Making sense of work: finding meaning in work narratives

2019 ◽  
pp. 1-21
Author(s):  
Kimberly S. Scott
Keyword(s):  
Life Story ◽  
Meaning Making ◽  
Meaningful Work ◽  
Well Being ◽  
Work Lives ◽  
Meaning In Work ◽  
Design Characteristics ◽  
Life Story Interviews ◽  
Survey Responses ◽  
Work Narratives

AbstractThis study examined how individuals make sense of their work narratives – autobiographical stories about their work lives – and the implications for individual well-being. A mixed methods approach was used to investigate relationships between meaning making, pathways to meaningfulness, job characteristics, job involvement, and psychological well-being. Survey responses and narrative themes from life story interviews were collected from 119 adults. A narrative coding scheme was developed to identify pathways to meaningful work. Results show that people made sense of their work lives most often by constructing themes about personal agency. The findings support prior research suggesting that socioeconomic factors, access to resources, and working conditions increase the likelihood of finding and benefiting from meaningful work. For individuals wishing to find meaning in their work, job design characteristics (e.g., decision authority, skill discretion), and developing a sense of agency can be levers for fostering meaning and well-being.

scholarly journals RETIREES’ MEMORIES OF WORK LIFE AND WELL-BEING AFTER RETIREMENT: A QUALITATIVE INQUIRY

2019 ◽  
Vol 3 (Supplement_1) ◽  
pp. S309-S310
Author(s):  
Tina Hahnel ◽  
Sabine Hommelhoff ◽  
Hsiao-Wen Liao
Keyword(s):  
Life Story ◽  
Meaning Making ◽  
Well Being ◽  
Qualitative Inquiry ◽  
Future Research ◽  
Workplace Relationships ◽  
Work Lives ◽  
Before And After ◽  
Positive Meaning ◽  
Difficult Times

Abstract Reminiscence research has grown immensely in the past 30 years. Yet, research on personal memories of work lives is lacking. This is surprising because work is a crucial aspect of many people’s lives and an important life story chapter (Thomsen, Pillemer, & Ivcevic, 2011). Part of a larger project, the present qualitative study aimed to understand (1) what retirees remember about their work lives and (2) whether and how retirees tie those memories to their current well-being. Six in-depth interviews on lives before and after retirement (4 women and 2 men with different careers, age range 65 to 87 years) were conducted and transcribed verbatim. Findings of a thematic analysis (Braun & Clarke, 2006) revealed that participants reported both big and small stories. They first narrated landmark events (e.g., job loss after the Fall of the German Wall) and continued to recount many little incidents (e.g., a child asking an unretiring teacher if she is now "done with retirement”). Additionally, participants not only reminisced about work itself (i.e., what jobs were like) but equally about workplace relationships (e.g., particularly positive or negative relations with supervisors). Despite difficult times at work, participants reported that they were now at peace with how things went and generally satisfied with their current lives. We discuss how the type (i.e., big or small) and content (i.e., work- or relationship-focused) of retirees’ memories and positive meaning-making (i.e., recounting work lives in a positive light) may contribute to well-being and propose a conceptual model for future research.

Callings

2019 ◽  
pp. 273-287
Author(s):  
Ryan D. Duffy ◽  
Jessica W. England ◽  
Bryan J. Dik
Keyword(s):  
Meaningful Work ◽  
Well Being ◽  
Job Crafting ◽  
Dark Side ◽  
Life Meaning ◽  
Workplace Interventions ◽  
Meaning In Work ◽  
The Social ◽  
Meaningful Engagement ◽  
Personal Level

This chapter connects the literatures on callings and meaningful work. It examines the meaningful nature of calling by separating the idea of perceiving a calling from actually living one. It is argued that callings, whether prompted from within the person or externally, underpin meaningful engagement with work at the social or personal level because they provide people with purpose. Those who pursue a calling are shown to experience more meaningful outcomes such as well-being and work satisfaction, but are exposed to the “dark side” of callings too often manifest in workaholism, burnout, and exploitation. Those who perceive a calling, but who choose not to pursue it, can access sources of life meaning through job crafting opportunities but also through workplace interventions, such as critical consciousness training, that may empower them to enact their perceived calling and thus more easily find meaning in work.

