Experiencing Human Energy at Work: A Study of How Individuals Experience Human Energy in Their Work Lives

Experiencing Human Energy at Work:A Study of How Individuals Experience Human Energy in Their Work Lives This research developed an experience-based definition of human energy in the workplace and detailed descriptions of human energy processes at work. The theoretical lens for the study was Collins’s (2004) theory of interaction ritual chains. Drawing from Husserlian phenomenology, this study employed a methodology designed by Moustakas (1994) combined with Flanagan’s (1959) critical incident technique. Participants in this study were from the health, information technology, engineering, and psychology disciplines. The life-centered, existentially based definition developed through this research was a distillation of the essences and meanings described by the study participants from their horizons of the phenomenon of human energy. Descriptions of energy, lack of energy, and depleting energy experiences arose in a variety of aspects of workplace energy processes. Participants' energy experience narratives suggested how human energy changes with variations in the work environment, including some of the conditions under which an individual is aware or unconscious of his or her energy. Implications for theory, research, and practice are discussed.

Author

• Taylor, Mary Theresa Schmidt

Language

• en

Keyword

• qualitative research
• energy change processes
• interaction ritual chains
• human energy
• work
• critical incident technique

Date created

• 2015

Type of Work

• Dissertation

License

• All rights reserved

Rights statement

• In Copyright

GW Unit

• Education and Human Development

Degree

• Ed.D.

Advisor

• Casey, Andrea J.

Committee Member(s)

• Callahan, Jamie
• Schwandt, David R.

Persistent URL

•  https://scholarspace.library.gwu.edu/etd/n009w2365