Societal conceptions about meaningful work and individual´s experiences of meaningfulness at work

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Against the backdrop of current discussions on the rise of alienation and employees demands for meaningful work, the project aims at understanding the experience of meaningfulness at work amongst German employees. The question concerns the interplay of social interpretive patterns of meaningful work and the individuals experience of meaningfulness at work. The projects first phase consisted of examining two employment groups: physicians and social workers, to which both high occupational autonomy and meaningfulness are socially attributed. These workers rarely referenced the social utility of their own work. Therefore, in the second phase the project aims to understand references to the utility of work within the field of social entrepreneurs. Social entrepreneurship has meaningful work as an important part of its narrative. These workers are considered the avant-garde of new understandings of work. Thus, we have the chance to obtain deep insight concerning a changing work orientation and assumptions about what is good work as well as social responsibilities and the part they play in society. By using a triangulation of different research methods, it is possible to identify not only the interpretive patterns of meaningful work, but in addition, the individual appropriation by the workers. First, we are conducting interviews and document analysis to reconstruct interpretive patterns and narratives of meaningful work of the narratives of social entrepreneurs. In order to answer the question of how relevant the interpretive patterns of meaningful work are for experiencing meaningfulness, we are interviewing employees in the respective companies. In addition to the exploration of current work orientations and the individuals experience of work, the project achieves a contribution for the link of research methods within empirical research on meaningful work.