Sub-theme 39: The Games Organizations Play: The Uses and Effects of Play at Work
Call for Papers
Making work more play-like is an increasingly sought after ideal among organizations striving to be “good organizations.”
However, as noted in the conference theme, the aspiration of integrating play and work is laden with tensions. As play and
games gain traction as viable strategies to promote employee motivation, creativity, and social connectedness, these strategies
may be appropriated in harmful ways.
This sub-theme intends to further the conversation around
- the different uses and understandings of the concept and practice of play at work, including the growing trend of games at work;
- the potential benefits of play; and
- the potential risks and challenges associated with how play and games are incorporated into organizational life.
To play is a basic human trait – homo ludens is an inalienable denizen of our society (Huizinga, 1955) – and as such, play is in fact unavoidable in organizational life. However, play and work historically behaved like two positively charged magnets, resulting in incommensurable ways of creating social order. But, this appears to be changing (Statler et al., 2009; Sorensen & Spoelstra, 2011). The entwined notions of play and game are making visible inroads into organizational life, resulting in hybrid forms of social order (Vesa, 2013; Warmelink, 2014). Practices such as gamification (e.g., Hamari, 2013), game-based learning (e.g., Harviainen & Vesa, 2016) and play-like remuneration (e.g., Werbach & Hunter, 2012) are finding increasing shelf-space in popular business sections.
Yet, this
mutual rediscovery of work and play results in complex appropriations. Games, be they for playful entertainment or work-like
utility, function as major carriers of organizational practice and discourse. They influence how we structure organizations,
with whom we desire to interact, how we allocate reward and recognition, how we mobilize creativity and innovation and how
we construe of the ethical rules by which we operate, to name but a few. With the growing importance attributed to play and
games at work, organizational scholarship can draw on diverse theoretical traditions to contribute to the discussion on the
uses of play and games at work, including what constitutes play, how are play and game conceptually distinct, and what makes
a good game? As we deepen our understanding of these questions, we must also consider the potential benefits and costs of
play and games at work.
There are numerous potential benefits of play, perhaps the most obvious being that
play is intrinsically appealing or fun (Abramis, 1990). Social scientists have established the importance of play in contributing
to employees’ mental and emotional well-being (Sutton-Smith, 1997; Brown & Vaughan, 2009). Play can add a layer of fun
and humanity to the work, producing feelings of wholeness, authenticity, and total presence in collective unity. Play is also
thought to superimpose organic personal relationships upon mechanistic work relationships, helping reduce potential feelings
of isolation by masking individual differences and renewing communal identity (Sutton-Smith, 1997). Another common benefit
attributed to play in organizational research is creativity (Mainemelis & Ronson, 2006). Play produces a spatio-temporal
space wherein workers feel free to imagine and explore new possibilities (Brown & Vaughan, 2009). In play, mistakes are
not discarded as disturbing anomalies, but can trigger exploration and practice with minimal consequences (Winnicott, 1971).
Play is the “primary place for the expression of anything that is humanly imaginable” (Sutton-Smith, 1997, p. 226), which
can enhance organizational adaptability.
Despite the potential benefits of play, there remains a tension
as games are becoming increasingly contested organizational practices. A key challenge is that when play is deliberately stipulated
to fulfill some managerial mandate rather than entered into for its own sake, as is often the case with burgeoning use of
game-structures or gamification at work, it may no longer be experienced as play (Statler et al., 2009). Games can be a perversion
of play that, instead of promoting increased positive affect, social connection, and creativity, instead result in bitterness,
artificial relationships, competitive animosity, and a loss of creativity caused by an efficiency-driven, “winning is everything”
mentality. A game mentality can be used to justify unethical actions by framing such action as simply “playing the game.”
Games are not the only source of risk in the use of play at work. Fostering playfulness can undermine personal and professional
integrity, masking alienation and reinforcing asymmetrical power relations.
Potential themes to examine include, but are not limited to, the following dimensions of play/work-interactions:
- The nature, role and consequences of actual ‘serious’ games and business simulation in organizations as well as recent business appropriations of games and play
- How are and why are game-like structures introduced into organizational design and practice? Do such initiatives also introduce, more broadly, play-like affordances?
- Theoretical cross-fertilization between organization and game studies with the intent of enriching organization theory through theories of play, and vice-versa
- New forms of organizational design and leadership indigenously emerging inside complex games. In particular, we are interested in elaborations of playful practice
- The ethical ramifications of appropriating play/game discourse into other, and potentially subversive or even perverse, contexts
- Play and the future of organizations, workplaces, the economy, and the rising workforce
- Social, cognitive, and affective resources generated through play
- Games as way to create, disseminate, or recontextualize organizational knowledge
- Play as a mechanism for masking alienation and reinforcing asymmetrical power relations
References
- Abramis, D. (1990): “Play in work: childish hedonism or adult enthusiasm.” American Behavioral Scientist, 33, 353–373.
- Brown, S., & Vaughan, C. (2009) Play: How it Shapes the Brain, Opens the Imaginations, and Invigorates the Soul. New York: Aevry Penguin Group.
- Hamari, J. (2013): “Transforming homo economicus into homo ludens: A field experiment on gamification in a utilitarian peer-to-peer trading service.” Electronic Commerce Research and Applications, 12 (4), 236–245.
- Harviainen, J.T., & Vesa, M. (2016): “Massively Multiplayer Online Games as Information System: Implications for Organizational Learning.” In: T. Kaneda, H. Kanegae, Y. Toyoda & P. Rizzi (eds.): Simulation and Gaming in the Network Society. New York: Springer, 199–214.
- Huizinga, J. (1955): Homo Ludens: A Study of the Play Element in Culture. Boston: Beacon.
- Mainemelis, C., & Ronson, S. (2006): “Ideas are born in fields of play: Towards a theory of play and creativity in organizational settings.” Research in Organizational Behavior, 27, 69–81.
- Sorensen, B., & Spoelstra, S. (2011): “Play at Work: Continuation, Intervention and Usurpation.” Organization ,19 (1), 81–97.
- Statler, M., Roos, J., & Victor, B. (2009): “Ain’t Misbehavin’: Taking Play Seriously in Organizations.” Journal of Change Management, 9 (1), 87–107.
- Sutton-Smith, B. (1997): The Ambiguity of Play. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.
- Vesa, M. (2013): There be Dragons! An Ethnographic Inquiry into the Strategic Process and Practices of World of Warcraft Gaming Groups. PhD Dissertation, Hanken School of Economics, Helsinki, Finland.
- Warmelink, H. (2014): Online Gaming and Playful Organization. New York: Routledge.
- Werbach, K., & Hunter, D. (2012): For the Win: How Game Thinking Can Revolutionize your Business. Philadelphia: Wharton Digital Press.
- Winnicott, D.W. (1971): Playing and Reality. London: Tavistock.