Gamifying sustainability in hospitality: a stepped leader approach to enhancing employee engagement and behavioral advocacy for sustainability

Purpose This study aims to examine how gamification is associated with employee engagement and behavioral advocacy (BA) for sustainability in the hospitality sector and how these relationships can be understood through a conditional, multi-phase framework. Design/methodology/approach This research used a stepped leader framework, a novel, phased model inspired by atmospheric science. The framework conceptualizes engagement as a stepwise process encompassing three phases: awareness and motivation, implementation and commitment. Findings Findings reveal that sustainability awareness alone is neither sufficient nor necessary to advance engagement. In contrast, gamified motivation and organizational support are essential precursors to implementation enablers, such as system usability and team collaboration (TC). Commitment, measured through BA, depends critically on the convergence of ease of gamified implementation, TC and perceived guest impact. These implementation factors are necessary but not individually sufficient for fostering sustained BA. Originality/value This study contributes by clarifying the explanatory role of the Stepped Leader Framework, demonstrating its value in identifying conditional and non-compensatory relationships across engagement states.