Moving boredom from problem to opportunity: A psychoanalytic perspective on workplace boredom and identity in organizations
Abstract
The study develops novel perspectives on workplace boredom by investigating how conscious and unconscious aspects of identity work drive responses to it. Based on a psychoanalytic, specifically Lacanian, analysis of 56 narratives in which individuals recount their experience with boredom at work, it explores why boredom is so often portrayed as dysfunctional. The study also examines why it is important to understand and strengthen boredom’s more functional aspects. Specifically, the study advances the idea that boredom offers discursive resources to construct identities in more or less empowering ways with the potential for returning us to the creative possibilities inherent in each lived moment. Implications of this perspective are discussed.
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Biographies
Michaela Driver researches alternative and psychoanalytic approaches to a wide range of organizational topics such as organizational identity and learning, trust, motivation, stress, psychological contracts, identity work, creativity, embodied subjectivity and leadership. Journals in which Michaela’s work has been published include Organization Studies, Human Relations, Academy of Management Learning & Education, Organization, Management Learning, Journal of Organizational Change Management, Journal of Business Ethics, and Journal of Management Inquiry. She serves on several editorial boards including Human Relations, Organization Studies, Organization, Management Learning, and the Journal of Management Inquiry.
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Article first published online: September 14, 2022
Issue published: September 2022
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