Bright sides of boredom at the workplace: A theoretical framework

Abstract

The management literature describes workplace boredom and related behaviors mostly as counterproductive and deviating, leading to negative outcomes at the individual and organizational level. However, psychological literature suggests boredom to be a functional emotion. This article introduces this positive approach towards boredom to the management literature. Specifically, we provide a comprehensive theoretical model of the positive effects of employees' boredom at the workplace, providing testable propositions. Based on the job-demands resources model, we argue that boredom can constitute a challenging demand leading to three approach-oriented coping behaviors (task-unrelated thought, changing task engagement and other task engagement), which in turn, lead to positive work-related outcomes, such as creativity, learning and own development (individual level), innovation, higher performance through taking on additional tasks, more challenging tasks or varying tasks, helping and network building (organizational level) and general pro-social behavior (societal level). We identify personal and job resources, which potentially foster these approach-oriented coping behaviors against boredom, namely different characteristics of an individual's personality (personal resources), as well as adhocracy culture and empowering leadership styles (job resources).