Boredom at work: a forgotten dimension in theoretical and technical texts?

• Grant number: 18/05096-0
• Support Opportunities: Scholarships in Brazil - Scientific Initiation
• Start date: July 01, 2018
• End date: June 30, 2019
• Field of knowledge: Interdisciplinary Subjects
• Principal Investigator: Valquíria Padilha
• Grantee: Maria Thereza Campos Reis dos Santos
• Host Institution: Faculdade de Economia, Administração e Contabilidade de Ribeirão Preto (FEARP). Universidade de São Paulo (USP). Ribeirão Preto , SP, Brazil

Abstract

Boredom is widely characterized as a negative state: the bored subject is the one who has no interest in the circumstances in which he finds himself. Especially when we talk about boredom at work, damaging implications both for those affected by boredom and the organizations they are part of arise. We have noticed in exploratory readings that boredom at work has been a relatively neglected subject in the Brazilian scientific literature, which would represent a gap in the national academic production. We also noticed an absence of discussions about such phenomena in textbooks of people management/human resource management and organizational behavior. If we consider that students and professionals use these works to support learning and organizational practice, we can assume that they have not been adequately prepared to deal with boredom at work and its correlates and also that they acquire an incomplete view of the relationship between the worker, their emotions and the work environment. In this research, divided into two main stages, we intend to carry out a systematic review of the literature to identify how national and international academic production has discussed boredom and boredom at work and then a summative content analysis (qualitative) of people management/human resource management and organizational behavior textbooks in order to examine whether and how technical texts address boredom at work. We hope to contribute by developing critical analyzes of the reasons why boredom at work has been a forgotten dimension in such textbooks. (AU)