Minerva Elements Records

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Playing and fun in the workplace

Abbas Zadegan, Seyed Hossein ( 2012)

This thesis examines the equivocal outcomes of fun in the workplace and establishes that playing and fun in the workplace can be investigated within three schools of thought: the developmental school, the interactionist school, and the political school. Drawing on the literature of workplace fun, appraisal theory, and service employee management literature, a model has been developed. The model consists of four core elements. First, the model uses the contingency approach and establishes that workplace fun may lead to both positive and negative employee emotions depending on contextual factors. The framework suggests some potentially important contextual factors at the individual, group and organisational level. Second, the model differentiates between fun as an episodic activity and fun as a climate. Third, I contribute to the appraisal theory of emotions by explaining how episodic emotions are provoked as a result of fun activities. Fourth, I consider the emotions that service employees display to customers, suggesting that positive or negative emotions of service employees that are caused by fun activities can influence customer satisfaction.