Rack CW – Meaningful Work

TAOP Resources Page -- Aisle C (Contemporary Topics and Issues)

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Resources: Main Page | Research Methods (A) | Major Theories (B) | Issues and Contemporary Topics (C) | Professional Education (D)

Aisle C (Topics and Issues): Agility and Adaptability (CA) | Digital Technologies (CD) | Employee Well-Being (CE) | Inequality & Justice (CI) | 21st Century Leadership (CL) | Resource Management (CR) | Sustainability (CS) | Meaningful Work (CW)

Rack CW (Meaning of Work): Traditional Models | Remote and Hybrid Work Models | Occupations, Professions, and Work

Jump to: Importance | Challenges | Research Areas | Foundational Works | TAOP Episodes | References

Why is the Meaning of Work an Important Contemporary Topic?

The contemporary issues and concerns regarding the meaning of work are multifaceted and reflect the evolving nature of employment relationships and organizational practices. There are connections to the evolving changes to the economy such as digitization and the emergence of the gig economy (see Rack CD). Here are six topics that capture relevant concerns for leaders and workers:

Concerns about Job Security. Among the primary concerns for contemporary workers are job security, precarity, and navigating the job market. Gig workers face uncertainty regarding their income and employment status, which can lead to financial instability and stress. Anwar and Graham (2020) highlight the precarious nature of gig work, where flexibility often comes at the cost of security and benefits. Meanwhile, getting a job is becoming more difficult and stressful due to firms being overwhelmed by numbers of job applications and therefore resorting to technique that may be deemed impersonal such as posting jobs they have no intention of filling to gather information about potential job seekers or job ghosting, which is the act of quietly cutting communication with applicants that they are no longer considering rather than being upfront about it (Kelly, 2024).

Questions About Regulatory Frameworks. This leads to a second concern regarding the treatment of workers. One is the proposed need for most effective regulatory frameworks to protect workers from harm, abuse, or poor treatment. Koutsimpogiorgos et al. (2020), for example, emphasizes addressing the regulatory challenges associated with gig work, including issues related to classification, benefits, and labor standards.

Work-Life Balance and Other Workplace Factors. Other related concerns are more social or personal in nature such as work-life balance, as today’s economy often blurs the boundaries between work and personal life, leading to challenges in achieving a healthy balance. Bricka and Schroeder (2019) discuss how gig workers may experience irregular working hours and the impact this has on their overall well-being. Worker skills are also a concern as the rapid pace of digital transformation necessitates that workers must continuously upskill to remain competitive, but this is proving difficult and expensive (Alanzi, 2021).

The Bottom Up Question — What Should Work Mean? While much of the focus is on the workers’ perspectives, the meaning of work has equally powerful implications on employers and managers. Leaders worry about how to provide stable employment opportunities while navigating the flexibility that gig work offers. This concern is compounded by the potential for increased turnover and the challenges of retaining talent (Anwar & Graham, 2020). Leaders are concerned about maintaining employee engagement and motivation despite lacking the traditional vestiges of a cohesive organizational culture. This can lead to feelings of isolation among workers (Bricka & Schroeder, 2019; also see our Episode 66 on Workplace Isolation from the early days of the pandemic).

Relevant Theories or Literature Streams

The menu for this rack lists several subtopics that might be of interest and which we may produce a dedicated page in future. The Rack CW menu at the top and bottom of the page and resource links below will include active and available subpages. Also, Aisle B (Theories) may include resource pages on some of these streams.

Note: This is not intended to be comprehensive, but illustrative of the different perspectives that research can take in matters pertaining to the meaning of work.

Sociotechnical Systems Theory. This theory emphasizes the interaction between social and technical aspects of organizations. It posits that organizations should be designed to optimize both human and technological elements to enhance performance and worker satisfaction. The foundational text is Trist and Bamforth’s (1951) study of coal-getting in which the introduction of a new method produced devastating consequences for the social cohesion of the workers. We covered this paper twice in Episodes 34 and 114.

Job Characteristics Theory. Developed by Hackman and Oldham in their seminal work “Motivation through Design of Work” (1976), this theory identifies key job characteristics that influence employee motivation and satisfaction. The theory posits that jobs should be designed to enhance intrinsic motivation, which is particularly relevant in discussions about the meaning of work in contemporary contexts. We covered their “job diagnostic survey” the previous year in Episode 77.

