Auflistung nach Autor:in "Kloep, Leonie"

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Flowful work design
(2025) Kloep, Leonie
Modern work contexts present new kinds of changes and flexibilization, digitalization, and new dynamics confront people with novel challenges. These changes also alter opportunities to experience positive states at work, such as flow and team flow. Flow is defined as the state of being completely absorbed in an activity that is perceived as optimally demanding, and it is associated with positive effects on well-being and performance. Similar assumptions apply to team flow, which is defined as a shared experience of flow within a team during optimal team dynamics. Different work design models propose systematically considering the characteristics of a work task to further develop and redesign it towards specific goals. However, the overarching context is often overlooked. This dissertation aims to examine flow and team flow promoting forms of work design from a context-specific perspective. The goal is to identify factors that promote or hinder flow and team flow at work, and to investigate the effect of external contextual factors in challenging work environments. To this end, three examples of modern work contexts are examined: work in a start-up, industrial manufacturing work, and virtual teamwork. Study I employs qualitative interviews to investigate how flow and team flow are experienced during the early start-up stage, which is often characterized by high levels of autonomy and meaningfulness, yet also by uncertainty and lack of support. Some of the influencing factors and consequences discussed are known from previous research, while others appear specifically relevant to the challenges start-ups face. Overall, the importance of promoting flow and team flow in the context of start-ups becomes apparent, and the results provide some recommendations for work design. Study II focuses on manufacturing work, which can be considered a flow-aversive context due to monotony and boredom. The study examines how gamification, a strategy for designing work to promote flow, affects both flow and performance. The study suggests that gamification could be particularly effective at the beginning of work processes; however, flow can also arise in non-gamified manufacturing work via other mechanisms. Study III examines the context of international virtual teams and investigates team flow experiences, exploring the possibility of identifying them through communication parameters. Depending on the task type, the examined communication parameters are insufficient for identifying team flow. Nevertheless, the study makes an important contribution to the ongoing methodological debates in flow research concerning the development of interruption-free measurement approaches. While each of the studies conducted in this cumulative dissertation addresses different research questions, they all contribute to a better understanding of flow and team flow in the workplace. Furthermore, they enable the development of recommendations for work designs that promote flow and team flow. The central results of the three studies are integrated into a work design model. This model is developed as an extension of an Input-Process-Output model and is based on the Job Characteristics Model. The model systematizes the various factors influencing flow and team flow at work, as well as the consequences of these states, with an emphasis on the influence of the context. The relevance of the key contextual factors examined in the dissertation, such as playful approaches and intercultural perspectives in work design, is also addressed. Furthermore, methodological reflections on the dynamics and the measurement of flow and team flow are presented. Based on the three contexts studied, concrete work design practices and recommendations are formulated. Future research should consider additional work contexts relevant to the evolving challenges faced in today's working world and evaluate the effectiveness of specific interventions. The methodological questions raised regarding the operationalization and measurement of flow and team flow should be examined more closely in light of the results. Overall, this dissertation demonstrates that promoting flow and team flow may be possible in challenging and dynamic modern work contexts. However, this is context-dependent and should be planned in a reflective, evidence-based manner.