Design for Pride in the Workplace

Abstract

Background Pride is one of the most meaningful experiences in daily life. Many psychological studies emphasize self-oriented and event-based achievements as the main sources of pride, whereas work from organizational management considers pride as a collective attitude derived from other-focused activities and fostered by the sense of belongingness. Taking the interdisciplinary aspects of pride into account, this article addresses the challenge of how experience design can contribute to pride experience in the workplace. Methods By cross-cutting theories from psychology and organizational management, this study introduces a framework of dynamic pride. The data includes 20 experience design cases that were specifically devoted to positive experiences in the context of the metal and engineering industry. 33 pride-related experience design goals were analyzed and categorized into the framework of pride. Results This study introduces the social and temporal dimensions of pride experience at work. The pride-related experience design goals fall into four categories: self-focused short-term pride, self-focused long-term pride, other-focused short-term pride, and other-focused long-term pride. Accordingly, the extracted design strategies of these goals were mapped to each type of pride. Most of these design strategies were clustered in the categories of self-focused short-term pride and other-focused long-term pride. Conclusions This study reveals the design strategies for dynamics of pride in the workplace varying from evoking self-achievement in individual interactions with tools to maintaining long-term motivation of self-competence development, and from highlighting one’s contribution in face-to-face collaborative work facilitated by interactive tools to fostering co-experience of organizational pride throughout social events.