Patterns of Fun: An overview

Commerce and Management

Fun means different things to different people. These different perceptions of fun are based on demographic differences, hierarchy, role requirements and diversity among people. Dictionary definitions of fun reference elements of enjoyment, amusement, playfulness and pleasure and all of these elements may be relevant in modern workplaces. Fun is a “playful social, interpersonal, recreational, or task activities intended to provide amusement, enjoyment, or pleasure. Drawing on recent literature and empirical data, the purpose of this paper is to use three different forms of workplace fun: managed, organic and task fun. organic, which emerges from employees; managed, which stems from managers; and task, which results from an interaction of employees with the tasks they are assigned. This tripartite division recognizes fun as a multifaceted concept (Tews et al., 2012), yet these three aspects of fun have not been extensively explored in previous research. The three types of fun may potentially compete or even result in misunderstandings that can negatively impact morale and workplace relationships. Hence this division reveals the underlying tensions of paradox inherent in workplace fun. This has implications for how fun is enacted, encouraged and even managed in organizations (Warren and Fineman, 2007a).

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