An Exploratory Study of Workplace Fun through the Lens of Working Mothers

Chen, Jqiao Wei (2019) An Exploratory Study of Workplace Fun through the Lens of Working Mothers. Masters thesis, Dublin, National College of Ireland.

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Abstract

Google, Facebook and Airbnb – what are the common aspect these companies have? Fun! Workplace fun has increasingly gaining job seekers’ attention and many surveys and reports are showing the main reason as to why some companies are attracting applicants more than others.

This study aims to explore workplace fun in the context of working mothers in organizations. The main goal is to identify if the positive outcomes of workplace fun is consistent in working mothers. Workplace fun is a relatively new topic in the organizational studies and the relationship between workplace fun and working mothers is limited in literature findings.

The study is carried out through qualitative and inductive approach. The researcher conducted semi-structured interviews on a small sample of six working mothers of different nationalities and age groups with children of around the same age of and one participant have two children over the age of 20s.

The results demonstrated working mothers are not necessarily enjoying workplace fun as much as their colleagues due to family obligations. It has been discovered that working mothers are experiencing guilt when they are away from their children. The participants are not necessarily gaining the benefits of workplace fun as mentioned in previous literature. It also appeared that culture is a big factor as to why the participants are not experiencing workplace fun. The study also explored the stress level of working mothers to find out if workplace fun can act as stress release mechanism. The result shows that indeed working mothers are finding workplace fun as stress releasing. These findings could provoke organizations to create an inclusive working environment for working mothers. Future studies could focus on larger samples or on one organization.

Item Type:	Thesis (Masters)
Subjects:	H Social Sciences > HD Industries. Land use. Labor > HD28 Management. Industrial Management > Human Resource Management H Social Sciences > HD Industries. Land use. Labor > Issues of Labour and Work > Classes of Labour > Women and Work
Divisions:	School of Business > Master of Science in International Business
Depositing User:	Caoimhe Ní Mhaicín
Date Deposited:	21 Oct 2019 14:07
Last Modified:	21 Oct 2019 14:07
URI:	https://norma.ncirl.ie/id/eprint/3989

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