development by focussing on the following concerns: (1) What challenges do leaders face in managing creativity? (2) How is
creativity managed within companies? (3) What are important factors that influence creativity
within organizational contexts? Tackling this issue by looking at creativity management within
the larger organizational context will provide the solid understanding this study needs.
2.2.1. Practises in managing creativity
Broadly seen, the management of creativity within organizations is very delicate and can be
influenced by many factors (Anderson, Potočnik & Zhou, 2014; Cohendet & Simon, 2007;
Bhansing, Leenders & Wijnberg, 2012; George, 2007; Lampel et al., 2000; Shalley et al., 2004). In general, most managers hold a narrow view of the creative process and work environments
within organizations are created to serve the basic business interests such as maximizing
coordination, productivity and control (Amabile, 1998; George, 2007). Important to note is that,
especially within creative organizations, these widely used organizational designs actually crush creativity (Amabile, 1998; George, 2007). This is another tension that shows the importance of
the project leader in maintaining balance between organizational structure and creativity
stimulation amongst employees.
Management of creativity within organizations can be researched through three
essential elements, namely creative thinking, expertise and – most essentially -‐ motivation (Amabile et al., 2002). Interestingly, it is motivation that precedes creative thinking and
expertise. Not only does employee motivation that holds the key to creative output (Shalley, et
al., 2004), it is something that can be actively influenced by leaders trough six practises (Amabile et al., 2002). Firstly, employees should be matched with the appropriate assignment that fits
with their abilities. Second, employees should be given autonomy concerning the process or means, which will create a sense of ownership. Third, the appropriate resources such as time
and money should be provided. Fourth, there should be appropriate work-‐group features, such
as diverse teams in terms of background and perspective. Mannix and Neale (2005) also support
this specific claim through their findings. Fifth, supervisory encouragement should be emphasized to highlight the ‘failure value’ and encourage perseverance, communication and
collaboration. Finally, there should be adequate organizational support, where systems,
procedures and values prioritize creativity.
It is very common that creative organizations handling diverse projects, such as serious
game companies, experience a significant amount of time-‐pressure. Paradoxically, it seems that
creative companies produce unsatisfactory results because of this widely common time-‐ pressure that kills creative thinking (Byron & Khazanchi, 2012). The same authors found that
the organizational environment is an essential determinant in how creativity reacts to time
pressure, through factors such as work focus availability and presence of meaningful urgency. On a more personal level, they found that time pressure in combination with isolation and
having a personal mission-‐feeling can actually greatly enhance creativity. Furthermore, Harrison
& Rouse (2015) emphasise the importance of feedback and judgement by the leader in the
creative process, highlighting the essential value of communication to enhance creativity. Key here is that uncertainty kills creativity and managers play a vital role in clear feedback
communication, goal setting and planning in order to stimulate it (Amabile, 1998; Byron &
Khazanchi, 2012; Harrison & Rouse, 2015).
In sum, the academic literature clearly shows that leadership is a complex topic. Even so,
effective leadership is incredibly important for managing innovation and creativity within game development companies and other organizations. On the one hand, literature suggests that
leadership practises, behaviours and styles can foster innovation and creativity in development
teams. On the other hand, scholars also showed that a lot of leaders hold a very narrow view of the creative process and that project leadership is highly concerned with risk management and
control, which could hamper creativity. The tension between business efficiency and the creative process clearly shows that fostering creativity is an art, not a science. This literature review
shows that tensions in serious games, such as between pedagogy and entertainment, could be
managed through leadership practises. Moreover, this section also shows that project leaders
play a vital role in management of these tensions.
3. Research methodology
In this chapter the research methodology is presented through the following structure: First, an explanation for the chosen research strategy and design is given. Second, a focus on the data
collection and sample is provided. Third, the method of analysis for this study is discussed.
Fourth, the quality of the research is discussed concerning dependability, credibility, confirmability and transferability.
3.1. Research Strategy and Design
The aim of this study is to explore how project leaders within serious game development
manage the tension between pedagogy and entertainment in serious games. Because this is a
new and very specific topic of research in leadership, a strategy is chosen that explores and
describes both the setting of serious game development and its leadership practises. Even though scholars have thoroughly investigated topics such as leadership, there is apparently no
research done on the topic of leadership within serious game development. A reason for this is
that serious games have only emerged as an academic research topic in the last few years and mainly focussed on application opportunities, serious game projects and benefits associated
with these games. Especially for this reason, the aim of this study is not to build upon existing
constructs, but to highlight the unique setting of leadership within serious game companies and how the relations between leader and follower are constructed.
The nature of this research is exploratory and thus will focus on inductive research and
grounded theory (Babbie, 2015; Charmaz, 2003). This would entail that individual cases and experiences will form the basis of developing more abstract conceptual categories for ordering
the data (Charmaz, 2003; Gioia et al., 2013). For this reason, this study will collect data through
semi-‐structured interviews. A semi-‐structured interview can be described as "a one-‐sided
conversation in which the respondent is allowed free rein as long as the interviewer considers that what is being said is, or might be, relevant" (Fylan, 2005). This entails that the content of the
set of questions (Babbie, 2015; Fylan, 2005). Through this approach, a clear overview can be
made of the development process and the management practises within. The literature has been
consulted to form these guiding topics (see Literature Review) with suspension of judgement
about its conclusions to allow for new insights. This will allow the study to contrast and built upon the available knowledge and to provide a valid contribution to academic research,
especially because the topic is still very unexplored.
