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Discriminating Between ‘Meaningful Work’ and the ‘Management of Meaning’
Abstract
The interest in meaningful work has significantly increased over the last two decades. Much of␣the associated managerial research
has focused on researching ways to ‹provide and manage meaning’ through leadership or organizational culture. This stands
in sharp contrast with the literature of the humanities which suggests that meaningfulness does not need to be provided, as
the distinct feature of a human being is that␣he or she has an intrinsic ‹will to meaning’. The research that has been done
based on the humanistic paradigm has been quite fragmented. This article aims to address these gaps through an action research
project that actively involved participants in the process of affirming and uncovering the meaningfulness of their work. Our
findings contribute to current organizational scholarship and practice as they (a) enable scholars to clearly distinguish
‹meaningful work’ from ‹the management of mean- ing’, (b) bring together the various sources of meaningful work in one framework
and show their relationship with each other, (c) clearly show the importance of engaging with both the inspiration towards
the ideal as well as the often less than perfect self and the organizational reality in which meaning gets expressed and (d)
contribute to our understanding of how to engage individuals in conversations about meaningful work that are not prescriptive
or exclusive, but that also show where meanings are commonly held.
... The above examples align with theoretical claims made by sociologists and critical theorists that active management of meaningful work can be cynically used as a means of enhancing motivation, performance, and commitment [45,66]. This has been called the symbolic manipulation of meaning [67], the colonization of consciousness [68], or governing the soul [69]. ...
... It has been noted that the Great Resignation and Quiet Quitting reflect broader feelings of interpersonal injustice at work [83]. While many organizations made great efforts to say they cared about the well-being of workers over the course of the pandemic, most people can readily identify an incongruence between espoused and enacted values at work [66]. To create conditions that foster decent, meaningful, and self-fulfilling work, organizations must put values into action through concrete organizational policies and practices, which uphold those values and hold leaders accountable for demonstrating them. ...
... Values-driven cultures that espouse and enact values such as care, connection, mutuality, fairness, integrity, and excellence have been linked with meaningful work [70,108]. Similarly, organizational cultures that champion collective decision-making and autonomywhere values are co-created by those who need to live them-have great potential for meaningful work [66,95,109]. With these values acting as a social contract, relationships with others often shape meaning and build belonging, social identity, and shared purpose [39,45,66]. ...
Work is one of the most enduring and consequential life domains regarding how meaning and purpose impact health and well-being. This review first examines scientific findings from the MIDUS (Midlife in the U.S.) national longitudinal study that have linked work to well-being and health. Most have focused on adverse work or work conditions as influences on poor health, with a few recent findings investigating links to purpose and other aspects of eudaimonic well-being. Organizational scholarship is then selectively reviewed to show how meaningful work is often linked to motivation, performance, and commitment. Paradoxically, meaning can also lead to the exploitation and erosion of health and well-being when managed without regard for decent working conditions. Recent workplace phenomena known as the Great Resignation and Quiet Quitting underscore the societal consequences of work without meaning or adequate working conditions. Both the scientific and organizational literature are enriched by a vision of meaningful work rooted in Aristotle’s writings about virtue, ethics, and the realization of potential. Evidence-based practices tied to these eudaimonic ideals are examined at multiple levels, including the societal context (public policy), organizational conditions (culture, human resource practices, leadership), and individual strategies to find meaning, engagement, and fulfillment in work. A concluding section highlights strengths and omissions in the scientific and organizational literature and, going forward, calls for greater interplay among researchers, practitioners, and policymakers in enacting eudaimonic ideals.
... Our research aligns with this study by focusing on the link between the perception of time acceleration and the construction of meaningfulness at work, broadly defined as work that is experienced as significant and purposeful Bowie, 1998;Ciulla, 2000;Lips-Wiersma & Morris, 2009;Michaelson et al., 2014): How do entrepreneurs perceive the acceleration of time and manage their relationship to time in order to give meaning to their work activity? To answer this question, we conducted fifty-four semi-structured interviews with entrepreneurs to examine how they talk about their work rhythm. ...
... The analysis of the perception of time in the workplace may be considered as part of the reflection on meaningfulness or meaningful work (Ashmos & Duchon, 2000;Lips-Wiersma & Morris, 2009;Michaelson et al., 2014). This implies that this reflection focuses less on the components and conditions of meaningful work (Berthoin Antal et al., 2018;Isaksen, 2000;Morin, 2008) and more on the subjective experience of meaning, that is, the process by which meaningful work or meaningfulness is constructed. ...
Temporality is an under-researched area in entrepreneurship and business ethics, even though entrepreneurs are particularly affected by a fast-paced work environment. How do they position themselves in relation to the acceleration of time in order to construct meaning for their activity? We draw on fifty-four semi-structured interviews with entrepreneurs to outline the different ways in which they perceive a faster pace of work. We show how the meaning they give to their activity varies according to whether they accept or resist the acceleration of time: (1) By claiming to accept a high work rate, entrepreneurs may see work as a way of keeping busy, having fun, forgetting, or achieving efficiency; (2) by asserting that they resist the acceleration of time, they view work as a way of setting ethical goals, doing their job better, experiencing unexpected encounters, or being creative. These two different perspectives on time and meaning are not incompatible: It is possible that achieving a harmonic balance between periods of acceleration and deceleration of time may foster the construction of meaningful entrepreneurship.
... Work meaning is a psychological state and subjective perception, which emphasizes the meaningful and valuable psychological feelings that employees experience in the workplace. It is an individual's value judgment of work goals based on personal ideals and standards [30]. Work meaning reflects the connection between individuals and their organizations or workplaces, including commitment, loyalty, and dedication [31]. ...
... Work meaning is a psychological state and subjective perception, which emphasizes the meaningful and valuable psychological feelings that employees experience in the workplace [30]. Work meaning was measured with a 6-item scale developed by Bunderson and Thompson [75], e.g., "Sometimes I feel that I am destined to do this work". ...
In the volatile, uncertain, complex, and ambiguous environment (VUCA), employees can better match the organization and jobs by crafting their job perceptions, work tasks, and relationships, which is valuable to maintain organizational sustainable competitiveness and promote employees’ personal growth. This study explores the influence mechanisms of job autonomy and work meaning on employees’ job-crafting behaviors and the moderating effect of perceived organizational change through a survey of 318 employees in Chinese companies. The results show that job autonomy and work meaning can promote employees’ job-crafting behaviors by increasing individuals’ harmonious work passion. The indirect effects of job autonomy and work meaning on employee job-crafting behaviors through harmonious work passion are stronger for individuals with high perceived organizational change relative to those with low perceived organizational change. Organizations should concentrate on job redesign to improve employees’ job autonomy and work meaning. A climate of change should also be created within the organization to keep employees aware of the crisis. Meanwhile, employees should actively use work resources to meet the changing needs of organizational development and promote individual career development through job-crafting behaviors.
... This is built on the 'workcentric perspective' on meaningful work, which suggests that work itself, rather than individual attributes, plays a key role in fostering meaningful work (De Boeck et al., 2019). However, this stream of research has been criticized for neglecting individuals' fundamental need for meaningful work (Bailey, 2017;Lips-Wiersma & Morris, 2009). ...
... In the first aspect, meaning and meaningfulness are distinguished (Borges, 1999;Borges et al., 2008;Hackman & Oldham, 1975). In the second one, they are treated as synonyms or complements (Borges & Barros, 2015;Borges et al., 2008, Cavalheiro, 2010Lips-Wiersma & Morris, 2009;Morin, 2001;Pratt & Ashforth, 2003). In some studies, for example, meaningfulness of work is considered a component of meaning of work (Bispo & Dourado, 2013;Lemos et al., 2015;Morin, 2001; Meaning of Working Research Team [MOW], 1987). ...
Objective: Find evidence of empiric relations among work identity, meaning and meaningfulness of work in the immigration context. Method: Systematic literature review, adopting PRISMA recommendations. The following database has been consulted: Scopus, Web of Science, SciELO, PsycInfo and Lilacs. Empiric articles available between 2010 and 2020 have been used, with work identity, meaning and meaningfulness of work, immigration and immigrant descriptors in Portuguese and English. Data analysis: Thematic content analysis. Results and Conclusions: Twenty-seven articles have been found. The created categories considered each construct separately, being three for work identity, two for meaning of work and none for meaningfulness of work. The main conclusions were that work identity in a host country depends a lot of the environment characteristics, institutional recognition and social status, and on immigrant personal characteristics. In addition, the type of career favors or hinders redefinition of work identity.
