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<bold>Background/Purpose:</bold> 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.
<bold>Methods:</bold> 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.
<bold>Results:</bold> 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.
<bold>Conclusion:</bold> 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.
</abstract>

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.

Scoping out the Common-Sense Perspective on Meaningful Work: Theory, Data and Implications for Human Resource Management and Development

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This work is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License.

Background/Purpose: Meaningful work is a topic of relevant interest to management and organizational scholars. The study of meaningful work has been heavily...

Scoping out the Common-Sense Perspective on Meaningful Work: Theory, Data and Implications for Human Resource Management and Development

Publié en ligne: 07 mars 2023

Pages: 80 - 89

Reçu: 20 août 2022

Accepté: 24 févr. 2023

DOI: https://doi.org/10.2478/orga-2023-0006

Mots clés
Meaningful work, Common-sense, Employee wellbeing, Human resource management and development

© 2023 Francesco TOMMASI et al., published by Sciendo

This work is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License.

Scoping out the Common-Sense Perspective on Meaningful Work: Theory, Data and Implications for Human Resource Management and Development

Publié en ligne: 07 mars 2023

Pages: 80 - 89

Reçu: 20 août 2022

Accepté: 24 févr. 2023

DOI: https://doi.org/10.2478/orga-2023-0006

Mots clésMeaningful work, Common-sense, Employee wellbeing, Human resource management and development

© 2023 Francesco TOMMASI et al., published by Sciendo

This work is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License.

Mots clés
Meaningful work, Common-sense, Employee wellbeing, Human resource management and development