On May 19, 2024, the paper titled 'Having fun and thriving: The impact of fun human resource practices on employees’ autonomous motivation and thriving at work,' co-authored by the faculty and students of the School of Labor and Human Resources at Renmin University of China, was officially published in the top-tier international academic journal Human Resource Management (online link: https://doi.org/10.1002/hrm.22228).

Han Xue, a doctoral student at the School of Labor and Human Resources, is the first author of the paper, with her advisor, Professor Li Yuhui, as the second author and corresponding author, and Dr. Li Jie, Senior Associate Professor at Xi'an Jiaotong-Liverpool University, as the third author.

Human Resource Management is a leading academic journal in the field of human resource management, recognized as FT50, ABS4, and an international A-class journal by Renmin University of China, enjoying wide acclaim in the field of management.

Based on observations of corporate management practices, the paper integrates self-determination theory and person-organization fit theory to propose the mechanism by which fun human resource practices impact employee thriving at work. Through a three-stage questionnaire survey and an experimental study, the paper finds that fun human resource practices can promote employee thriving at work by stimulating employees’ autonomous motivation, with this positive effect being more pronounced for employees who prefer workplace fun.

Theoretically, the paper expands the antecedent research on work thriving and enriches the literature related to human resource management practices. Practically, it provides guidance for enterprises on how to effectively utilize human resource management practices to stimulate employee work vitality and promote employee growth and development.

Han Xue is a doctoral student under the supervision of Professor Li Yuhui, with her main research areas being work thriving, expatriate management, and human-machine collaboration in the digital and intelligent era. She has already published several papers as the main author in authoritative journals both domestically and internationally.