... Implications on Well-Being Steger et al. (2012) note that perceptions of meaning can be operationalized by two contrapositions, namely a "presence of meaning" or a "search for meaning". Other scholars point toward an additional dimension, that of experiencing the lack or an absence of meaning (see Bailey & Madden, 2016;Lips-Wiersma & Morris, 2009). In comparison with the presence of meaning at work, the implications of experiencing a lack of meaning at work (Bailey & Madden, 2016) and searching for meaning at work (Steger et al., 2012) have received lesser research attention. ...
At its heart, the leadership literature suggests that alongside influencing individuals towards organizational objectives, one of the fundamental role of leaders involves creating meaning at work for organizational members. Similarly, the job design literature prescribes steps organizations can take to enhance individuals’ perceptions of meaning at work. With more individuals pursuing meaning at work, more organizations have begun to recognize the importance of fostering work that can be personally significant and meaningful to organizations members. While a number of studies have focused on the sources of meaning at work and the subsequent outcomes of fostering meaning at work, few studies have investigated the implications of the absence or the drive to find meaning at work. In the current chapter, we provide an overview of the meaning at work literature and shed light on the implications of the three dimensions of meaning at work, that is the presence, absence and quest for meaning at work. These implications are arguably critical to understand how organization members view, perceive and interpret their work and themselves. We conclude with recommendations on how not only organizations and leaders, but also individuals themselves can enhance the meaning at work.
Keywords: meaning at work, presence of meaning at work, absence of meaning at work, search for meaning at work
... Systems thinking can be linked to the value of harmony as a dynamic, generative process that seeks to balance and reconcile differences and conflicts through creativity and mutual transformation (Li 2014). Harmony can be achieved at three levels: within a person, between people, and in the relationship between people and nature (Mak et al. 2020). ...
The paper analyzes Senge’s (1990) philosophy of learning organization from the aspect of learning disciplines with the aim of establishing that it is impossible to apply the original concept without considering and applying the missing link – spirituality or spiritual practice. Based on the literature review, the complementarity of spiritual practice with the learning organization disciplines is demonstrated with the aim of providing guidelines for applying the original concept of the learning organization based on the synergistic efforts of individuals dedicated to learning and spirituality. This paper also answers the question of authors such as Solomon (1994) and Hammond and Wille (1994) as to whether the learning organization is just a myth, as well as Pedler and Burgoyne (2017) who question whether the learning organization is still alive. It also refutes Pava’s (2003) thesis that spiritual practice causes passivity; on the contrary, it supports the transcendental aspirations of learning individuals and learning organizations.
... This is, for instance, typified by the definition of Lips-Wiersma and Wright, who argued that meaningful work is "an individual, subjective and existential concept that is distinct from, but influenced by, organizational antecedents and outcomes" (Lips-Wiersma and Wright, 2012, p. 657). One of the important distinctions that was drawn based on this concept, was the idea that there are both self-and other-oriented dimensions of meaningfulness (Lips-Wiersma and Morris, 2009;Rosso et al., 2010;Lips-Wiersma and Wright, 2012;Steger et al., 2012;Martela and Riekki, 2018), with contributing to society falling within the other-oriented dimension. ...
This paper examines the concept of “contributing to society” in the context of meaningful work and calling. While previous studies have identified it as a significant dimension within these concepts, little attention has been paid to trying to conceptualize it. Also, with “self-oriented” fulfillment being an important aspect of the experience of meaningfulness, the understanding of contribution to society might be more complex than being simply an “other-oriented” concept. In response to this conceptual unclarity, we define contributing to society as a belief individuals hold about whether tasks positively impact work beneficiaries. We integrate this with Situated Expectancy-Value Theory (SEVT) to determine the expected task value of such belief. Our argument is that fulfillment of a contribution depends on three factors: (1) the expectation of a contribution based on someone's calling and expected meaningfulness; (2) the extent to which the employee is invested in the task, the costs of such task, whether the beneficiary and impact value and the utility for the self and beneficiary match the preference; (3) the extent to which this contribution is sufficient considering someone's expectation. Therefore, the expected task value can differ between individuals concerning the number and types of beneficiaries and the extent and value of the impact. Moreover, in this way contributions to society should also be perceived from a self-oriented perspective to be fulfilling. This original concept offers a theoretical framework and a research agenda that proposes new avenues of inquiry for calling, meaningful work, contributing to society, and related fields such as job design, and public policy.
... Although philosophers have long debated whether meaningfulness is a subjective phenomenon, determined by the individual, or an objective phenomenon with clear references to moral conditions in which work is performed (e.g., Wolf, 2010). At the same time, meaningful work scholars have considered the well-being of others as a dimension of what makes work meaningful (e.g., Lips-Wiersma & Morris, 2009;Rosso et al., 2010). Yet, with a few exceptions, scholarship has rarely asked whether meaningful work must be good for others beyond ourselves (e.g., Michaelson, 2021;Veltman, 2016). ...
The world of work over the past 3 years has been characterized by a great reset due to the COVID-19 pandemic, giving an even more central role to scholarly discussions of ethics and the future of work. Such discussions have the potential to inform whether, when, and which work is viewed and experienced as meaningful. Yet, thus far, debates concerning ethics, meaningful work, and the future of work have largely pursued separate trajectories. Not only is bridging these research spheres important for the advancement of meaningful work as a field of study but doing so can potentially inform the organizations and societies of the future. In proposing this Special Issue, we were inspired to address these intersections, and we are grateful to have this platform for advancing an integrative conversation, together with the authors of the seven selected scholarly contributions. Each article in this issue takes a unique approach to addressing these topics, with some emphasizing ethics while others focus on the future aspects of meaningful work. Taken together, the papers indicate future research directions with regard to: (a) the meaning of meaningful work, (b) the future of meaningful work, and (c) how we can study the ethics of meaningful work in the future. We hope these insights will spark further relevant scholarly and practitioner conversations.
... Rego & Pina e Cunha, 2008 Sense of contribution to community Opportunities for inner life 25. Lips & Morris, 2009 Alignment between values 26. Alignment between values Sense of contribution to community 27. ...
Recent years have witnessed increasing numbers of articles published on workplace spirituality; however, there has been an overall lack of consensus on the findings. This article has assembled findings on workplace spirituality from the articles that have been written in the last 17 years (2000-2016) through the systematic review process. This systematic review aims to synthesize findings on five dimensions of workplace spirituality from Rego, Cunha, and Souto's conceptual framework (2007). Those five dimensions are the team's sense of community, alignment between individual and organizational values, sense of contribution to the community, sense of enjoyment at work, and opportunities for the inner life. The author initially selected 450 papers on workplace spirituality through a literature search from four databases. After shortlisting all the articles, the final number of papers included in the review was 66. Based on the systematic review, this article has elaborated on the past research trends and an identified list of potential variables (religion, humanism, ethics/morality, and mindfulness) for future studies. Theoretical and methodological issues have also been discussed based on the findings from the review process.
... In the first aspect, meaning and meaningfulness are distinguished (Borges, 1999;Borges et al., 2008;Hackman & Oldham, 1975). In the second one, they are treated as synonyms or complements (Borges & Barros, 2015;Borges et al., 2008, Cavalheiro, 2010Lips-Wiersma & Morris, 2009;Morin, 2001;Pratt & Ashforth, 2003). In some studies, for example, meaningfulness of work is considered a component of meaning of work (Bispo & Dourado, 2013;Lemos et al., 2015;Morin, 2001; Meaning of Working Research Team [MOW], 1987). ...
The objective of this chapter is to find evidence of empiric relations among work identity, meaning and meaningfulness of work in the immigration context. The method used was systematic literature review, adopting PRISMA recommendations. The following database has been consulted: Scopus, Web of Science, SciELO, PsycInfo and Lilacs. Empiric articles available between 2010 and 2020 have been used, with work identity, meaning and meaningfulness of work, immigration and immigrant descriptors in Portuguese and English. Data was analyzed with thematic content analysis. Results show twenty-seven articles have been found. The created categories considered each construct separately, being three for work identity, two for meaning of work, and none for meaningfulness of work. The main conclusions were that work identity in a host country depends a lot of the environment characteristics, institutional recognition and social status, and on immigrant personal characteristics. In addition, the type of career favors or hinders redefinition of work identity.
