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Serious play as a practice of paradox
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Statler, M., Heracleous, Loizos Th. and Jacobs, Claus D. (2011) Serious play as a practice of paradox. Journal of Applied Behavioral Science, Vol.47 (No.2). pp. 236-256. doi:10.1177/0021886311398453 ISSN 0021-8863.
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Official URL: http://dx.doi.org/10.1177/0021886311398453
Abstract
A recent stream of organizational research has used the term serious play to describe situations in which people engage in playful behaviors deliberately with the intention to achieve serious, work-related objectives. In this article, the authors reflect on the ambiguity of this term, and reframe serious play as a practice characterized by the paradox of intentionality (when actors engage deliberately in a fun, intrinsically motivating activity as a means to achieve a serious, extrinsically motivated work objective). This reframing not only extends the explanatory power of the concept of serious play but also helps bridge the concerns of scholars and practitioners: first, by enabling us to understand a variety of activities in organizations as serious play, which can help practitioners address specific organizational challenges; second, by recognizing the potential for emergent serious play, and the creation of the conditions to foster this emergence; third, by pointing toward specific, individual or group-level outcomes associated with the practice; and finally, by uncovering its ethical dimensions and encouraging the understanding of the role of serious play on ethical decision making.
Item Type: | Journal Article | ||||
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Divisions: | Faculty of Social Sciences > Warwick Business School > Marketing & Strategic Management Faculty of Social Sciences > Warwick Business School |
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Journal or Publication Title: | Journal of Applied Behavioral Science | ||||
Publisher: | Sage Publications, Inc. | ||||
ISSN: | 0021-8863 | ||||
Official Date: | June 2011 | ||||
Dates: |
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Volume: | Vol.47 | ||||
Number: | No.2 | ||||
Page Range: | pp. 236-256 | ||||
DOI: | 10.1177/0021886311398453 | ||||
Status: | Peer Reviewed | ||||
Publication Status: | Published | ||||
Access rights to Published version: | Restricted or Subscription Access |
Data sourced from Thomson Reuters' Web of Knowledge
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