Social Identity Theory: This psychological theory, introduced by Henri Tajfel and John Turner, examines how individuals derive their identity from group memberships. In the context of work, this theory helps explain how organizational culture and social dynamics influence employee engagement and commitment. The foundational text is “Social Identity and Intergroup Relations” (1982), which provides insights into how identity shapes workplace behavior.

Transformational Leadership Theory. This theory focuses on how leaders can inspire and motivate employees to achieve higher levels of performance and engagement. Bass’s work, “Leadership and Performance Beyond Expectations” (1985), is foundational in this area, emphasizing the role of transformational leadership in fostering a positive organizational culture and enhancing the meaning of work for employees.

Boundaryless Organization. This concept, popularized by Ashkenas et al. in “The Boundaryless Organization” (1995), explores how organizations can operate without traditional hierarchical boundaries, facilitating collaboration and flexibility. This perspective is particularly relevant in the context of remote work and gig employment, as it addresses the changing nature of organizational structures and relationships.

Psychological Contract Theory. This theory examines the implicit agreements between employers and employees regarding expectations and obligations. Rousseau’s work, “Psychological Contracts in Organizations” (1995), provides a framework for understanding how changes in the nature of work, such as the rise of gig employment, impact employee perceptions of their relationships with organizations.

Some Contemporary Areas of Research

Please note that this is not to be considered an exhaustive list. We welcome feedback to ensure currency on contemporary challenges and research efforts. This is also not intended to provide a comprehensive look at ongoing research in any of these areas but just to highlight some of the specific topic areas being pursued as of this writing.

What is Work? The pressures on workers has renewed old questions about the deeper meaning of work, such as debates on whether technological advances might eliminate the need for work and how that would reshape human purpose. What do people today find fulfilling in their work and how can they be set up to flourish? What of the emergence of non-traditional work models such as how meaning is constructed in non-standard jobs, such as freelancing, entrepreneurship, and creative work that is perhaps supplanting more traditional forms of work? There is also the increased concerns about unpaid labor such as domestic work performed by spouses or abusive overtime practices where workers are continuously on-call. There are also generational differences to be explored as each generation from Boomers to Gen Z generally exhibit different expectations from their work lives and different measures of success and satisfaction.

Artificial Intelligence in the Workplace. Contemporary research into the meaning of work increasingly focuses on the implications of artificial intelligence (AI) and its integration into various work environments. This integration not only transforms job roles but also reshapes the overall understanding of work itself. Several studies highlight these dynamics, emphasizing the changing nature of work, employee development, and the evolving relationship between humans and technology. One significant area of research is the impact of AI on job attitudes and career behaviors. For example, Presbitero and Teng-Calleja (2022) explore how the incorporation of AI in the workplace necessitates new competencies among employees, particularly in managing the interplay between human oversight and AI capabilities.

Worker Well-being. And by “worker,” we also mean leader and manager well-being, too. Mental health, burnout, work-life balance, resilience, family needs, all these are rife with opportunities for further study in the present context. There are also concerns about large portions of the labor force choosing not to work, perhaps deterred by the frustrating job search process. How can this be turned around?

Foundational Works

Many of the true classics of organization studies (see Rack BA) provide the foundations for exploring the history and evolution of the meaning of work. The questions raised above are natural extensions of old debates and dialogue over the roles and purposes of management and work.

Frederick Winslow Taylor, The Principles of Scientific Management. Taylor’s focus on efficiency, standardization, and task optimization informs debates about automation, gig work, and worker alienation in modern contexts. We first covered scientific management in Episode 1.

Max Weber, Economy and Society. Weber’s concept of bureaucracy as a rational and efficient organizational form continues to underpin modern discussions on hierarchy, automation, and the role of human agency in structured environments. We covered Weber in Episode 6.

Henri Fayol: General and Industrial Management. Fayol’s principles of management (e.g., division of labor, centralization) are foundational for understanding administrative theories that influence organizational design. We covered this classic work in Episode 2.

Elton Mayo, The Human Problems of an Industrial Civilization. Mayo’s Hawthorne Studies emphasize the social and psychological dimensions of work, foundational to understanding workplace culture, employee engagement, and well-being. We examined this in Episode 9.