... It also flags the inherent fragility and fluidity of body-centric meaning-making (Cunliffe & Coupland, 2012;Prasad, 2014;Cunliffe & Locke, 2020;Nettifee, 2020). This lens draws further attention to the many and diverse types of body labor (Jammaers et al., 2016) disabled workers deliberately engage in to claim and maintain their values and rights (Lips-Wiersma & Morris, 2009;Yeoman, 2014;Beadle, 2019;Cuilla, 2019). ...
A 22-month longitudinal study of (self)employed disabled workers (Following the preference of the lead author who identifies as disabled, the linguistic self-presentation by our participants, the precedent of (Hein and Ansari, Academy of Management Journal 65:749–783, 2022), and the clarification note included in Jammaers & Zanoni’s recent review of ableism (Jammaers and Zanoni, Organization Studies 42:429–452, 2021), we chose, and consistently use, the term “disabled employees” throughout the paper. We do so to underscore the premise of the social model of disability, which explains that “people are disabled first and foremost by society, not by their individual, biological impairment. To us this term most clearly highlights that it is society (and possibly organizations) that disable and oppress people with impairments, by preventing their access, integration and inclusion to all walks of life, making them ‘disabled’.” (Jammaers and Zanoni, Organization Studies 42:429–452, 2021: 448)) models the growing centrality of the body in meaning-making. We inductively explain how body dramas of suffering or thriving initially instigate cycles of meaning deflation and inflation at work. Our disjunctive process model shows that, at the beginning of the pandemic, disabled workers performed either dramas of suffering or on dramas of thriving. However, as the global pandemic unfolded, disabled workers begun crafting composite dramas that deliberately juxtaposed thriving and suffering. This conjunctive process model stabilized meaning-making at work by acknowledging the duality of the disabled body, as both anomaly and asset. Our findings elaborate, and bridge, emerging theories of body work and recursive meaning-making to explain how disabled workers explicitly enroll their bodies to make meaning at work during periods of societal upheaval.
... As social beings, people cannot experience meaningfulness entirely within themselves, but have to seek to understand their place in the wider world and their contributions to society in the organizational context (Pratt & Ashforth, 2003;Michaelson, 2011;Tablan, 2015). Indeed, organizations create settings that are more or less conducive to one's search for meaning Lips-Wiersma & Morris, 2009). Therefore, it is important for researchers to figure out factors within the organizational context that would strengthen meaningful work (Lysova et al., 2019;Michaelson et al., 2014). ...
This study pays attention to within-person fluctuations in meaningful work and its antecedents and consequences. Considering self- and other-oriented dimensions as crucial pathways to meaningful work, effects of daily perceived autonomy support and prosocial impact on one’s meaningful work were examined. A daily diary study was conducted in which 86 nurses from varied hospitals reported their work experiences for 10 consecutive workdays (860 occasions). Results of multilevel modeling showed that both day-level perceived autonomy support and prosocial impact were positively related to day-level meaningful work, which served as the mediator between them and work engagement. Prosocial orientation strengthened the positive relationship between day-level perceived prosocial impact and day-level meaningful work. However, autonomy orientation negatively moderated the effect of day-level perceived autonomy support on day-level meaningful work, suggesting the necessity to distinguish between assisted and asserted autonomy orientation. Our findings illustrate the transient and dynamic nature of meaningful work and provide empirical evidences linking suggested managerial practices to employees’ meaningful work.
... Öyle ki, gönüllülerin ihtiyacı ve örgütün çabasını uyumlu bir düzlemde buluşturmak gerekmektedir (Chalofsky, 2003;Lips-Wiersma ve Morris, 2009;Michaelson vd., 2014). Çünkü kişi-örgüt uyumu birçok olumlu örgütsel çıktının temelinde yatmaktadır. ...
Bu araştırmada, kişi-örgüt uyumunun yapılan gönüllü işin anlamlılığının önemli bir öncülü olup olmadığı tespit edilmeye çalışılmıştır. Çünkü STK’larda ücret karşılığında olmadan çalışan gönüllülerin STK-gönüllü değerlerinin uyuşması önemli bir motivasyon ve anlam kaynağı olabileceği düşünülmektedir. Bu amaçla çeşitli STK’larda aktif olarak gönüllü olan 233 kişiden anket tekniğiyle veri toplanmıştır. Anket formunda; demografik soruların yanı sıra kişi-örgüt uyumu ve işin anlamlılığı ölçeklerine yer verilmiştir. Katılımcılardan elde edilen veriler; korelasyon ve yapısal eşitlik modeliyle analiz edilmiştir. Yapılan analizler sonucunda; kişi-örgüt uyumu ile işin anlamlılığı arasında önemli düzeyde pozitif bir ilişkinin olduğu tespit edilmiştir. Ayrıca kişi-örgüt uyumunun, işin anlamlılığını pozitif şekilde etkilediği ve düzeyinin artmasında önemli bir öncül olduğu saptanmıştır. Sonuç olarak değerler, inançlar hedefler ve beklentiler açısından gönüllü-STK uyumunun, gönüllülerin işi değerli, önemli ve faydalı olarak algılamalarında rol oynadığı söylenebilir. Çünkü gönüllülerin manevi faktörlerle ve işin anlamlılığıyla motive olduğu görülmektedir. Bu durum anlamlı işin iyi bir kişi-örgüt uyumu gerektirdiğini ortaya koymaktadır.
... Leadership retreats provide opportunities for club leaders to learn compassionate, nurturing coaching skills. This leadership practice aligns with a values-based holistic leadership model (Best, 2010;Lips-Wiersma & Morris, 2009). The ALOHA values set forth by KCC founders in the original mission statement guide those leadership practices. ...
Work meaning is a frequently mentioned career concept but it has been often discussed as meaningfulness only. Many work meaning models in Taiwan are adapted from the western one and no emic work meaning model has been proposed. Furthermore, the previous studies tend to focus on the motivational work meaning (i.e., work purpose) and no emphasis has been on the process work meaning, which is made during work task completion. This study expands work meaning into three elements: work meaning, meaningfulness, and work meaning belief. This is also an emic study to construct an indigenous work meaning model in Taiwan. The data of high school teachers’ meaning making for work task completion was used to demonstrate an integration of the three work meaning elements. The study results 47 work meaning and 6 work meaning factors. The work meaning factors are presented in a two-dimensional plane, where the two dimensions are origin (intrinsic-extrinsic) and effect (fulfilling-gaining). Factor analysis and latent profile analysis of the teachers’ endorsement of the 6 work meaning factors result a single meaningfulness and three types of teachers’ work meaning belief.
We reviewed the academic literature on meaningful work. For employers keen to adopt an evidence-based approach to raising levels of meaningful work, accessing and understanding relevant research findings can be a challenge. We explain key concepts and report on findings concerning the mechanisms of meaningful work and how organisations can foster meaningful work experiences for employees. The report is one of the outputs from the King's Business School Meaning and Purpose Network (MaPNet).
In this article, I present a sociological approach to the problem of meaningful work that dwells on its broad social and cultural sources, as opposed to the focus on subjective and organizational factors currently prevailing in the field. Specifically, I consider two sociological perspectives, those of community and autonomy, as important conceptual tools for understanding the ambivalent character of modern culture in providing individuals with a sense of meaningfulness of their activities. I also review some of the existing research on meaningful work and interpret it through this conceptual distinction, both to show the latter’s relevance for the field and to identify the gaps it might help fill. As a result, based on the sociological perspectives, I propose a general conceptual model and discuss five directions to further advance the theoretical comprehension of meaningful work, and I suggest some implications of these perspectives for normative business ethics.
