Talent Development through Gamification in the Field of Accounting and Finance

Business professionals should enrich themselves with accounting knowledge which requires critical thinking, problem solving skills in addition to technical skills to succeed in the knowledge based economy. But it is often observed that entry level employees consider it as an abstract & boring field. Although the need of accounting & finance knowledge has been increased due to UAE shift towards VAT, block chain, industry revolution & their vision of being knowledge economy. In this paper, an exploratory research has been presented by introducing games as a complementary tool to theoretical training of Introduction to Finance Accounting to develop accounting talent in innovative way. It has been argued that the game can be used as a powerful tool in making accounting training more interesting, hence increasing engagement & motivation.This paper aims at showing the use of the gamification project in talent development as a practice that will stand-in the motivation of employees as well as their understanding of the basic accounting concepts.The perceptions of sixteen employees and six trainers from corporate training department in the United Arab Emirates relating has been studied. The impact of games in an accounting course were disclosed through semi structured interviews, prior to the sample being interviewed, they had been exposed to play three different types of games.The exploratory research found that trainers and trainees believe that games can motivate employees and help them in maintaining their enthusiasm and engagement in learning an introductory accounting course. They do agree that games should be used for making them understand real practical applications. The trainees highlights that games are one of the motivational factors to maintain interest consistently and excitement of applying the concept in real world.This exploratory research will give an idea of innovative method of developing talent through accounting and finance related training. It will assist trainers to understand the fact that the use of games can make absurd, complex and quantitative subjects like finance & accounting easy to understand and entertaining without sacrificing the quality of knowledge in the subject matter