Chester Barnard, The Functions of the Executive. Barnard introduces the concept of organizations as cooperative systems, with a focus on informal networks and communication. We discussed this work in two Episodes — 7 and 8.

Related TAOP Episodes, Events, and Notes

119: Management & the Worker — Roethlisberger & Dickson

We return for another look at the Hawthorne Studies through Fritz Roethlisberger and William Dickson’s 1939 book Management and the Worker. The work chronicles five years of experiments that initially sought the optimal conditions for increased worker performance but evolved into an examination of the social controls that worker exercise over themselves for self-preservation against managerial decisions. It also includes an introspective look into the researchers themselves as they had to design new experiments to make sense of the surprising and contradictory findings. The book is incredibly detailed and laid the foundation for the development of the Human Relations tradition in organization studies.
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112: Hierarchies & Promotion – The “Peter Principle”

The diligent administrative assistant moves up to supervisor but fails. The assembly line worker is promoted to foreman but cannot do the job. A teacher earns a deputy principal position in a school but falls flat on their face. Why is that? Why does this seem to happen across organizations? In The Peter Principle, Lawrence J. Peter and Raymond Hull not only provides answers to these questions, they delve into all the possible implications. The Principle goes like this, “In a hierarchy, everyone rises to their level of incompetence.” How they derived this principle the subject of our conversation that explores one of the funniest but more insightful book on the perils of organizational life ever written.
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111: Visible & Invisible Work – Susan Leigh Star

In this episode, we focus on the emerging discourse from the 1990s on how automated systems would potentially change the very meaning of work. The discussion is on a seminal work of Susan Leigh Star and co-author Anselm Strauss, “Layers of Silence, Arenas of Voice: The Ecology of Visible and Invisible Work,” published in CSCW’s flagship journal, Computer-Supported Cooperative Work, in 1999. The article focuses on the challenges and risks of automating work processes without due consideration of all the invisible work done in an organization that systems designers might overlook.
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103: Bringing Work Back In — Barley & Kunda

In their 2001 Organization Science article “Bringing Work Back In,” Steven Barley and Gideon Kunda lamented how the study of work, its organization, and its performance shifted after the 1950s. Work was the center of attention among the classic era of organization studies beginning with Frederic Taylor, but afterward, the focus shifted to post-bureaucratic concepts such as boundaryless organizations and networks. Barley and Kunda argues that these new ideas are not grounded in rigorous studies of how people perform work in such new organizations.
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101: The Motivation to Work — Frederick Herzberg

Frederick Herzberg’s “The Motivation to Work” presents the results of over 200 interviews with engineers and accountants working in the Pittsburgh area regarding what satisfied and dissatisfied them on the job. They would find that factors leading to satisfaction, such as achievement and performance, were very different than those leading to dissatisfaction, such as company policies or relationships with co-workers and managers. The result became known as Herzberg’s Two-Factor Theory of Job Satisfaction, also known as the motivator-hygiene theory.
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93: Approaches to the Study of Work — Classics AoM PDW LIVE

This year’s professional development workshop (PDW) on Classics of Organization and Management Theory explored key approaches to the study of work and was held at the 2022 Annual Meeting of the Academy of Management in Seattle, Washington in the U.S. It represents the fourth edition of a standing series showcasing the enduring relevance of early organizational research. Steve Barley, Gina Dokko, Ingrid Erickson, and Davide Nicolini presented central insights on research traditions related to the study of work and related topics such as careers and technological change. They also addressed various ways that these insights can shed light on the changing nature of work.
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62: Consumerism & Meaning at Work — WALL-E

This is another episode where we look at organizations through the medium of film. WALL-E, a 2008 animated film from Pixar, is the story of a robot who at one time was part of a massive clean-up effort on Earth while all the humans left to live on cruise ships in space. In this episode, we talk about the setting and the story for clues about organizational behavior and management.
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49: Engineered Culture and Normative Control – Gideon Kunda

Originally published in 1992, Gideon Kunda’s ethnographic study of a high-tech corporation altered the discourse on organizational culture. “Tech,” the firm being studied, was a firm on the rise and saw itself as a leader and ground breaker in the rapidly growing high-tech industries of the 1980s. But as the firm grew, it began indoctrinating its tried-and-true hard-work formula in aggressive and unhelpful ways.
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36: The Human Capital Hoax – Employment in the Gig Economy