Anti-work philosophy holds that work, in and of itself, tends to be harmful for most people. Some anti-work theorists even advocate for the abolition of paid employment altogether. We argue that, while endorsement of the radical ideology of anti-work is in no way necessary for I/O psychologists, considering the thinking behind these ideas can be beneficial. In fact, reviewing the tenets of anti-work may prompt some to a broad reconsideration of the nature and purpose of the I/O field and its role, nested as it is in potentially problematic power dynamics both within organizations and in broader society. In this article, after describing anti-work’s core tenets, we outline a number of research directions and practical applications inspired by this perspective. While in some cases these may involve the creation of new theory, constructs, and interventions, they often simply entail the repurposing or refocusing of existing ones that are more attuned to the problematic nature of work. Possibilities for research include, but are not limited to, the examination of the prevalence and nature of “managerialism,” how we might better understand the psychological character of organized labor and its outcomes, and how to encourage healthier manifestations of employee engagement. In terms of practice, we bring to the reader’s attention how anti-work might inspire extensions or adjustments in how we recruit and onboard, train managers, improve job characteristics, measure performance and work with unions and other political advocates. Ultimately, consideration of anti-work’s assertion of the inevitable authoritarian character of employment, combined with I/O psychology’s emphases on objectivity and the translation of science into practice, can spark inquiry and innovation.
Work is a divine gift that sustains life, defines purpose and creates a wholesome balance of our time and space, resources and energies. As an integral aspect of our participation in the natural design of a created environment, work is at the center of creating economic value for a shared community while adding personal meaning to our existence. Like many aspects of the resources and governance entrusted to our stewardship, the intended benefit derived from work has been misdirected through meaning defined by physical and material goals, non-creative employment activity and profit-making purposes, which together create an unhealthy association between our calling and work. To find ourselves in our work, the efficacy of servant leadership and spiritual guidance is needed as contributing factors to fulfilling both personal and community needs, as derived from a service-oriented lifestyle. To allow fulfillment, wellness and personal growth to emanate from working, an internal leadership perspective is needed to view work as a service-oriented lifestyle contributing to physical, emotional and spiritual growth. This chapter draws from the extant literature to create a positive association between work, vocation or career choice, purpose and calling, adding spiritual guidance to personal efficacy and ownership of work.KeywordsPurposeCallingSpiritual awarenessSelf-efficacySelf-awarenessSpiritual giftsCommunal contribution
This chapter explores the possibilities of creative-spiritual agency (CSA) as a pathway for individuals to find meaning in their work, particularly in the context of the COVID-19 pandemic. The chapter begins by setting the context for meaningful work and examining two models developed by Western researchers to understand it. The author introduces CSA as a new cross-disciplinary construct for organizational change research and discusses its potential to help individuals find meaning in their work. The theoretical and definitional underpinnings of CSA are explored, followed by examples of CSA in action and suggestions for cultivating and applying CSA at work. The chapter concludes with possibilities for future study and an invitation to collaborate. In a world where the pandemic has disrupted traditional models of work and forced individuals to reconsider their priorities, the exploration of CSA offers a new perspective on what it means to have meaningful work and how individuals can achieve it.KeywordsMeaningful workCreative-spiritual agencyOrganizational changeEmployee well-beingWorkforce post-COVIDCreativitySpirituality
This article explores existential meaning-making from work using the cognitive-experiential self-theory (CEST). To start with, we use the tenets of CEST to elaborate on how the cues from archetype work environments—a realization facilitating work environment (RfWE) and justification facilitating work environment (JfWE)—are interpreted by information-processing systems to imbue meaning in life (MiL) as internal or external manifestations of coherence, purpose, and significance. Next, we explain how individual differences in work centrality and proactive meaning-crafting ability moderate the impact of JfWE, but not of RfWE, on MiL. Finally, we create a nomological network of existential meaning states emerging from the simultaneous presence or absence of RfWE and JfWE. In summary, by applying the information-processing lens of CEST, we develop an integrated model that explains how work drives MiL, elucidates the resultant existential states, and assesses the role of individual differences in meaning-making.
Work is not the same after the COVID-19 pandemic, due to factors such as digitization and globalization, challenges and competition at work have created enormous stress, emotional exhaustion, and physical fatigue among workers, and work life has become quite monotonous. Lack of physical engagement, employees have started to question the meaning of their work. The current paper discusses the importance of Meaningful Work and suggests that meaningful work is a promising workforce solution in the modern era, as it yields numerous positive outcomes for employees and organizations. Meaningful work should be cultivated consciously in the organizations by empowering the employees, giving them autonomy, and, discussing their work's impact on the larger picture. Employees find or craft it in a proactive manner when they experience alignment of values, and purpose with their work. (Wrzesniewski, & Dutton, 2001)
Many studies on living a calling have resulted in positive outcomes.
However, recent articles suggest that there are potential negative outcomes
as well. The current study examines two competing arguments on the role of
living a calling on burnout. Moreover, this study draws on work as a calling
theory to test whether individual characteristics such as growth mindset can
moderate the relationship between living a calling and burnout. We collected
data from employees of different organizations in Singapore at two different
time points and analyzed it with multiple regression analysis. Findings suggest
that living a calling exerts no major effects on burnout. However, for
individuals with a growth mindset, living a calling was found to be negatively
related to burnout. Furthermore, this study discusses the implications for
theory and practice.
Meaningfulness is a fundamental psychological need and can result in numerous positive outcomes for employees and organizations. However, little is known about how inclusive leadership can promote employees' sense of meaningful work. Drawing upon self‐determination theory, we posit that inclusive leadership enhances meaningful work through creating psychological safety and fostering learning from errors. Inclusive leadership improves work meaningfulness as it contributes to better job attributes. Study hypotheses were tested using a multiple‐study research design, including a two‐wave field study of 317 full‐time employees (Study 1) and a randomized experimental vignette methodology with 440 participants (Study 2). Findings from both studies support the hypothesized mediation model and suggest that inclusive leaders enhance employees' meaningful work mediated through psychological safety and learning from errors.
Volume 14, Issue 2 of Journal of Indigenous Counseling Psychology
Mindfulness challenges allow consumers to track meditation frequency through posting social media updates documenting their regular meditations. However, little is known about the effects of mindfulness on consumers in these representative online settings. In one study (1a and 1b) the research utilises two types of data to explore how a contemplative practice such as mindfulness influences online behaviour. Specifically, consumers who have completed a 60-day online meditation challenge showed an increase (vs. decrease) in original tweets (vs. retweets) (study 1a), and further, consumers who completed the challenge (vs. did not complete) showed higher (vs. lower) positive sentiment of original tweets. Despite some research showing engagement in social media as maladaptive, we provide a positive and unexpected contribution to show that mindfulness has a positive effect on how consumers may engage with social media. Further, we contribute a novel research method based on Twitter that advances immediate and unique marketing methods. Finally, we expand the practical application of mindfulness by exploring how consumers are organically, and consequentially, practicing mindfulness in field settings.
İşler, insanların maddi kazanç sağlamalarına, karşılığında ise topluma yönelik değerler üreterek bunları sunmalarına olanak sağladığı gibi, hayatlarının büyük bir bölümünü geçirdikleri bir ortam ve uğraş alanıdır. Bireylerin işlerinden memnun olmaları ve yaptıklarının herkes için faydalı ve değerli olduğunu bilmeleri, öncelikle kendi iyi oluşları, sonrasında ise çalıştıkları örgüt ve toplumun tamamı için önem taşımaktadır. Sıklıkla işe yönelik memnuniyetin belirleyicilerinden birinin anlamlı iş olduğu ifade edilmekle birlikte, bu durum araştırma sonuçlarıyla da desteklenmiştir. Anlamlı iş, sadece iş tatminini arttırmakla kalmamakta, anlamlılık başka bileşenlerle bir araya geldiğinde, mutluluk için de bir ön koşul olarak görülebilmektedir. Bu nedenle, her şeyde “anlam aramaya programlanmış” bir varlık olarak (Baumeister ve Vohs, 2002: 613) insanoğlu işyerinde ve yaptığı işte de sürekli bir anlamlılık arayışı içerisindedir. Anlamlı iş kavramı hem çalışanlar hem de işverenler için çok değerli olsa da örgütsel davranış ve yönetim literatüründe ancak son yıllarda önemine yakışacak seviyede dikkat çekmeye başlamıştır (Scroggins, 2008). Sadece çalışanların değil, aynı zamanda girişimcilerin de iş kurarken ve girişimci olmaya karar verirken, temel motivasyon unsurlarından birisinin anlamlı bir işe sahip olmak olduğu belirtilmektedir (Jayawarna, Rouse ve Kitching, 2013; Stephan, Hart ve Drews, 2015). Anlamlı işin kaynaklarına büyük ilgi bulunmakta, çünkü iş anlamlılığının oluşturulması veya yenilenmesi çalışan motivasyonunu ve işe bağlılığını teşvik etmek için kayda değer bir yöntem olarak görülmektedir (May, Gilson ve Harter, 2004). Bunun yanı sıra, anlamlı işle bağlantılı en yaygın ardıllar (sonuçlar) arasında iş tatminiyle birlikte, işe bağlılık ve işe tutkunluk gibi çıktılar da bulunmaktadır. Aynı zamanda bu çıktıların kendileri de işin anlamlı olarak algılanmasına yol açabilmektedir (Allan vd., 2019). Bütün bu çıktılar nedeniyle son yıllarda araştırmacılar anlamlı iş kavramını ve işi anlamlı kılan unsurları incelemeye giderek daha fazla yönelmektedir (Martela ve Pessi, 2018).
