Serious Games and Their Use in HRM: A Typology of Uses in CAC40 Companies

The purpose of this article is to build a typology of serious games based on their use in human resources management (HRM). To construct this typology, an inventory was made of all the serious games used by CAC40 companies. Of these, 114 serious games have been identified for the 43 listed companies since December 2011. These games have been classified into 3 categories and 11 subcategories based on their designated uses. This is the first study to demonstrate that all CAC40 companies use serious games, with seven such companies adopting at least five games. This research is also the first to offer a detailed typology of serious games based on their use in HRM. The discussion will demonstrate how this typology can help to operationalize the concept of serious games for HR managers to better understand and choose their specific HR uses.