We step back from the classics and examine a contemporary work covering a timely topic – the negative effects of ‘Uberization’ and the gig economy on the economic and social fabric. The article is Peter Fleming’s “The human capital hoax: Work, debt, and insecurity in the era of uberization,” published in 2017 in the journal Organization Studies. In it, Fleming takes a classic approach towards economics and traces its ‘dark’ influence on contemporary dynamics.
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35: The Managed Heart – Arlie Hochschild

The Managed Heart, originally published in 1983 by Dr. Arlie Hochschild, introduced the concept of emotional labour as a counterpart to the physical and mental labour performed in the scope of one’s duties. The importance of emotional labour is made clear in Dr. Hochschild’s descrption of flight attendants, who regardless of the dispositions of airline passengers, turbulence in the flight, or personal stress is required to act and behave in ways that minimize passenger anxiety and encourage them to fly with that airline again. Thus, the book explores the challenges of stress, protecting one’s personal identity and private life, differentiated (and often unfair) gender roles, miscommunication between supervisors and workers or workers and clients, and others.
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20: High Reliability in Practice – USN Rear Admiral Tom Mercer

Based around a classic work by Weick and Roberts (1993) on Collective Mind in Organizations – where the authors observed and analyzed the way people on the deck of an aircraft carrier function in a collective manner – this episode brings you a discussion of how concepts of High Reliability (see also Episode 11) flesh out in real life!
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18: Gig Economy, Labor Relations and Algorithmic Management

We discuss an article by Sarah O’Connor exploring the impact of gig economy and algorithmic management on the employees – what their experience is like, how their work is structured, and whether being a gig economy employee is everything it panned out to be. Gig economy, as well as its benefits and limitations, has been subject to much debate in social policy and labour relations.
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11: Culture and High Reliability – Bierly and Spender

We discuss Culture and High Reliability Organizing (HRO). While not universally known within management and organization studies, High Reliability is concerned with formal structure and process, as well as informal commitment, motivation and trust. HRO describes a subset of hazardous organizations that enjoy a high level of safety over long periods of time. What distinguishes types of high-risk systems is the source of risk, whether it is the technical or social factors that the system must control or whether the environment, itself, constantly changes.
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9: Hawthorne Studies – Elton Mayo

The Hawthorne studies take their name from the Hawthorne works, a factory near Chicago which belonged to Western Electric. Even though these studies are traditionally solely associated with Mayo’s name, most of the experimental work was carried out by Fritz Roethlisberger (his graduate assistant) and William Dickson (head of the department of employee relations at Western Electric). The experiments took place between 1924 and 1932 and were commissioned because the company wanted to understand which was the optimal level of lighting to increase workers’ productivity. Mayo’s work “The Social problems of an Industrial Civilization” (1945) is the text we are reading for this episode. In this book, Mayo reports on a number of his research projects – including the studies in the Textile Mill in Philadelphia and the Hawthorne Studies previously mentioned – and provides an ambitious social commentary on industrial society.
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3: Theory of Human Motivation – Abraham Maslow

We discuss “A Theory of Human Motivation” by Abraham H. Maslow, one of the most famous psychology articles ever written. Originally published in 1943, it was in this landmark paper that Maslow presented his first detailed representation of Self-Actualization – the desire to become everything that one is capable of becoming – at the pinnacle of a hierarchy of human needs. What Maslow is most famous for, however, is the pyramid of human needs.
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Available Resource Pages

Aisle C – Management Topics

Curated lists of resources regarding contemporary issues, topics, and challenges that are driving today’s organization research. Includes a wide range of subjects from the gig economy to the meaning of work
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Rack CI – Inequality and Justice

Curated list of resources regarding the study of diversity, equity, inclusion, and accessibility in organizations and the removal of discrimination and systemic biases that deny basic human dignity and respect
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Rack CR — Resource Management

Curated list of resources regarding the effective and efficient use of resources in organizations — raw materials, people, finance, technologies, and information. Each type of resource is a research area on its own, but together they represent a broad range of challenging management decisions
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Rack CW – Meaningful Work

Curated list of resources regarding present-day attitudes toward work and work-life balance. Includes discussing traditional vs. contemporary work models, employee well-being, and member commitment to the organization
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References

Alanzi, T. (2021). Prospects of integrating gig economy in the Saudi Arabian health-care system from the perspectives of health-care decision-makers and practitioners. Journal of Healthcare Leadership, Volume 13, 255-265. https://doi.org/10.2147/jhl.s323729

Anwar, M. and Graham, M. (2020). Between a rock and a hard place: freedom, flexibility, precarity and vulnerability in the gig economy in africa. Competition & Change, 25(2), 237-258. https://doi.org/10.1177/1024529420914473

Ashkenas, R. (1995). The Boundaryless Organization: Breaking the Chains of Organizational Structure. Jossey-Bass.