Bu bölümde, öncelikle anlamlı iş kavramının kuramsal altyapısına yönelik bilgi verilerek, yönetim ve örgütsel davranış literatüründe kavramı incelemeye yönelik ortaya çıkmış olan farklı yaklaşımlar ele alınacaktır. Bunun yanı sıra, takip eden kısımda anlamlı iş kavramının ölçümüne yönelik oluşturulmuş ve yaygın kullanılan ölçekler ve bunların özelliklerine kısaca değinilecektir. Çalışmanın son bölümünde ise turizm alanında anlamlı iş kavramını konu alan veya kavramı araştırma değişkenlerinden biri olarak kullanan araştırmalara ve bunların temel bulgularına yer verilecektir.
A response to Axel Honneth’s 2021 Walter-Benjamin Lectures on ‘The Working Sovereign’
Purpose
Meaningful work is gaining importance in the core domains of human resources research. However, there is confusion regarding what constitutes meaningful work and its determinants and outcomes. Earlier studies have conflated conceptual and empirical arguments. Hence, researchers lack clear insights into factors related to employees' experiences of meaningfulness. This study aims to discuss the aforementioned issue.
Design/methodology/approach
The authorsconducted a systematic literature review (SLR) of 88 studies (2000–2020) meeting relevant criteria to identify dominant trends and significant gaps in the authors’ understanding of meaningful work.
Findings
This review identified six aspects to conceptualize meaningful work. At the same time, the authors highlighted the dominant theory and the instrument used to explain and measure meaningful work. Based on the same, the authors identified different groups of individual and organizational-level determinants and outcomes of finding meaning in work. The analysis also indicates that the comprehension of meaningful work was restricted because most data were obtained from the USA, Europe and certain regions of Asia. During this assessment, the authors observed that several studies emphasized individual-level effects, self-reporting and cross-sectional studies, which restricted the ability to make causal inferences.
Originality/value
This study extends earlier works where the authors stock-take existing research for the past 20 years and build on past trajectories to enrich the authors’ understanding of meaningful work. Unlike earlier works that focused on a specific domain, such as human resource development, this work differentiates by taking an integrated framework-based approach leveraging the antecedents, decisions and outcomes (ADO) and the theories, contexts and method (TCM) framework to consolidate and advance knowledge in the field thoroughly.
Drawing on the conservation of resources theory, this study examines the curvilinear relationship between social workers' meaningful work and work engagement. Data gathered from 223 social workers reveal that the relationship between meaningful work and work engagement showed a U-shaped curve when psychological capital is low. In contrast, this relationship showed an inverted U-shaped curve when psychological capital is high. Our study makes significant contributions to the literature in the following ways. First and foremost, this is the first paper that provides an established base to validate the momentary and changing nature of meaningful work empirically. Second, we further addressed how the fluctuating nature of meaningful work can be addressed through individuals' demographic variables of psychological capital. Finally, our results provide managerial interventions that support businesses in advancing the understanding of psychological processes in contexts related to the broad area of work and in organizations. PRACTICE POINTS • Meaningful work enhances work engagement. Nonprofit organizations (NPOs) should provide a safe space where social workers can share their victories, perspectives, and frustrations. • NPOs should provide ample support to employees and ensure they fit well into the new social work environment. • Given the malleable characteristics of PsyCap, NPOs can offer interventions in the form of training to increase social workers' sense of hope, efficacy, resilience and optimism. • The curvilinear effect of PsyCap on the relationship between meaningful work and work engagement shows that NPOs should also design pathways to engage social workers with high PsyCap constantly.
Background/Purpose: Meaningful work is a topic of relevant interest to management and organizational scholars. The study of meaningful work has been heavily characterized by theories from different disciplines, yet the common-sense perspective is often overlooked, i.e., a non-academic perspective of meaningful work. The paper presents a qualitative study on how non-academics define meaningful work.
Methods: Adopting the lens of Aristotelian logic, the paper presents a methodological-theoretical approach to explore how non-academics define human resource management concepts. We asked 194 workers to propose ultimate definitions of the concept of meaningful work. The questions were submitted via a short survey collecting demographics.
Results: The analysis of the collected definitions led to the proposition of an intensive definition of meaningful work according to which meaningful work is a positive experience associated with a sense of competence, the presence of positive relation with others, significance and purpose of work. Yet, there must be good reasons to experience work as meaningful as the environment may contain barriers to the presence of meaningfulness.
Conclusion: Methodologically, the paper advances a novel approach to the study of human resource management and development concepts. Theoretically, the study proposes a novel perspective of meaningful work prioritizing concerns on the common-sense.
Experiencing meaningful work is strongly linked to occupational health, and organizational leaders can play a role in facilitating meaningful work through various practices. However, studies identifying and classifying specific leadership practices that foster meaningful work are limited. In this article, we distill and clarify major ways leaders might enable meaningful work and contribute a new tool to assess them. In three studies of employees in various work contexts ( N = 689; N = 647, N = 351), we administered a set of items measuring numerous practices leaders use to cultivate meaningful work elicited from a qualitative study of organizational leaders and a literature review. Dimensionality reduction techniques distilled these practices into six distinct domains. We then validated a diagnostic instrument to measure the extent to which leaders engage in each practice (the Practices for Meaning Diagnostic) and explored associations with employee experiences of meaningful work, psychological meaningfulness, and related variables, finding strong relationships. The six identified leadership practices are: communicating the work’s bigger impact, recognizing and nurturing potential, fostering personal connections, discussing values and organizational purpose during hiring, enacting integrity through modeling values-based behaviors, and giving employees freedom. Our results provide a way for leaders to assess practices intended to foster meaningful work and a way for researchers to test the practices’ effectiveness. We also describe contributions to research, theory, and practice.
The increasing workplace use of artificially intelligent (AI) technologies has implications for the experience of meaningful human work. Meaningful work refers to the perception that one’s work has worth, significance, or a higher purpose. The development and organisational deployment of AI is accelerating, but the ways in which this will support or diminish opportunities for meaningful work and the ethical implications of these changes remain under-explored. This conceptual paper is positioned at the intersection of the meaningful work and ethical AI literatures and offers a detailed assessment of the ways in which the deployment of AI can enhance or diminish employees’ experiences of meaningful work. We first outline the nature of meaningful work and draw on philosophical and business ethics accounts to establish its ethical importance. We then explore the impacts of three paths of AI deployment (replacing some tasks, ‘tending the machine’, and amplifying human skills) across five dimensions constituting a holistic account of meaningful work, and finally assess the ethical implications. In doing so we help to contextualise the meaningful work literature for the era of AI, extend the ethical AI literature into the workplace, and conclude with a range of practical implications and future research directions.
Much attention in the meaningful work literature has been devoted to calling as an orientation toward work characterized by a strong sense of purpose and a prosocial motivation beyond self-gain. Nonetheless, debate remains as to whether individuals change or maintain their calling, and especially whether they live their calling differently in different occupational stages. In this article, we respond to this conundrum through an analysis of the corporate social responsibility (CSR) occupation—substantiated by interviews with 57 CSR practitioners from Swedish international companies who are living their calling. We demonstrate that social/commercial tensions affect these CSR practitioners, fueled by a divide between their social aspirations and the commercial goals, and prompt them to respond in a way that impacts how they construct the purpose of their work. Subsequently, we induce three stages of the CSR occupation—early-, mid- and late-stage—and conceptualize three types of purpose in each stage—activistic, win–win and corporate purpose. By uncovering how and why CSR practitioners respond to social/commercial tensions and construct different types of purpose in each stage of the CSR occupation, we show that individuals can live the same calling in multiple ways. Hence, our article advances the meaningful work literature as well as studies of micro-CSR.
