Announcing the Final Examination of Steven Clapp for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy
Psychological flow is a positive mental state where one is so fully concentrated in a challenging task that the reward is the experience of meeting the challenge. Previous research on flow in the workplace has been focused on creative endeavors, where individuals have high agency over their execution of work activities. This present research focuses on flow in back-office transactional work, which has been little studied to date. Transactional work are those tasks that are largely rote, repetitive, and prescribed by standardized procedures, leaving little room for agentic options. Examples of such work include data entry and bookkeeping. A theory is discussed that proposes a holistic system of non-task variables combining with job tasks to create conditions conducive to increasing the likelihood of transactional workers experiencing flow. Flow will next be compared to similar constructs. Various flow measurement methods will be presented. These discussions lead to the present set of empirical efforts, whose objective is to support the holistic work system approach to creating flow. First, a phenomenological study of flow in transactional workers is presented, where their lived experiences of flow are documented as are the extent to which certain non-task work system variables support the occurrence of flow. Next, a proof-of-concept laboratory experiment is reviewed, where seat comfort (a non-task work system factor) is shown to be a first-order influencer of flow. Finally, the results of a designed experiment incorporating multiple non-task work system factors are presented and the interaction of high seat comfort and low computer screen contrast are shown to directly impact the occurrence of flow in that study's participants. Flow is also shown to predict productivity improvements in participants when combined with high seat comfort and low computer screen contrast. Additionally, certain physiological functions thought to correlate to flow are measured in the participants. The results are applicable to the design of holistic work systems in organizations employing back-office transactional workers. Recommendations for future research are presented that will strengthen and build on the current results.
Committee in Charge: Waldemar Karwowski, Peter A. Hancock, Ahmad Elshennawy, Dag Naslund
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