Flow at Work: Measurement and Implications

Flow can be defined as the experience of being fully engaged with the task at hand, unburdened by outside concerns or worries. Flow is an enjoyable state of effortless attention, complete absorption, and focussed energy. The pivotal role of flow in fostering good performance and high productivity led psychologists to study the features and outcomes of this experience in the workplace, in order to ascertain the impact of flow on individual and organizational well-being, and to identify strategies to increase the workers’ opportunities for flow in job tasks.

This ground-breaking new collection is the first book to provide a comprehensive understanding of flow in the workplace that includes a contribution from the founding father of flow research, Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi. On a conceptual level, this book clarifies the features and structure of flow experience; and provides research-based evidence of how flow can be measured in the workplace on an empirical level, as well as exploring how it impacts on motivation, productivity, and well-being. By virtue of its rigorous but also practical approach, the book represents a useful tool for both scientists and practitioners. The collection addresses a number of key issues, including:

• Core components of how the idea of flow differs from experience in the work context
• Organizational and task-related conditions fostering flow at work
• How flow can be measured in the workplace
• The organizational and personal implications of flow
• The relationship between task features and flow opportunities at work

Featuring contributions from some of the most active researchers in the field, Flow at Work: Measurement and Implications is an important book in an emerging field of study. The concept of flow has enormous implications for organizations as well as the individual, and this volume will be of interest to all students and researchers in organizational/occupational psychology and positive psychology, as well as practitioners and consultants with an interest in employee motivation and well-being.

Clive Fullagar is a professor at Kansas State University, USA. His research interests started out by developing a psychological model of commitment to, and participation in, labor organizations. More recently his research interests have broadened to the study of engagement in work, and specifically the phenomenon of "flow" in the workplace and its organizational and individual consequences.

Antonella Delle Fave is professor of psychology at the University of Milano, Italy. Her studies concern optimal experience and individual psychological selection, that is the lifelong process of differential replication and cultivation of activities and competencies. Her cross-cultural studies have produced the largest international data bank on these topics. On the basis of research findings, she has developed and supervised intervention projects in the domains of health and education, disability and social maladjustment.