In this paper, we provide an exploratory account of the experience of renouncing at work—giving up a work‐related aspiration. Despite the importance of the phenomenon, the conceptualization of renouncing has been overlooked by the literature. Taking a narrative sensemaking approach to renouncing, we document variance in individual experiences to renouncing, that is, how they subjectively understand what, why, and how they renounce at work. Through a qualitative approach, we investigate the case of 30 academics working in three French business schools characterized by an increasingly influential managerialist “publish or perish” regime, a context conducive to renouncing. Based on our findings identifying various experiences of renouncing, we inductively build a matrix and a model connecting six experiences of renouncing based on the type of renouncing (renouncing in order to succeed vs. renouncing success itself) and how people approach renouncing (suffered, accepted, or chosen renouncing).
Purpose
This study examines the relationship between the use of management controls and the perception of meaningful work. Meaningful work is an important driver of individual performance of managers, and employees and can be enabled by sufficient use of management controls. The purpose of this paper is to address this issue.
Design/methodology/approach
Based on bibliometric analyses and a structured literature review of academic research studies from the organizational, management and accounting literature, the authors develop a conceptual model of the relationship between the use of management controls and the perception of meaningful work.
Findings
First, the authors propose that the use of formal management controls in a system (i.e. the levers of the control framework) is more powerful than using unrelated formal controls only. Second, they suggest that the interaction of a formal control system together with informal controls working as a control package can even stretch the perception of meaningful work. Third, they argue that the intensity of the control use matters to enhance the perception of meaningful work (inverted u-shaped relationship).
Originality/value
This study presents the first conceptual model of the relationship between the use of management controls and the perception of meaningful work. It provides valuable implications for practice and future research in the field of performance management.
Current business organizations want to be more efficient and constantly evolving to find ways to retain talent. It is well established that visionary leadership plays a vital role in organizational success and contributes to a better working environment. This study aims to determine the effect of visionary leadership on employees' perceived job satisfaction. Specifically, it investigates whether the mediators meaningfulness at work and commitment to the leader impact the relationship. I take support from job demand resource theory to explain the overarching model used in this study and broaden-and-build theory to leverage the use of mediators. To test the hypotheses, evidence was collected in a multi-source, time-lagged design field study of 95 leader-follower dyads. The data was collected in a three-wave study, each survey appearing after one month. Data on employee perception of visionary leadership was collected in T1, data for both mediators were collected in T2, and employee perception of job satisfaction was collected in T3. The findings display that meaningfulness at work and commitment to the leader play positive intervening roles (in the form of a chain) in the indirect influence of visionary leadership on employee perceptions regarding job satisfaction. This research offers contributions to literature and theory by first broadening the existing knowledge on the effects of visionary leadership on employees. Second, it contributes to the literature on constructs meaningfulness at work, commitment to the leader, and job satisfaction. Third, it sheds light on the mediation mechanism dealing with study variables in line with the proposed model. Fourth, it integrates two theories, job demand resource theory and broaden-and-build theory providing further evidence. Additionally, the study provides practical implications for business leaders and HR practitioners. Overall, my study discusses the potential of visionary leadership behavior to elevate employee outcomes. The study aligns with previous research and answers several calls for further research on visionary leadership, job satisfaction, and mediation mechanism with meaningfulness at work and commitment to the leader.
According to a recent Wall Street Journal article, 50% of today's workforce have chosen to limit their commitment to their jobs. "Quiet Quitting" is the current term that defines ceasing to be fully committed to one's job and doing just enough to meet the requirements of one's job description. This paper outlines how the root cause of the decline of employee commitment lies with the failure of many managers and supervisors to honor their fundamental leadership responsibilities required to engage, empower, and inspire employees with whom they work. Finally, we outline practical steps that companies can use to reengage their employees and increase employee commitment.
This chapter describes the development and growth of small social ventures in the Netherlands. It focusses on the motivations and purposes of owner-operator and micro or small scale social entrepreneurs creating social value in the transition of the Dutch welfare domain. Local municipalities are developing policies to support those social venture set-ups. But dealing with local policies is found not to be an easy task for small scale social entrepreneurs. Two aspects of the hindrance for social venture start-ups are elaborated: the hybridity of social entrepreneurship, combining social value logic and the logic of entrepreneurship; and the difficulties of dealing with different aspects of policies of cities in the Netherlands. An ecological system supportive for small social venture creation respecting the personal purpose of social entrepreneurs is outlined.
this study aimed to examine the effects of organizational experience on psychological capital and psychological well-being in sport organizations. the organizational experience was measured using three variables which are authentic leadership, meaningful work, and perceived organizational support. the role of psychological capital as a mediator towards psychological well-being was also tested. the subjects of this study included employees of sport and youth organizations in the southern iran. a Pls-seM analysis was used to test the hypotheses. the results showed that authentic leadership, meaningful work, and perceived organizational support positively affected psychological well-being. Psychological capital served as a mediator between the organizational variables and psychological well-being. this study is the first attempt to assess the role of psychological capital and identify the type of leadership in iranian sport organizations.
Research question: Does the specific content of a corporate purpose statement influence employer attractiveness?
Methodology: Vignette study (N = 476 young professionals) using a career page of a re-tail organization.
Practical implications: The impact on employer attractiveness depends on the content of the purpose statement. E.g., contributing to society has a more positive impact in compari-son to personal growth.
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Forschungsfrage: Welchen Inhalt sollten Purpose-Statements haben, um die Arbeitgebe-rattraktivität positiv zu beeinflussen?
Methodik: Vignettenstudie mit 476 Young Professionals. Variiert werden die Inhalte der Purpose-Statements unter Nutzung der Dimensionen gesellschaftlicher Nutzen, Umwelt, persönliche Entwicklung, Diversität und Kundenorientierung auf der Homepage eines fikti-ven Handelsunternehmens.
Praktische Implikationen: Die Wirkung auf die Arbeitgeberattraktivität hängt vom Inhalt des Corporate Purpose ab. Die Kommunikation eines gesellschaftlichen Nutzens wirkt bei-spielsweise positiver auf die Arbeitgeberattraktivität als die Kommunikation persönlicher Entwicklungsmöglichkeiten. --- Decius, J., Knappstein M., & Weckmüller, H. (2023). Die Wirkung der Kommunikation eines Corporate Purpose auf die Arbeitgeberattraktivität. PERSONALquarterly, 75(1), 22-26.
As change becomes a constant in organizational life, middle managers charged with interpreting, communicating, and implementing change often struggle for meaning. To explore change and managerial sensemaking, we conducted action research at the Danish Lego Company. Although largely absent from mainstream journals, action research offers exceptional access to and support of organizational sensemaking. Through collaborative intervention and reflection, we sought to help managers make sense of issues surfaced by a major restructuring. Results transform paradox from a label to a lens, contributing a process for working through paradox and explicating three organizational change aspects-paradoxes of performing, belonging, and organizing.
The authors argue that the secular and the sacred should be viewed not as mutually exclusive
but as interpenetrated. As the conventional anchors for spiritual strivings loosen
their grip, many work organizations appear increasingly willing to play the role of secular
religion. Secular religions offer transcendence through edifying cosmologies that address
fundamental questions about identity and meaning, without necessarily invoking a
supernatural power. Normative controls are used to instill faith in the often distant ends
of the organization and to sacralize the means through which the ends are pursued.
Founders may become deities of sorts; key insiders may become clergy; jobs, callings;
institutionalized processes, rituals; and failings, sins. However, because a secular religion
is only a claim to a system of meaning, it should inspire not only wonder but wariness.
The authors conclude that a certain ironic distance from such a religion may be
healthy for the individual.
