10/23/2024
By Esi Adeborna

The Department of Operations and Information Systems at the Manning School of Business invites you to attend a doctoral dissertation defense by Esi Adeborna on “Gamification and Fairness in Enterprise Systems: Addressing User Experience Gap and Popularity Bias.”

Candidate Name: Esi Adeborna
Degree: Doctoral
Defense Date: Friday, November 8, 2024
Time: 11:30 a.m. – 1:30 p.m. EST
Location: Virtual (Zoom link)

Questions, please contact Xiaobai_Li@uml.edu

Committee:
1. Luvai Motiwalla (Chair), Ph.D., Department of Operations & Information Systems, UMass Lowell
2. Berk M Talay, Ph.D., Department of Marketing Entrepreneurship and Innovation, UMass Lowell
3. Xiaobai (Bob) Li, Ph.D., Department of Operations & Information Systems, UMass Lowell
4. Jennifer Xu, Ph.D., Department of Computer Information Systems, Bentley University

Abstract:

In today’s fast-paced, data-driven business landscape, Enterprise Systems (ES) such as Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) systems serve as the operational backbone of organizations. These platforms facilitate the integration of various business functions, including finance, human resources, supply chain management, and customer relations. Despite their importance, two significant challenges persist: (1) the lack of positive user experiential outcomes in ERP systems, and (2) the presence of popularity bias in Enterprise Systems, particularly within recommender systems (RS). This dissertation addresses these challenges through two essays.

Essay 1 (Chapter 1) employs a design science approach to enhance both the instrumental (task-related) and experiential (user-related) aspects of ERP systems by introducing gamification. The aim is to create a design that not only fosters enjoyable and engaging experiences for users but also improves key task outcomes within the ERP environment. This study develops a conceptual design for gamified ERP systems, instantiated and tested through a gamified web application (GWA). A mixed-method evaluation, combining quantitative user surveys and qualitative feedback from expert interviews, was conducted to assess the effectiveness of this conceptual design and the GWA artifact. Chapter 2: To better understand the mechanisms and pre-determinants of the effects of gamification on psychological outcomes, the study further investigates the impact of achievement-oriented gamification elements on both subjective outcomes, such as users’ behavioral intentions, and objective outcomes, such as performance metrics. By drawing on Self-Determination Theory (SDT) and the Cognitive-Affective-Conative (CAC) framework, this work deepens theoretical and practical understanding of how gamification affects user behavior and performance within ERP systems.

Essay 2 (Chapter 3) takes a multidimensional empirical approach to examine the issue of popularity bias in recommender systems. This study explores how imbalances in input data influence recommendation outcomes and tracks the evolution of these biases over time. The findings reveal that different recommendation algorithms have varying effects on popularity bias. Furthermore, the dynamic nature of popularity bias indicates that its impact changes depending on different user profiles. In response to these findings, we propose the development of fairness-aware and diversity promoting recommendation algorithms designed to balance multiple objectives of fairness, diversity and accuracy. This algorithm aims to produce more equitable outcomes for diverse user profiles while maintaining the relevance and quality of recommendations.

All interested students and faculty members are invited to attend.