Dear Faculty and Fellow Ph.D. Students,

I cordially invite you to attend my dissertation defense scheduled for Thursday, May 21st, from 10:00 to 11:30 AM in Room 223, Scheller College of Business. Please find an overview of the dissertation included below. Copies will be made available upon request.

You  are also welcome to join virtually via the following Zoom link: https://gatech.zoom.us/j/91943023069

Kind regards,

Eun Soo Son

PhD Candidate, Organizational Behavior

Georgia Institute of Technology | Scheller College of Business

eunsoo.son@scheller.gatech.edu

Area: Organizational Behavior

Committee Members: Dr. Christina E. Shalley (Chair), Dr. Terry C. Blum, Dr. Katie L. Badura, Dr. Hyunsun Park, and Dr. Fadel K. Matta (University of Georgia)

Title: Waking Up from a Daydream: Unveiling the Curiosity-Driven Outcomes of Social Daydreaming at Work

Dissertation Overview:

Daydreaming—the act of mind wandering that departs from the here and now—occupies a substantial proportion of waking thought and much of it is known to be predominantly social. While daydreaming of any kind has long been viewed as futile, recent research highlights the affective and relational benefits of social daydreaming in particular. Acknowledging its prevalence and extending existing findings, social daydreaming may act as an underrated driver of employee outcomes in the workplace, especially by engaging thoughts and images that vary in psychological distance. Hence, drawing on construal level theory, I propose that daydreaming involving others elicits I-type and D-type curiosity—the desire for new information or knowledge to either explore new areas or resolve uncertainty—in distinct ways, with the construal level during social daydreaming shaping how each type arises. I further argue that these two types of curiosity, prompted by social daydreams, differentially motivate workplace behaviors, as I-type curiosity drives exploration while D-type curiosity fosters exploitation. Results across the two studies—an experiment using a critical incident technique and a field experience sampling study—yield mixed findings, providing partial support for the model. Overall, the findings support the effect of high construal level on I-type curiosity and the interactive effect of social daydreaming and construal level on I-type curiosity, which in turn relates to exploration and exploitation. Theoretical and practical implications of this model are discussed.