Researchers asked 17 participants in a job-training program to describe their personal struggles following an economic restructuring. Examined through a critical theoretical lens, findings indicate that the learners enrolled in the program to reclaim security, dignity, meaningful work, and caring relationships. Program planners at community colleges are therefore urged to employ democratic program planning models, ask learners about their educational needs as they see them, and listen compassionately to their responses.
Over the last two decades, managerialism (Enteman, 1993) has become consolidated on multiple fronts. As a formula of governance, it has elaborated various vocabularies: the `audit society' (Power, 1997, 2007) has become entrenched in all types of organizations; surveillance methods (Lyon, 2001) have become increasingly dispersed and insidious; and — alongside —`new' concepts of subjectivity and the`self' are used to frame more intense regimes of self-discipline or what Tipton (1984) called `self-work'. These moves have been captured by Heelas (2002), Thrift (1997) and others in the term `soft capitalism'. In this article, we reflect upon this phenomenon by analysing some examples: `culture', `performativity', `knowledge' and `wellness'. Although they belong to a group often described as `fads' and `fashions' and dismissed as managerial `mumbo-jumbo', we suggest that their proliferation indicates a more stable cultural tendency of management discourses to capture subjectivity in its general agenda. We attempt to offer an historical-cultural interpretation from which this range of managerial concepts might be viewed. Our argument suggests that they have a certain cultural coherence that can be perhaps better glimpsed within a wider historical context. As a particular way in which managerialism frames its logic, analysing `soft capitalism' historically offers a reasonable basis for understanding the strength of its hard disciplinary edge as a regime of governance.
This article explores the nature of quality in action research practice. The origins and purposes of action research and its relation to social science methodology are reviewed. Action research is described in terms of four characteristic dimensions—worthwhile practical purposes, democracy and participation, many ways of knowing, and emergent developmental form—that present a broad range of criteria beyond those of the empirical research paradigm against which quality research might be judged. Recent debates concerning validity and quality in qualitative research are explored. It is argued that action research is characteristically full of choices, and the argument is made that quality in inquiry comes from awareness of and transparency about the choices available at each stage of the inquiry.
The author argues that the present mainstream writings on, and debates about "new" ideas of management and theories of organization, lack adequate theoretical assumptions and background. He proposes that those who question the future and efficiency of Western organizations need to rely more on a radical-humanistic and neo-Marxist conceptualization than on the functionalistic tradition. Therefore, management theorists and practitioners should integrate such a concept in order to better understand how to transform the passive-obedient Taylorist employee into an active-cooperative one. To achieve a truly renewed form of management, researchers must adopt a global view of humankind, in order to give workers a significant measure of control over their own environments and working conditions.
This paper presents the results of a participative psycho-biographical study that investigated the effect of spirituality on career behavior. This study shows that spirituality influences career purpose, sense-making and coherence. Spirituality was found to inspire four purposes of “developing and becoming self”, “unity with others”, “expressing self”, and “serving others”. Spirituality was also found to influence an ongoing process of sense-making through discovering, prioritizing and balancing the four purposes over a lifespan, in response to ongoing tensions between “being” and “doing” as well as “self- versus other-orientation”. Spirituality furthermore influences perceived career-coherence as individuals align their careers with perceived spiritual orderings outside of themselves. The paper concludes with suggestions for practice and future research.
The article subjects the assumptions and prescriptions of the ‘Corporate Culture’literature to critical scrutiny. the body of the article is devoted to teasing out the distinctive basis of its appeal compared with earlier management theory. It is seen to build upon earlier efforts (e.g.‘theory Y’) to constitute a self-disciplining form of employee subjectivity by asserting that ‘practical autonomy’is conditional upon the development of a strong corporate culture. the paper illuminates the dark side of this project by drawing attention to the subjugating and totalitarian implications of its excellence/ quality prescriptions. to this end, parallels are drawn with the philosophy of control favoured by the Party in Orwell's Nineteen Eighty-Four. Specifically, the paper critiques the ‘doublethink’contention that autonomy can be realized in monocultural conditions that systematically constrain opportunities to wrestle with competing values standpoints and their associated life projects.
This article attempts to understand and develop the morality of everyday activities in organizations. Aristotle’s concept
of phronesis, practical wisdom, is utilized to describe the morality of the everyday work activities at two call centres of
an Australian insurance company. The ethnographic data suggests that ethical judgements at the lower level of the organization
are practical rather than theoretical; emergent rather than static; ambiguous rather than clear-cut; and particular rather
than universal. Ethical codes are of limited value here and it is argued that by developing phronesis members of the organization
can improve their capacity to deal with this ethical complexity.
Human dignity, the ability to establish a sense of self-worth and self-respect and to enjoy the respect of others, is necessary for a fully realized life. Working with dignity is a fundamental part of achieving a life well-lived, yet the workplace often poses challenging obstacles because of mismanagement or managerial abuse. Defending dignity and realizing self-respect through work are key to workers' well-being; insuring the dignity of employees is equally important for organizations as they attempt to make effective use of their human capital. In this book Randy Hodson, a sociologist of work and organizational behavior, applies ethnographic and statistical approaches to this topic, offering both a richly detailed, inside look at real examples of dignity in action, and a broader analysis of the pivotal role of dignity at work.
This article critically examines primary processes and effects of the so-called “new organizational culture” that is organized on the principles and practices of Total Quality Management (and its variations) and increasingly practiced in corporate organizations in the 1990s. The paper specifically analyzes the effects of the organizational cultural practices of “family” and “team” on the employee and discusses their role in corporate discipline, integration, and control. Data are drawn from field research conducted in a large multinational corporation and the analyses and interpretive propositions are informed by a critical social psychoanalytic perspective. The paper disputes the conventional view that the practices of the “new culture” and its purported reform of the hierarchical, specialized, conflict-ridden workplaces of traditional industrial organizations “empower” employees and provide “meaningful” relationships in the workplace. It is argued, on the contrary, that these new “designer” cultural practices serve as processes of regulation, discipline, and control of employee subject selves.
As usually understood, professional ethics consists of shared duties and episodic dilemmas: the responsibilities incumbent on all members of specific professions, together with the dilemmas that arise when these responsibilities conflict. This book challenges that "consensus paradigm", rethinking professional ethics to include personal commitments and ideals, including many not mandatory for all members of a profession. Taking these personal commitments seriously expands professional ethics to include neglected issues about moral psychology, character and the virtues, self-fulfillment and betrayal, and the interplay of private and professional life.
Preliminaries philosophy and alienation from phenomenolgy to existentialism "being-in-the-world" dualisms dissolved self and others modes of self-estrangement "Angst", death and absurdity existential freedom existentialism and ethics.
Robert Jackall's Moral Mazes offers an eye-opening account of how corporate managers think the world works, and how big organizations shape moral consciousness. Based on extensive interviews with managers at every level of two industrial firms and of a large public relations agency, Moral Mazes takes the reader inside the intricate world of the corporation. Jackall reveals a world where hard work does not necessarily lead to success, but where sharp talk, self-promotion, powerful patrons, and sheer luck might. Cheerfully-bland public faces mask intense competition in this world where people hide their intentions, and accountability often depends on the ability to outrun mistakes. In this topsy-turvy world, managers must bring often unforgiving technology and always difficult people together to make money, an uncompromising task demanding continual compromises with conventional truths. Moral questions become merely practical concerns and issues of public relations. Sooner or later, managers find themselves wondering how to act in such a world and still maintain a sense of personal integrity. This brilliant, sometimes disturbing, often wildly funny study of corporate thinking, decision-making, and morality presents compelling real life stories of the men and women charged with running the businesses of America. It will interest anyone concerned with how big organizations actually function, or with the current moral malaise in our public life.
The burgeoning line of inquiry and integration of spirituality and management may very well be inspiring managers and scholars to embrace new “metaphysical foundations.” An infusion of spirituality into management necessitates inquiry into new ontological, epistemological, and teleological dimensions of research and practice. This article proposes a preliminary model of a theory of spiritually-informed management that integrates traditional and spiritual approaches to management. The model has three dimensions: (a) awareness: unconsciousness and consciousness; (b) change: translation and transformation; and (c) manifestation: temporal and perennial. The article concludes with an invitation to dialogue and some questions about future research issues: empirical testing of spiritual knowledge systems; unbounded world consciousness; enlightened stakeholder management, spiritually responsible business, and the spiritual transformation of management.
