Is more Fun, Fun? : A study on the Perceptions of a Fun Working Environment in a Swedish Context

Sammanfattning: Creating a fun working environment has garnered a lot of attention in recent years from both researchers and managers. By creating a workplace that is perceived by employees as fun, managers hope to increase the employee’s motivation and in doing so increase the creativity and lower the turnover rate. The way managers try to create a fun working environment is by introducing fun events. Previous studies have emphasized the its potential benefits, leaving potential harmful effects of it an under researched topic. Thus, this research study focuses on exploring if and why supposedly fun events in the work environment have the opposite effect. In order to so the following research question was formulated: “What are the causes and consequences of Swedish employee’s negative perception of a fun working environment?” The theoretical framework examined the Affective Events Theory to help identify relevant concepts and theory to build a solid theoretical foundation for this research study. The insights from the Affective Events Theory model served as an inspiration for the theoretical synthesis of this research study. The model helps understand the empirical data and the analytical process by demonstrating how the different aspects intersect and interact with one another to form an outcome. The qualitative data collection and analysis revealed that there are several factors which cause a negative perception of employees on a fun working environment, including the work environment, fun work events, personal predispositions and leadership.