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At work in the toybox: bedrooms, playgrounds and ideas of play in creative cultural work

At work in the toybox: bedrooms, playgrounds and ideas of play in creative cultural work
At work in the toybox: bedrooms, playgrounds and ideas of play in creative cultural work
Key companies and commentators on the new economy have identified play as a crucial aspect of entrepreneurship and commercial innovation. We will argue that play and place are inseparable in these discourses: from places such as Google's HQ - the Googleplex, with its ball pits and slides - to schemes and practices such as LEGO Serious Play, children's play and sites of play are taken as the model for, and wellspring of, imagination and creativity, modes and spaces of thinking and experimentation that can invigorate and innovate the adult worlds of cultural and technological production. Taking as case studies Google's reimagining cultural practices of play, and LEGO Serious Play's deployment of playful experimentation for corporate / therapeutic ends, this paper argues that to understand the possibilities of playful working places, it is necessary to question the generally uncritical assumptions about the character and potential of play itself that underpin these initiatives.
play; creativity; management; LEGO; Google; LEGO Serious Play
1465-7503
81-89
Ashton, Daniel
b267eae4-7bdb-4fe3-9267-5ebad36e86f7
Giddings, Seth
7d18e858-a849-4633-bae2-777a39937a33
Ashton, Daniel
b267eae4-7bdb-4fe3-9267-5ebad36e86f7
Giddings, Seth
7d18e858-a849-4633-bae2-777a39937a33

Ashton, Daniel and Giddings, Seth (2018) At work in the toybox: bedrooms, playgrounds and ideas of play in creative cultural work. The International Journal of Entrepreneurship and Innovation, 19 (2), 81-89. (doi:10.1177/1465750318757157).

Record type: Article

Abstract

Key companies and commentators on the new economy have identified play as a crucial aspect of entrepreneurship and commercial innovation. We will argue that play and place are inseparable in these discourses: from places such as Google's HQ - the Googleplex, with its ball pits and slides - to schemes and practices such as LEGO Serious Play, children's play and sites of play are taken as the model for, and wellspring of, imagination and creativity, modes and spaces of thinking and experimentation that can invigorate and innovate the adult worlds of cultural and technological production. Taking as case studies Google's reimagining cultural practices of play, and LEGO Serious Play's deployment of playful experimentation for corporate / therapeutic ends, this paper argues that to understand the possibilities of playful working places, it is necessary to question the generally uncritical assumptions about the character and potential of play itself that underpin these initiatives.

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Ashton and Giddings (2018) At work in the toy box - Accepted Manuscript
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2_Ashton_and_Giddings_2018_At_work_in_the_toy_box - Accepted Manuscript
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More information

e-pub ahead of print date: 8 February 2018
Keywords: play; creativity; management; LEGO; Google; LEGO Serious Play

Identifiers

Local EPrints ID: 417839
URI: http://eprints.soton.ac.uk/id/eprint/417839
ISSN: 1465-7503
PURE UUID: a3cb3456-c38e-45c8-af6b-04b7f25a48a9
ORCID for Daniel Ashton: ORCID iD orcid.org/0000-0002-3120-1783
ORCID for Seth Giddings: ORCID iD orcid.org/0000-0001-7323-9184

Catalogue record

Date deposited: 15 Feb 2018 17:30
Last modified: 16 Mar 2024 06:12

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