Absolute autonomy, respectful recognition and derived dignity: Towards a typology of meaningful work

The aim of this chapter is to consider the implications of the virtue ethics approach for individuals both in their lives in general and more specifically when they are at work in organizations. It introduces the idea of ends or purposes of an individual life, and the concept of a narrative quest in pursuing it, and links this to concepts already covered in previous chapters—goods, practices, and virtues. It introduces the idea of the unity of an individual life, and shows how this is linked to the idea of practices. It then considers virtue at work in organizations, and introduces the idea of meaningful work including how we may properly order our desires both in general and at work. It ends by considering whether managers, organizations, and governments have a responsibility to provide meaningful work.

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Meaningful Work, Job Resources, and Employee Engagement

Sustainability ◽

10.3390/su13074045 ◽

2021 ◽

Vol 13 (7) ◽

pp. 4045

Author(s):

Simon L. Albrecht ◽

Camille R. Green ◽

Andrew Marty

Keyword(s):

Employee Engagement ◽

Structural Equation ◽

Meaningful Work ◽

Organizational Outcomes ◽

Job Resources ◽

Psychological State ◽

Future Research ◽

Theoretical Frameworks ◽

Positive Direct ◽

The Relationship

Meaningful work and employee engagement have been the subject of increasing interest in organizational research and practice over recent years. Both constructs have been shown to influence important organizational outcomes, such as job satisfaction, wellbeing, and performance. Only a limited amount of empirical research has focused on understanding the relationship within existing theoretical frameworks. For this study, meaningful work is proposed as a critical psychological state within the job demands-resources (JD-R) model that can therefore, in part, explain the relationship between job resources and employee engagement. Survey data collected from 1415 employees working in a range of organizations, across a number of industries, were analyzed with confirmatory factor analysis (CFA) and structural equation modelling (SEM). In support of expectations, job variety, development opportunities, and autonomy, each had a significant and positive direct association with meaningful work. These job resources also had a significant and positive indirect effect on employee engagement via meaningful work. Although job variety, development opportunities, autonomy, and feedback had significant positive direct associations with engagement, contrary to expectations, supervisor support had a negative association with engagement. The final model explained a sizable proportion of variance in both meaningful work (49%) and employee engagement (65%). Relative weights analyses showed that job variety was the strongest job resource predictor of meaningful work, and that meaningful work was more strongly associated with employee engagement than the job resources. Overall, the results show that meaningful work plays an important role in enhancing employee engagement and that providing employees with skill and task variety is important to achieving that goal. Practical implications, study limitations, and future research opportunities are discussed.

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Bacterial Spore-Based Hygromorphs: A Novel Active Material with Potential for Architectural Applications

Sustainability ◽

10.3390/su13074030 ◽

2021 ◽

Vol 13 (7) ◽

pp. 4030

Author(s):

Emily Birch ◽

Ben Bridgens ◽

Meng Zhang ◽

Martyn Dade-Robertson

Keyword(s):

Bacillus Subtilis ◽

Architectural Design ◽

Energy Input ◽

Shape Change ◽

Active Material ◽

Meaningful Work ◽

Sensors And Actuators ◽

Active Materials ◽

Environmental Humidity ◽

New Material

This paper introduces a new active material which responds to changes in environmental humidity. There has been growing interest in active materials which are able to respond to their environment, creating dynamic architectural systems without the need for energy input or complex systems of sensors and actuators. A subset of these materials are hygromorphs, which respond to changes in relative humidity (RH) and wetting through shape change. Here, we introduce a novel hygromorphic material in the context of architectural design, composed of multiple monolayers of microbial spores of Bacillus subtilis and latex sheets. Methods of fabrication and testing for this new material are described, showing that small actuators made from this material demonstrate rapid, reversible and repeatable deflection in response to changes in RH. It is demonstrated that the hygromorphic actuators are able to lift at least 150% of their own mass. Investigations are also extended to understanding this new biomaterial in terms of meaningful work.

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Measuring Meaningful Work

Journal of Career Assessment ◽

10.1177/1069072711436160 ◽

2012 ◽

Vol 20 (3) ◽

pp. 322-337 ◽

Cited By ~ 332

Author(s):

Michael F. Steger ◽

Bryan J. Dik ◽

Ryan D. Duffy

Keyword(s):

Meaningful Work

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