3.2. Sample and Data Collection
For this study, twelve interviews were held within twelve different development companies in
the Netherlands. The size of these companies varied from three to thirty-‐eight employees and three of those companies are seen as the main frontrunners of serious game development within
the Netherlands. The size of the development teams varied significantly per company, but
contained at least two people in each company, namely a designer and a programmer. While almost all development companies work project-‐based and through clients, one company
produces only one commercial serious game in complete ownership. Furthermore, a few
companies are part of research-‐based institutions such as universities and so, cannot formally be referred to as “companies”. Even so, because of their notable similarity to other development
companies in leadership, development process and organizational structure, they were included
in this study and will be part of the “development companies” this study refers to in the
following sections. All companies develop serious games for public sectors, private sectors or both.
During the data collection, it appeared that respondents preferred the term project
manager instead of project leader, even though they clearly described project leadership practises according to Shenhar (2004). Because of this, this study will remain using the term
project leader instead of project manager. The respondents were project leaders or people with experience in project leadership that currently hold different positions (see Table 1). In two
positions over the development team and were actively involved with (project) leadership
practises, management of the development team and organizational strategies within serious
game development, which make them highly relevant for contributing to the exploratory nature
of this study. Even though there is slight variation amongst respondents, all of them will be referred to as project leaders, as a way to emphasize their central leadership position in serious
game development. Most of the respondents have a background in ICT-‐related studies such as
interaction design and all respondents hold leadership positions over serious game development teams within these companies. This sample was chosen for a number of reasons.
First and foremost, the respondents all have experience with project leadership. Secondly, all respondent work, or have worked, in development companies focussed on serious games.
Because of this, they are familiar with the serious game development process and its challenges.
Third, most of these companies are relatively big in comparison to most serious game
development companies. Because of this size, respondents could provide a better overview of organizational dynamics and company culture. In Table 1 descriptive characteristics of the
respondents are provided. These descriptive statistics include respondent name, their position,
company size, whether or not the company has an internal research expert and the respondent’s
AEM-‐Cube test results. The AEM-‐Cube test (Robertson, 2005) was used as a way of ‘thanking’ the respondents for their time investment, to gain a deeper insight into the respondent’s
leadership orientation and to support claims made in the result section as a form of triangulation (Babbie, 2015), in order to ensure the quality of this study. This test provided an
elaborate report and was used with the aim to uncover whether the respondent is orientated
towards stability or exploration concerning leadership and whether the respondent values human relations over material possessions (Robertson, 2005).
Table 1: Background characteristics of respondents Respondent Position Company Size
(as shown on website)
Orientation
(AEM-Cube Test) Internal expert
A Project Leader 3-‐6 people Exploratorive and
people orientated
no
B Project Leader /
Professor
Differs per project / available interns Exploratorive and people orientated no C Project Leader / Professor
8 people + interns Exploratorive and people orientated
no
D Strategist 17 people Exploratorive and
people orientated
yes
E CEO 3 people Exploratorive and
people orientated
yes
F Strategist 12 people Exploratorive and
people orientated
yes
G CEO 20 people Exploratorive and
people orientated
no
H CEO 18 people Stability and
object orientated
no
I Operational
Manager
38 people Exploratorive and
people orientated
no
J Project Leader Temporary
Collaboration Exploratorive and people orientated no K Project Leader / Professor
5 people Exploratorive and
people orientated
yes
L CEO 6 people Stability and
people orientated
The data collection phase took place between March 2016 and June 2016. Ten interviews
were conducted on location and two through Skype, because of time constrains for the
respondent. All interviews were recorded by use of a Yeti Stereo microphone and the recording
program Garageband to ensure sound quality. After, the interviews were transcribed and coded through NVivo, a software program ideal for coding transcripts effectively (Babbie, 2015). The
respondents were obtained through a non-‐probability sampling method, namely snowball
sampling (Babbie, 2015). This sampling method was an ideal choice because of the familiarity between the different development companies. Within the Dutch serious games business a
significant amount of the companies know one another and maintain remarkably close relationships through co-‐operation, similar backgrounds and education, attending similar events
and conventions, networking and friendly competition. This population is small and relatively
difficult to reach because of these companies’ niche market orientation. Even so, during the data
collection stage it appeared that access could be gained using the knowledge of insiders to further acquire qualified respondents (Biernacki & Waldorf, 1981). Furthermore, research
institutions such as the Netherlands Organisation for Applied Scientific Research (TNO),
Hogeschool voor de Kunsten Utrecht (HKU) and game conventions such as Dutch Game Garden
allowed for quick entrance to the dense network of qualified respondents, which makes snowball sampling the ideal strategy for this study.
3.3. Method of Analysis
To make a correct balance between the actual experiences of people and the scientific theorizing
of that experience, the data was analyzed according to the Gioia methodology proposed by Gioia
et al. (2013). This methodology allowed the data to be clearly structured, and was used to obtain an overview of patterns and key themes. According to Gioia et al. (2013), the Gioia methodology
follows several steps within data analysis to achieve academically valuable insights. First, an initial data coding was performed that maintains the integrity of first-‐order (informant-‐centric)
