Conceptualising Meaningful Work as a Fundamental Human Need

Yeoman, Ruth

doi:10.1007/s10551-013-1894-9

Cited by 211 publications

(154 citation statements)

References 56 publications

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“…How to think of meaningfulness in the instability of 'liquid' modernity (Bauman, 2000) is an ongoing question. Increasingly, scholars are exploring the emancipatory possibilities of meaningful work (e.g., Aguinis and Glavas, 2017;Yeoman, 2014aYeoman, , 2014b, while some are investigating its relation to exploitation, eroding work conditions and the commodification of social relations (Endrissat et al, 2015;Gill and Pratt, 2008).…”

Section: The Ambivalence Of Meaningful Workmentioning

confidence: 99%

Serving Time: Volunteer Work, Liminality and the Uses of Meaningfulness at Music Festivals

Toraldo

Islam

Mangia

2018

J Management Studies

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Drawing from a participant‐observer study of volunteering in the context of UK music festivals, we examine how the sense of meaningfulness and community relate to instrumental goals of consumption and efficiency. We argue that the liminal nature of the festival setting supports an ambivalence in which meaningfulness is established through constructions of community, while the commodification of community feelings leads to heterogeneous understandings of the work setting. Our findings reveal heterogeneous ways in which work was rendered meaningful by festival volunteers, ranging from (1) A commodity frame, characterizing work as drudgery seeking ‘fun’ through consumption (2) A ‘communitas’ frame, emphasizing a transcendental sense of collective immediacy and (3) A cynical frame, where communitas discourse is used instrumentally by both managers and workers. We discuss meaningful work as caught between creative community and ideological mystification, and how alternative workspaces vacillate between emancipatory principles of solidarity and neo‐normative forms of ideological control.

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Section: The Ambivalence Of Meaningful Workmentioning

confidence: 99%

Serving Time: Volunteer Work, Liminality and the Uses of Meaningfulness at Music Festivals

Toraldo

Islam

Mangia

2018

J Management Studies

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“…As people would actively pursue meaning during their lives as well as work lives, meaningfulness has been suggested to be one of the fundamental human needs by a line of literature (Yeoman, 2014). Thus, given that a project has to be canceled anyway, wise employers could still provide the affected employees with an opportunity to restore their meaning of work in the next work project, which would minimize the side effects.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Man’s Pursuit of Meaning: Unexpected Termination Bolsters One’s Autonomous Motivation in an Irrelevant Ensuing Activity

Wei

Liu

et al. 2020

Front. Hum. Neurosci.

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Meaningfulness has been suggested as one of the fundamental psychological needs, as one would actively pursue meaning in both his/her work life and personal life. Previous studies consistently showed that a lack of meaning in work would reduce one's autonomous motivation in the current job, which is the motivation to engage in self-determined activities driven by one's own interests or personal beliefs. However, researchers overlooked the fact that in work settings, it is not uncommon that people work on multiple tasks in a row. As a result, the cross-task effect of work meaningfulness remains understudied. Based on the meaning maintenance model (MMM) and the suggested fluid compensation strategy, we predicted that the disappearance of the meaning of work may induce a compensatory response and thus enhance one's autonomous motivation in an irrelevant ensuing activity. To test this hypothesis, we invited participants to work on an encyclopedic knowledge quiz in Session 1 and a StopWatch (SW) task in Session 2. A between-subject design was adopted. While participants in the control group successfully completed their tasks in Session 1, those in the experimental group encountered unexpected program quits by the end of the quiz, and their previous efforts suddenly became futile and meaningless. Electroencephalography was recorded during the experiment to measure reward positivity (RewP). In Session 2, a more pronounced RewP in the win-lose difference wave was observed in the experimental group in contrast to the control group, suggesting that the disappearance of the meaning of work enhanced one's autonomous motivation in an irrelevant activity that follows. Therefore, results of this study provided preliminary electrophysiological evidence for one's pursuit of meaning and the compensation effect induced by the disappearance of the meaning of work.

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“…Bowie (1998) defines meaningful work as work that is freely entered into, allows the worker to exercise his autonomy and independence, enables the worker to develop her rational capacities, provides a wage sufficient for physical welfare, supports the moral development of employees, and is not paternalistic. Yeoman (2014) defines it as a value that is broader and richer than happiness or morality that comes from engaging in work worthy of loving. Kahn (1990) defines meaningful work as "a sense of return on investments of self in role performance" (Kahn, 1990;p.…”

Section: Defining Meaningfulnessmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Similarly, Pratt and Ashforth (2003) explain that meaningfulness arises through an integration of identity with roles in work groups and Shamir (1991) explained that meaningfulness comes from the interaction between work tasks, the context of the work, and an individual's self concept, emphasizing an individual's process of identity integration as an important source of meaningfulness. Additionally, Yeoman (2014) explains that the experience of meaningfulness is more likely to occur when a person becomes actively connected to a worthy object, or something or someone of value, such that they are gripped, excited, and involved by it, emphasizing the need for personal connection to one's work to experience meaningfulness. Martela (2010) also argued that meaningful work is essentially a match between an individual's need for meaning and the meaning a job is able to offer, which can be understood through three key questions: 1) Where do I belong?…”

Section: Sources Of Meaningfulnessmentioning

confidence: 99%

Why do I Spend Forty Hours a Week in an Office? Why Meaningful Work Matters and How to Create It

Middlebrook¹

2017

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A review of existing literature and popular media exhibits an increasing demand for meaningful work from individuals as well as a desire to provide meaningful work by organizations. This study synthesizes existing research on the definition, sources, and outcomes of meaningful work for individuals and organizations. Insights from this review are integrated to advance a taxonomy of the different types of practices organizations can implement to promote meaningfulness for their employees. The categories from this taxonomy were used to determine most effective strategies for promoting meaningfulness, as well as the most influential sources in the experience of meaningfulness. Finally, the extent to which meaningfulness affects organizational outcomes was evaluated to assess the organizational value of implementing these practices and promoting meaningfulness. The results of the study confirm the growing need for and benefits of helping individuals experience meaningfulness in their work.

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Conceptualising Meaningful Work as a Fundamental Human Need

Cited by 211 publications

References 56 publications

Serving Time: Volunteer Work, Liminality and the Uses of Meaningfulness at Music Festivals

Serving Time: Volunteer Work, Liminality and the Uses of Meaningfulness at Music Festivals

Man’s Pursuit of Meaning: Unexpected Termination Bolsters One’s Autonomous Motivation in an Irrelevant Ensuing Activity

Why do I Spend Forty Hours a Week in an Office? Why Meaningful Work Matters and How to Create It

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