Despite the hype surrounding work-embedded play, the prevailing conclusion that leader-initiated work-embedded play (LWP) is uniformly beneficial for employees has been challenged. Drawing on attribution theory and the job demands-resources model, we identify both the beneficial and detrimental effects of LWP and propose that these effects depend on how employees make attributions: when employees make a well-being attribution of LWP, LWP is positively associated with employees’ energy, which in turn contributes to well-being and work effort; however, when making a performance attribution, employees tend to experience performance pressure following LWP, increasing work effort but decreasing well-being. Our hypotheses were supported in both a field study and an experiment. Overall, this research contributes to the work-embedded play literature by revealing the positive and negative effects of LWP as well as the boundary conditions of employee attributions.
