Towards a playful organization ideal-type

Values of a playful organizational culture

Conference paper (2011)
Department
Multi Actor Systems (TPM) (TU Delft)
Copyright: © 2011 Warmelink, H., and DIGRA
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Published Date

31-12-2011

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Other than for strictly personal use, it is not permitted to download, forward or distribute the text or part of it, without the consent of the author(s) and/or copyright holder(s), unless the work is under an open content license such as Creative Commons.

Source:

Think Design Play; proceedings of the 5th DIGRA conference, Utrecht (The Netherlands), 14-17 Sept., 2011

Faculty

Technology, Policy and Management

Department

Multi Actor Systems

Abstract

Numerous organizations have embarked on playful endeavors such as serious gaming (playing games with a learning/training purpose) and ‘gamification’ (applying game technology and principles to make existing practices more game-like). One could consequently theorize about the dawn of playful or anizations, i.e. a type of organization that is culturally and structurally playful. This article offers a first step towards a playful organization theory. It specifically offers a conceptual framework of a playful organizational culture. Following a review of play theory as well as organization and management theory that was inspired by play, the author describes a playful organizational culture as encompassing contingency, opportunism, equivalence, instructiveness, meritocracy and onviviality as values. The framework offers leaders, managers and game/play designers opportunities to further develop playful endeavors for organizations. It also offers social scientists opportunities to further research the emergence and issues of playful organizations.

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