Researching the serious side of fun

If you think work can’t be fun or that research has to be boring, you’ve never met Lynn Harland, Ph.d. Dr. Harland, associate dean in the College of Business Administration, has turned the topic of “fun in the workplace” into the subject of some very enlightening and interesting research.

“Companies differ widely in terms of the workplace fun opportunities they provide their employees,” she says. “Our research explores how people differ in their perceptions of workplace fun opportunities.”

Her team’s findings suggest that people vary widely in their attraction to specific “fun” activities. “These differences aren’t just a function of gender and age as you might suspect, but also depend upon employee personalities and organizational context, such as, whether the company is for-profit versus non-profit.”

She also has conducted research looking at how employees react to taking personality tests (“By and large, they do not like them.”) and how leaders in- fluence the degree to which employees bounce back from adversity. Leadership is more than a research subject for Dr. Harland. She also teaches it.

Essential Leadership Skills is a core course in the College’s MBA program. This is the first course all MBA students must take, and it focuses on developing students’ skills in listening, giving feedback and coaching employees, delegation/ empowerment, goal-setting, and collaborating effectively in team discussions.

The course has been positively received by MBA students, Dr. Harland says, “and our empirical research indicates we have been able to significantly improve a wide variety of students’ skills over the course of a semester.”

She also teaches the required management course in the MBA program. In its overview of a wide array of management topics, the course explores organizational culture, leadership, group dynamics, motivation, and perceptions and attitudes. Students also read books describing how these topics play out in real-world corporations and organizations.

“When I run into alums who took the course years earlier,” she says, “they share vivid memories of the books they read in the course regarding companies such as Enron, Arthur Andersen, Southwest Airlines, General Motors, IBM, the IRS and so on.”

Dr. Harland, who earned her Ph.D. from the University of Iowa, is well respected by her students and fellow faculty. Among her honors, she garnered the 2003 University Excellence in Teaching Award, the 2004 MBA Professor of the Year Award, and the 1998 and 2002 Dean’s Citation Teaching Awards.

She also has been involved in the inception and development of UNO’s unique Center for Collaboration Science, which brings together faculty and ideas from all six UNO colleges.

New to Nebraska when she accepted a faculty position at UNO two decades ago, Dr. Harland was uncertain how long she might stay at UNO. “I quickly realized that it would be hard to match the wonderful faculty, staff and students we have here.”

“I’m often awed by the high quality of work our students produce; they raise the bar for all of us. I’m humbled by the dedication I witness from the staff at UNO and the extraordinary feats they accomplish. And I find it inspiring to have innovative faculty colleagues who constantly strive to enhance the quality of their teaching and scholarly research.”

As associate dean, she helps CBA Dean Louis Pol focus his time on more strategic and external tasks by taking on some of the day-to-day administrative duties. She resolves student issues, helps recruit adjunct professors, serves as a liaison with other colleges and attends many, many meetings.

“There’s no shortage of meetings, and they often seem to occur back-to-back throughout the entire day,” she says, chuckling. “But really, no two days are alike, and the one thing you can count on in this job is that you will never be bored. Exhausted, yes, but never bored. I really do enjoy my job and the people I work with.” That’s why, when it comes to researching fun in the workplace, Dr. Harland has a few of her own experiences to add to the data.