We review and develop two alternative conceptualizations of meaningful work: a predominant perspective we label realization and an underdeveloped, yet critical, perspective we label justification. We develop each conceptualization by identifying the core problem meaningful work is thought to address and accompanying solutions. Next, we build from this distinction to propose a research agenda that advances scholarly understanding of meaningful work from a justification perspective. Through building this research agenda, we elevate scholarly understanding on meaningful work by illuminating new foci for research, highlighting the relevance of social-cultural mechanisms, and suggesting alternative outcomes.

ork, as Studs Terkel (1995) reminds us, provides a variety of functions and opportunities in our lives including "a search for daily meaning" (p. xiii). Given the large portion of our waking lives devoted to it and its centrality in modern life, it is perhaps not surprising that we look to work as a source of meaning beyond daily bread and cash. But can the places we work for help make work meaningful-something more than a "Monday through Friday sort of dying" (Terkel, 1995, p. xiii)?Historically, the search for meaning in and at work has tended to focus on the individual meaning-maker (Rosso, Dekas, & Wrzesniewski, 2010). This is appealing given that meaning is often in the eye of the beholder. However, we argue that meaning is not simply self-constructed; it is also socially constructed (e.g., Weick, 1995). That is, we draw upon social cues from people, culture, symbols, and the like when making sense of what is meaningful. Because work is often conducted in socially rich contexts, organizations are in a unique position to help members cultivate and enact meaningful work. Unfortunately, there is a paucity

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to employ an inductive approach to explore how small, nascent, firms in the craft brewing industry use cooperative behaviours with direct competitors to achieve their goals. Design/methodology/approach Data were gathered from interviews with the founders of seven small, newly established, craft brewers in a Midwestern city in the USA for this exploratory study. Data analysis followed the general tenants of inductive coding. Porter’s value chain model was used as a framework to organise and conceptualise the coopetitive behaviour uncovered. Findings The firms engage in cooperative behaviours with their direct competitors in areas such as process technology development, procurement, inbound logistics and marketing. A particularly interesting and common collaborative activity was breweries recommending/promoting competing breweries to their own customers. Practical implications This study provides clear examples of how relationship building with competitors could be advantageous and help small, nascent firms overcome the liabilities of newness and smallness. Originality/value Research on coopetition has called for a greater understanding of the nature of cooperative behaviours in small firms, start-ups and firms outside of high-technology industries. Moreover, research has called for finer-grained approaches to conceptualising coopetition. This paper fills these gaps and shows how Porter’s value chain is a useful tool for organising the types of collaborative behaviours that can be part of coopetition. The findings enhance understanding and facilitate future research by illustrating a broad array of cooperative activities that occur between direct competitors.

Some occupations and organizations rely heavily on trust, as their members’ roles involve risk and are interdependent. Trust can emerge from two sources: knowledge or evidence that is meaningful in that context, which has been studied extensively in the literature on trust, and faith, which has not. Through a multi-phase, largely inductive study of firefighters in the United States, we explore processes that facilitate and maintain leaps of faith. These processes are critical to trust under high uncertainty, when direct experience in a task domain is chronically limited, as is the case in our context because very few calls coming into a fire station are fire related. We suggest that leaps of faith are initiated and perpetuated through two sets of dynamics: supporting and sustaining. Supporting dynamics, such as telling stories about fighting fires, evoke domain-relevant standards that are applied to weak, non-domain-specific evidence, such as how routine tasks are performed at the fire station, to help members feel a sense of certainty about whom to trust. Sustaining dynamics both limit the impact of new evidence about trustworthiness and bolster one’s sense of certainty surrounding existing evidence. These two sets of dynamics, embedded in broader task and occupational conditions, act together as a largely closed system that allows trustors to be at peace with the uncertainty surrounding trust assessments—they make leaps of faith possible by increasing certainty and inhibiting doubt. Our study helps address key questions in both psychological and sociological treatments of trust, exploring an enigmatic phenomenon core to the concept of trust but rarely examined.

Purpose This paper aims to examine and test the moderating influence of the type of knowledge underlying work – known as the knowledge in practice (KIP) perspective – on the relationship between knowledge management (KM) activities and unit performance. KIP proposes that the knowledge underlying work varies according to two dimensions: tacitness and learnability. This theory proposes that aligning KM activities with tacitness and learnability results in increased performance. However, to the authors’ knowledge, there exists no direct empirical tests of these propositions outlined in KIP theory. This study examines the empirical support for the theoretical predictions outlined by KIP. Design/methodology/approach The study uses a multiple survey, multiple respondent survey design to measure KM activity sets, the tacitness and learnability involved in work contexts and unit performance. Regression analysis is used to test the hypotheses. Findings In line with previous research, the authors find support for a direct relationship between some KM activity sets and unit performance. Surprisingly, the authors did not find support for the predictions offered by KIP theory. Specifically, the degree of tacitness or learnability did not moderate the relationship between KM activity sets and unit performance. Research limitations/implications The lack of findings to support the moderating effects of tacitness and learnability on the relationship between KM activity sets and unit performance challenges the adequacy of existing formulations of KIP theory. The authors discuss several important future research directions to examine this puzzling finding. Practical implications This paper reinforces the suggestion that managers at all levels of organizations should engage in KM activities to increase performance. These findings also suggest that considering the type of knowledge underlying a unit’s work should not be a consideration in implementing KM activities. Originality/value This is the first study to empirically test a KIP perspective. That is, how the type of knowledge involved in work moderates the relationships between KM activity sets and unit performance.