Thin Ice: Teasing Play as a Network-Forming Force in Organizations

Abstract

Play is a deeply human constitutive activity of organizational life, which may manifest in several distinct processes. In the present study, the author compasses a particular culturally relative form of play, namely teasing in the workplace setting. Conducting a meta-synthesis of adjacent streams of literature, the author reframes the concept of teasing and inspects it through the analytical lens of play. The research unfolds how teasing behaviour may form an invisible meta-network in organizations, which may fundamentally affect group and organizational dynamics.