Making sense of work: finding meaning in work narratives

Abstract

This study examined how individuals make sense of their work narratives – autobiographical stories about their work lives – and the implications for individual well-being. A mixed methods approach was used to investigate relationships between meaning making, pathways to meaningfulness, job characteristics, job involvement, and psychological well-being. Survey responses and narrative themes from life story interviews were collected from 119 adults. A narrative coding scheme was developed to identify pathways to meaningful work. Results show that people made sense of their work lives most often by constructing themes about personal agency. The findings support prior research suggesting that socioeconomic factors, access to resources, and working conditions increase the likelihood of finding and benefiting from meaningful work. For individuals wishing to find meaning in their work, job design characteristics (e.g., decision authority, skill discretion), and developing a sense of agency can be levers for fostering meaning and well-being.

Viewing Meaningful Work Through the Lens of Time

“…For example, some authors examine the episodic occurrences of meaningful work in relation to specific contexts and conditions (e.g., liminal experiences, Toraldo et al, 2019 ). Among them, such authors present the episodic nature as flux experiences ( Mitra and Buzzanell, 2017 ) or by reference to the working and psychological conditions at work, which predict the occasional experience ( Scott, 2019 ). Others explicitly report meaningful work as a stable characteristic of the subject, as a specific subjective concern of individuals, which is different from the experience of meaningful work experiences (e.g., psychological perception vs. significance, Lavy and Bocker, 2018 ; global meaning vs. situational, Park and Folkman, 1997 ).…”

“…Authors who discuss the state and episodic nature of work argue that meaningful work could be experienced as a temporary embedded subjective experience where past, present, and future coexist. This can occur in a sort state of a constant flux ( Mitra and Buzzanell, 2017 ), between time and space, outside the common working norms ( Toraldo et al, 2019 ), or it can be linked to specific, isolatable working and psychological conditions ( Bailey and Madden, 2017 ; Lavy and Bocker, 2018 ; Fletcher and Schofield, 2019 ; Matz-Costa et al, 2019 ; Scott, 2019 ; Yeoman et al, 2019 ). Moreover, such authors define meaningful work as episodic experience as if it occurs in the course of time or it unfolds over time.…”

“…The level of stability links to a work that is experienced and perceived as meaningful as it responds to the individual's quests for meaning in their work and life. Therefore, it is linked to the inter-individual stable differences (Rothmann et al, 2019) as the dispositional signature (Lysova et al, 2019), cultural belongingness (Lepisto and Pratt, 2017;Bendassolli and Tateo, 2018), work values (Consiglio et al, 2017), work orientation, and work narratives (Wrzesniewski et al, 1997;Scott, 2019). Generally, authors writing in this area have discussed one individual's seeking for meaning as positive (Rosso et al, 2010), a eudemonic state (Steger et al, 2012), and an inherently human quest: "a condition of being human to make meaning" (Lips-Wiersma and Morris, 2009).…”

El significado del trabajo en distintas generaciones de argentinos

“…Otra limitación se refiere a las condiciones laborales, que también podrían brindar oportunidades para indagar sobre el significado del trabajo para los participantes. Scott (2019) destacó la importancia de variables tales como condiciones laborales, toma de decisiones, oportunidad de desarrollo, expresión e individuación de identidad. Indagar cómo la satisfacción y el rendimiento laboral impactan en el significado del trabajo en distintas generaciones resulta un tema de interés que se debiera abordarse en futuras investigaciones.…”

Does one size fit all? The role of job characteristics in cultivating work passion across knowledge, blue‐collar, nonprofit, and managerial work

“…Experiencing work meaningfulness also contributes to shaping individuals' work‐related values and identities (Rosso et al, 2010), likely turning work into an element of the individual's self‐identification. On the one hand, a source of meaning can spur a sense of control and competence (Scott, 2022). Thus, when individuals value the inherent qualities of their work, they are likely to experience autonomous work motivation, such as HP.…”