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Does fun work? The complexity of promoting fun at work

Abstract For some years now there has been growing enthusiasm amongst practitioners, managers and some academics about the value of promoting fun at work, resulting in a substantial body of managerial literature. As a result, the authors believe that fun at work deserves further research attention. In this paper the authors critically review the large body of practitioner and management literature promoting fun at work. We find this literature dependent on a number of untheorised, untested assumptions about the nature of fun, its desirability and usefulness to business. Utilising Schein’s organisational theory, alongside ethnographic research into fun at work, we highlight the complexity of implementing fun at work initiatives in practice. Drawing on organizational psychology we also make a short case study of the current use of fun at work as a job marketing tool by recruitment agencies in New Zealand. Our discussion does make it possible to come to some conclusions about fun at work. However, we also pose a series of research questions that emerge from our discussion that will provide a framework for ongoing research.