Barnard, C.I. (1938). The Functions of the Executive. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.

Bass, B. M. (1985). Leadership and performance beyond expectations. Free Press.

Bricka, T. and Schroeder, A. (2019). What’s the gig deal? examining contemporary work issues in the gig economy. Industrial and Organizational Psychology, 12(4), 491-494. https://doi.org/10.1017/iop.2019.116

Hackman, J. R., & Oldham, G. R. (1975). Development of the job diagnostic survey. Journal of Applied psychology, 60(2), 159.

Fayol, H. (1949). General and Industrial Management, trans. Constance Storrs. Pitman: London.

Kelly, J. (2024, March 1). Job ghosting: Why employers ghost candidates during the interview process. Forbes. https://www.forbes.com/sites/jackkelly/2024/03/01/job-ghosting/

Koutsimpogiorgos, N., Slageren, J., Herrmann, A., & Frenken, K. (2020). Conceptualizing the gig economy and its regulatory problems. Policy & Internet, 12(4), 525-545. https://doi.org/10.1002/poi3.237

Mayo, E. (1945). The Social Problems of an Industrial Civilization. 

OpenAI. (2024). Contemporary areas of research into the meaning of work; What are the foundational theoretical streams or texts from before 1970 that organization researchers should read first to understand scholarship in the future of work. ChatGPT (November 2022 version) [Large Language Model].

Presbitero, A. and Teng‐Calleja, M. (2022). Job attitudes and career behaviors relating to employees’ perceived incorporation of artificial intelligence in the workplace: a career self-management perspective. Personnel Review, 52(4), 1169-1187. https://doi.org/10.1108/pr-02-2021-0103

Rousseau, D. (2019). A vision for advancing systems science as a foundation for the systems engineering and systems practice of the future. Behavioral Science, 36(5), 621-634. https://doi.org/10.1002/sres.2629

Scite. (2024). What are the top six contemporary issues and concerns regarding the future of  work or the meaning of work for the labor force; What worries organizational leaders most about contemporary changes in the meaning of work; What are the foundational theoretical streams or texts that organization researchers are using most to examine matters of the future of work and the meaning of work; What is one example of a study examining the impacts of artificial intelligence technologies being so prevalent in both work and home environments. Scite (April 2024 version) [Large Language Model].

Tajfel, H., & Turner, J. C. (1979). An integrative theory of inter-group conflict. In W. G. Austin & S. Worchel (Eds.), The social psychology of inter-group relations (pp. 33–47). Monterey, CA: Brooks/Cole.

Taylor, F. W. (1911). The Principles of Scientific Management.

Trist, E. L., & Bamforth, K. W. (1951). Some social and psychological consequences of the longwall method of coal-getting: An examination of the psychological situation and defences of a work group in relation to the social structure and technological content of the work system. Human relations, 4(1), 3-38.

Weber. M. (1922) Economy and Society. CA: University of California Press.

Portions of the above text were initially drafted using OpenAI queries including “Why is it important for organization researchers to conduct research properly and ethically?”

Jump to: Importance | Challenges | Research Areas | Foundational Works | TAOP Episodes | References

Rack CW (Meaning of Work): Traditional Models | Remote and Hybrid Work Models | Occupations, Professions, and Work

Aisle C (Topics and Issues): Agility and Adaptability (CA) | Digital Technologies (CD) | Employee Well-Being (CE) | Inequality & Justice (CI) | 21st Century Leadership (CL) | Resource Management (CR) | Sustainability (CS) | Meaningful Work (CW)

Resources: Main Page | Research Methods (A) | Major Theories (B) | Issues and Contemporary Topics (C) | Professional Education (D)