Cultivating meaningfulness at work

Abstract

The experience of work as meaningful, evoking a positive sense of purpose, is consistently associated with beneficial work-related and general well-being outcomes. This chapter briefly overviews the sources, mechanisms, and correlates of meaningful work before summarizing three theoretical frameworks that may help explain the experience of meaningful work. Although research investigating meaningful work has proliferated in recent years, comparatively little scholarly attention has focused on strategies workers use to foster a sense of meaningfulness. Drawing from theory and research within social psychology, we propose three steps employees might take to increase their sense of their work as meaningful.