Workplace fun: the moderating effects of generational differences
| Date | 02 October 2009 |
| DOI | https://doi.org/10.1108/01425450910991767 |
| Published date | 02 October 2009 |
| Pages | 613-631 |
| Author | Eric Lamm,Michael D. Meeks |
| Subject Matter | HR & organizational behaviour |
Workplace fun: the moderating
effects of generational
differences
Eric Lamm and Michael D. Meeks
College of Business, San Francisco State University, San Francisco,
California, USA
Abstract
Purpose – This paper aims to investigate how generational differences moderate the relationship
between workplace fun and individual workplace outcomes.
Design/methodology/approach – The authors review and integrate the literatures on workplace
fun and generational theory and empirically test the interaction effects of generation membership and
workplace fun with job satisfaction, task performance, and OCB using a sample of 701 workers.
Findings – The findings suggest that not only do members of different generational cohorts respond
differently to workplace fun, but cohort membership moderates the relationship between workplace
fun and some individual workplace outcomes.
Research limitations/implications – Snowball sampling and cross-sectional data limit the
generalisability of the study’s findings.
Practical implications – The authors provide managerial implications for promoting workplace
fun.
Originality/value – The paper contributes to the workplace fun conversation by addressing the
overlooked question of “fun for whom?”.
Keywords Workplace, Agegroups, Employee behaviour, Employeeattitudes
Paper type Research paper
Introduction
There is a growing notion in both academic (e.g. Karl and Peluchette, 2006; Karl et al.,
2005) and popular press literatures (e.g. Zbar, 1999) that workplace fun can have
positive individual and organisational implications. Academic studies have linked
workplace fun with job satisfaction (Karl and Peluchette, 2006) and organisational
citizenship behaviour (OCB) (Fluegge, 2008), while popular press articles have made
the link to increased creativity and innovation (Abramis, 1989; Caudron, 1992) and
decreased absenteeism and burnout (Mayer, 1999). Evidence suggests that having a
positive mental attitude increases oxygen flow, endorphins and blood flow to the brain,
enabling clearer and creative thinking (Urquhart, 2005). Overall, then, workplace fun is
growing in acceptance and popularity, having outlived the “fad” life cycle (Fleming,
2005) – an important distinction as fads have been characte rised as having symbolic
utility but little organisational improvement (Abrahamson, 1991).
Changing workforce dynamics, including the flattening of organisations, a more
casual work environment, and highly cited examples such as the famously successful
Southern Airlines and Googleplex, may have led to a simplistic assumption that more
fun is always better. At the same time, despite calls to the importance of context
The current issue and full text archive of this journal is available at
www.emeraldinsight.com/0142-5455.htm
Workplace fun:
generational
differences
613
Received 31 January 2009
Revised 8 June 2009
Accepted 16 June 2009
Employee Relations
Vol. 31 No. 6, 2009
pp. 613-631
qEmerald Group Publishing Limited
0142-5455
DOI 10.1108/01425450910991767
(Griffin, 2007; Rousseau and Fried, 2001), little conceptual or empirical attention
identifies boundary conditions or contextual characteristics of when workplace fun
endeavours will have positive implications and when these might actually prove
negative. Moreover, a persistently overlooked question remains: fun for whom?
Workforce fun and its consequences may be influenced by a host of individual
difference factors, such as age, gender, personality, education, background, and more,
but there has been little focus on the person to whom fun is being directed. Rather than
attempting to map all potential influences, in this paper, we focus on one specific area
– i.e. era of origin – and sugg est an analytical framework that conditions the positive
outcomes of workplace fun on the common values and behavioural tendencies of the
generational cohort of which an individual is a member.
The workplace fun construct
Articles from the popular press have referred to workplace fun as taking your work
seriously, but not necessarily yourself seriously (Strand and Steinauer, 2000). From a
prescriptive point of view then, it would seem that workplace fun happens when work
and play are successfully intermixed (Owler, 2008) to create a calm, stress-free, and
happy environment (Urquhart, 2005). The nascent workplace fun literature draws
heavily from an established literature on organisational humour, and while beyond the
scope of this paper, a generational differences perspective may also contribute to our
understanding of the positive effects of humour in the workplace.
A number of recent studies have sought to map workplace fun as a construct. Ford
et al. (2003, p. 22) conducted a study of 572 human resource managers and suggested
that an environment is considered fun when it “intentionally encourages, initiates, and
supports a variety of enjoyable and pleasurable activities that positively impact the
attitude and productivity of individuals and groups”. Further, they argued that fun
goes beyond job satisfaction to involve activities that convey a sense of “pleasantness,
happiness, and positive well-being that makes working not only satisfying but also
fun” (Ford et al., 2003, p. 23). Seeking to validate the fun-at-work construct and scales in
a doctoral dissertation, McDowell defined fun at work as “engaging in activities not
specifically related to the job that are enjoyable, amusing, or playful” (McDowell, 2004,
p. 9). Fluegge, in a recent doctoral dissertation, developed a model of workplace fun
that includes construct dimensions, process mechanisms, and performance outcomes,
and building upon McDowell’s (2004) work, defined fun at work as “social,
interpersonal, or task activities at work of a playful or humorous nature which provide
an individual with amusement, enjoyment, or pleasure” (Fluegge, 2008, p. 15). In
appreciation of the conceptual evolution of the workplace fun construct, we define fun
as:
Workplace fun: Playful social, interpersonal, recreational, or task activities intended to
provide amusement, enjoyment, or pleasure.
It is important to acknowledge the distinction between formal initiatives of workplace
fun and the organically emergent fun that has been described by authors such as Roy
(1958) and Ackroyd and Crowdy (1990), and to acknowledge that in addition to
performance outcomes, workplace fu n is likely to have personal and social
consequences. The lack of recognition and integration of these construct dimensions
and outcomes represent a fundamental weakness of the mainstream literature on
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