Experiencing meaningful work through worthwhile contributions: A critical discourse analysis

IF 4.5 2区管理学 Q1 MANAGEMENT

Human Relations Pub Date : 2024-05-20 DOI:10.1177/00187267241255581

Catherine Bailey, Adrian Madden, Marjolein Lips-Wiersma

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Abstract

Why do individuals find their work meaningful and what is the role of worthwhile contributions in this experience? We undertake an analysis of accounts related by individuals working as nurses, creative artists and lawyers in which they explain why they find their work meaningful. Drawing on the traditions of critical discourse and narrative analysis, and informed by French pragmatic sociology, we move beyond a focus on what is said to consider how accounts are structured in explanations of meaningfulness. We find meaningfulness to be discursively constituted in the judgement that work makes a worthwhile contribution to others or wider society. We add theoretically to the literature on meaningful work, first, by revealing worthwhile contributions to be a complex, three-fold evaluation comprising the value attached by the individual to their contribution, validation from others that aligns with the individual’s own evaluation concerning the worth of the contribution and the individual’s self-efficacy belief that they are able to make the contribution. Second, we build bridges between hitherto disconnected branches of the meaningful work literature grounded in positive psychology on the one hand and moral worth on the other by showing how judgements of worth are fundamental to the experience of meaningfulness.

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通过有价值的贡献体验有意义的工作：批判性话语分析

为什么个人认为自己的工作有意义，有价值的贡献在这种体验中起着什么作用？我们对从事护士、创意艺术家和律师工作的个人的叙述进行了分析，在这些叙述中，他们解释了为什么他们认为自己的工作是有意义的。我们借鉴了批判性话语分析和叙事分析的传统，并参考了法国实用社会学的观点，不仅仅关注所说的内容，还考虑了在解释有意义性时是如何组织叙述的。我们发现，在判断工作对他人或更广泛的社会做出了有价值的贡献时，意义是以话语的方式构成的。首先，我们揭示了有价值的贡献是一种复杂的、三方面的评价，包括个人对其贡献所赋予的价值、与个人自身对贡献价值的评价相一致的他人验证以及个人认为自己能够做出贡献的自我效能感。其次，通过展示价值判断如何成为有意义体验的基础，我们在以积极心理学为基础的有意义工作文献和道德价值文献这两个迄今为止互不关联的分支之间架起了桥梁。

本文章由计算机程序翻译，如有差异，请以英文原文为准。

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来源期刊

Human Relations Multiple-

CiteScore

12.60

自引率

7.00%

发文量

期刊介绍： Human Relations is an international peer reviewed journal, which publishes the highest quality original research to advance our understanding of social relationships at and around work through theoretical development and empirical investigation. Scope Human Relations seeks high quality research papers that extend our knowledge of social relationships at work and organizational forms, practices and processes that affect the nature, structure and conditions of work and work organizations. Human Relations welcomes manuscripts that seek to cross disciplinary boundaries in order to develop new perspectives and insights into social relationships and relationships between people and organizations. Human Relations encourages strong empirical contributions that develop and extend theory as well as more conceptual papers that integrate, critique and expand existing theory. Human Relations welcomes critical reviews and essays: - Critical reviews advance a field through new theory, new methods, a novel synthesis of extant evidence, or a combination of two or three of these elements. Reviews that identify new research questions and that make links between management and organizations and the wider social sciences are particularly welcome. Surveys or overviews of a field are unlikely to meet these criteria. - Critical essays address contemporary scholarly issues and debates within the journal''s scope. They are more controversial than conventional papers or reviews, and can be shorter. They argue a point of view, but must meet standards of academic rigour. Anyone with an idea for a critical essay is particularly encouraged to discuss it at an early stage with the Editor-in-Chief. Human Relations encourages research that relates social theory to social practice and translates knowledge about human relations into prospects for social action and policy-making that aims to improve working lives.