This article critically examines primaryprocesses and effects of the so-called neworganizational culture that is organized on theprinciples and practices of Total Quality Management(and its variations) and increasingly practiced incorporate organizations in the 1990s. The paperspecifically analyzes the effects of the organizationalcultural practices of family and"team" on the employee and discusses their role incorporate discipline, integration, and control. Data aredrawn from field research conducted in a largemultinational corporation and the analyses andinterpretive propositions are informed by a critical socialpsychoanalytic perspective. The paper disputes theconventional view that the practices of the "newculture" and its purported reform of thehierarchical, specialized, conflict-ridden workplaces oftraditional industrial organizationsempower employees and providemeaningful relationships in the workplace.It is argued, on the contrary, that these new designer culturalpractices serve as processes of regulation, discipline,and control of employee subject selves.
The purpose of this paper is to contribute to our understanding of the meaning of work. The study is concerned with eliciting work meanings of spiritually oriented individuals with a view of establishing whether there is a common agenda identifiable and whether spirituality influences work behavior. It was found that in spite of their diversity, all research participants desired to express spiritual life purposes of “developing and becoming self”, “unity with others”, “expressing self” and “serving others” in the workplace. A second finding is that they seek to balance these over time. Furthermore it was found that spirituality clearly influences work behavior as research participants make career transitions if they cannot express their spirituality. Lessons are explored for contemporary organizations interested in retaining spiritually oriented employees.
Widely divergent forms of action research are emerging to meet requirements of new organizational and social environments. Cases in this special issue are tangible examples of these innovative AR efforts. This article identifies key dimensions that cut through the cases and allow for comparison and contrast. These dimensions include (1) the system level of the charge target, (2) the degree of organization of the research setting, (3) the degree of openness of the AR process, (4) the goals and purpose of the research effort, and (5) the role of the researcher(s). Dimensions are used to locate cases and to support discussion of qualitative aspects that are crucial to understanding. Several general learnings derived from the dimensional analysis and discussion are described.
A burned-out female entrepreneur was treated using a psychodynamic existential approach. Psychodynamic theory contributed to this treatment approach idea that people choose an occupation that enables them to reenact significant childhood experiences. Existential theory contributed the idea that people attempt to find existential significance through their work. Burnout is assumed to result from a failure in the existential quest. This case demonstrates that when treating burnout, it is essential to address (a) Why, psychodynamically, did the individual choose the particular career and howwas it expected to provide existential significance? (b) Why does the individual feel a sense of failure in the existential quest, and how is this related to burnout? (c) What changes need to happen for the individual to have a sense of existential significance? In addition to demonstrating a treatment approach for burnout, the case contributes to the understanding of gender differences in burnout and the family dynamics of entrepreneurs.
This chapter seeks to show something of my version of the principles and practices of self-reflective inquiry. I firstly outline some of the attentional disciplines I use and aspire to. I then illustrate inquiry in action, drawing on my story of attending the American Academy of Management Annual Meeting in Chicago in August 1999. Through this material I explore themes of research as political process and as life process, and advocate paying attention to inquiry intentions. I see having some version of self-reflective practice as a necessary core for all inquiry. For example, anyone engaging in collaborative research needs robust, self-questioning, disciplines as their base. Inquiry requires attentional disciplines In this section I outline some of my disciplines of inquiry. These are open frames rather than rigid behaviour patterns. I seek to pursue them with soft rigour, determined and persistent, but not obsessive. Part of inquiring is making judgements about when to be focused and directed and when to be open, receptive. I have learnt about these practices from my own experience and deliberate development, and from working with postgraduate researchers on our programmes at the University of Bath (Marshall and Reason, 1998). Each person's inquiry approach will be distinctive, disciplines cannot be cloned or copied. Rather, each person must identify and craft their own qualities and practices. The questioning then becomes how to do them well, how to conduct them with quality and rigour appropriate to their forms, and how to articulate the inquiry processes and sense-making richly and non-defensively. All of the practices I discuss here can be used generatively, appropriately, or degeneratively, inappropriately. There are no objective standards for making such judgements and as the inquirer I cannot be fixed in my evaluation. I work with this questioning, seeking to develop my craft of inquiry and my abilities to notice, reflect on and adjust my approach. In this chapter I am not claiming that I always inquire well and skillfully.
The development of complexity theory in the natural sciences is described, and summarized in six principles of complex emergent wholes. It is suggested that complexity theory is leading biology toward a science of qualities based on participation and intuition. It is argued on metaphorical and epistemological grounds that these principles which describe the emergence of complex wholes can be applied to social and organizational life. The six principles are then applied to qualitative and action research practice, with a particular reference to co-operative inquiry, in order to provide principles for good practice and theoretical support for the nature of valid inquiry processes.
The purpose of this paper is to review the literature on organizational spirituality in an effort to distil the importance of spirituality research and make the case for the “spiritual turn” in organization studies. The paper examines current arguments for and against spirituality in organizations. It suggests that despite dilemmas and controversies in the literature, spirituality research makes a significant contribution. Particularly, the benefit of taking the “spiritual turn” as a response to a crisis of meaning in organizations may be to better define the spaces of programmatic versus existential meaning making and to gain more insights into where organizational meaning making and existential, individual meaning can exist in their respective spaces. It is suggested that spirituality research may need to build on a variety of perspectives from critical management theories to discourse studies to protect existential meaning making as a lived and socially constructed experience. The paper develops some approaches for how this may be accomplished and discusses future directions of the “spiritual turn” in organizational studies.
Building on Kahn's (1990) ethnographic work, a field study in a U.S. Midwestern insurance company explored the determinants and mediating effects of three psychological conditions — meaningfulness, safety and availability — on employees' engagement in their work. Results from the revised theoretical framework revealed that all three psychological conditions exhibited significant positive relations with engagement. Meaningfulness displayed the strongest relation. Job enrichment and work role fit were positively linked to psychological meaningfulness. Rewarding co-worker and supportive supervisor relations were positively associated with psychological safety, whereas adherence to co-worker norms and self-consciousness were negatively associated. Psychological availability was positively related to resources available and negatively related to participation in outside activities. Finally, the relations of job enrichment and work role fit with engagement were both fully mediated by the psychological condition of meaningfulness. The association between adherence to co-worker norms and engagement was partially mediated by psychological safety. Theoretical and practical implications related to psychological engagement at work are discussed.
Being in the moment can either heighten self-awareness through observation and interpretation or result in temporary loss of self through experiences of flow. Patients who can flexibly shift between these self-perspectives benefit the most from treatment. When patients risk breaking away from their fixed patterns, they experience a greater sense of aliveness and engagement. Patients who focus too much on the past or too little on the present have problems being centered. Case studies and Antonioni's film Blowup (1966) illustrate how our lives take on renewed meaning through sustaining a present focus.
Spirituality is often explained in the nursing literature as the patient's quest to find meaning in life and in their experiences. This is most often described in an unlimited and unconditional way defined by whatever interpretations the person places upon it. This opens it to a variety of understandings, some of which may be negative and unhelpful in terms of what we usually consider to be spiritual well being. This discussion paper attempts to look beyond the generality of this idea to examine whether our concept of having meaning, if used in terms of spirituality, should be conditional on meanings which are actually to do with the depth of our being and not meanings which only give pleasure and satisfaction. The paper attempts to do this in two ways. First it explores the beliefs of Victor Frankl to ask the question whether having meaning alone is sufficient to provide spiritual comfort or whether the content of the particular beliefs associated with meaning, may matter. Frankl is often used as a source for the idea of spirituality being to do with meaning and in this paper Frankl's thought is explored in detail to see his own underlying beliefs which helped in his life experiences. Secondly, an understanding of 'meaning' as being conditioned by something "ultimate" described by Paul Tillich is explored. This would give nursing a more structured and purposeful approach to using the term 'meaning' in relation to spiritual care and in addition it would open up a way forward in terms of researching which particular meanings might be most helpful in illness and adversity.
Tolstoy’s Iván Ilých lies near death, regretting a terrible life but unaware of what he could have done differently while alive. Although motivated to work for all the wrong reasons–money, self-esteem, social acceptance, and escape from home–by all formal accounts he has been a highly responsible professional. This analysis of a work about work illustrates the relationship between meaningful work, professional responsibility, and meaningful life.