scholarly journals An Existential Anthropological Study of Selfhood, Uncertainty and Resilience Among Youth of Tando Ghulam Ali, Sindh

2021 ◽  
Vol 55 (No 1) ◽  
pp. 95-113
Author(s):  
Ali Taqui Shah ◽  
Abdul Razaque Channa ◽  
Syed Faisal Hyder Shah
Keyword(s):  
Young People ◽  
Lived Experience ◽  
Lived Experiences ◽  
Life Story ◽  
Meaning Making ◽  
Human Beings ◽  
Terra Incognita ◽  
Anthropological Study ◽  
The Difference ◽  
Life Story Interviews

This study combines three orientations, namely existential thought about the meaning of ‘being’ and ‘existence,’ phenomenological insights into ‘lived experience,’ and anthropological endeavor at what it means to be human. It attempts to focus on the human conditions by directly engaging with human beings. Specifically guiding itself with the questions such as how young people engage in the meaning-making of their lived experiences in their life course’s ever-changing process. Taking its theoretical insights and inspiration from existential and phenomenological anthropology, by zooming in on lived experiences, the research was conducted using life story interviews to collect the narratives to gain understandings into the life-worlds as it is lived and made sense of by young people of Tando Ghulam Ali, a rural town of District Badin, Sindh. Based on the ethnographic data and observations, it is argued that the meaning-making of lived experiences was different among research participants with a strong presence of selfhood and self-consciousness temporally and affectively; the difference in orientation towards life is entangled with personal history as well. This research went beyond the horizons of culture and society to put existence, life, and being, which are silhouetted at meta-level, at the heart of anthropological focus. This research is an experimental research project in anthropology, which has attempted to step its foot into the human condition's terra incognita, which calls for anthropologists’ further exploration.

scholarly journals Meaningful Work Protects Teachers’ Self-Rated Health under Stressors

2020 ◽  
Vol 4 (2) ◽  
pp. 140-152 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jaana Minkkinen ◽  
Elina Auvinen ◽  
Saija Mauno
Keyword(s):  
Structural Equation ◽  
Meaningful Work ◽  
Well Being ◽  
Work Conditions ◽  
Work Context ◽  
Self Rated Health ◽  
Interaction Terms ◽  
Meaning In Work ◽  
Practical Implications

A sense of meaningfulness is one of the most sought?after work characteristics which has been associated with employees’ well-being. This study explored whether meaningful work enhances self-rated health in challenging work context, under the stressors of distractions, unnecessary tasks, and unreasonable tasks. Data was collected from Finnish teachers (N = 1,658) and structural equation modelling was employed with the latent interaction terms. Results showed that meaningful work was associated with better self-rated health and the stressors were associated with poorer self-rated health. Protective potential of meaningful work against stressors was also discovered, as meaningful work mitigated the harm of stressors on self-rated health. These findings indicate that meaningful work acts as an important resource for employees’ self-rated health and helps them to better cope with stressful work conditions, enhancing well-being. The protective quality of meaningful work means that even challenging work context may have less harm for employees’ well-being, if they have a strong sense of meaning in work. The practical implications of the findings for teachers and organizations are discussed.

Remembering the Positive and Negative: Affective Themes as Predictors of Psychological Well-Being Across Adulthood

2021 ◽  
pp. 009141502110376
Author(s):  
Frederique Corcoran ◽  
Nicole Alea
Keyword(s):  
Personal Growth ◽  
Life Stories ◽  
Life Story ◽  
Meaning Making ◽  
Age Groups ◽  
Well Being ◽  
Positive Events ◽  
Psychological Well Being ◽  
Cross Cultural Differences ◽  
Middle Aged Adults

The current study explored the link between psychological well-being (PWB; self-acceptance, personal growth, and purpose in life) and affective themes, including redemption (positive endings for negative events), contamination (negative endings for positive events), and positive and negative affect (no change in affect) in the life stories of Caribbean adults ranging in age from 19 to 78 ( N = 105). How often the memory narrative was rehearsed, and whether or not the theme emerged after being cued in content-coded life story low, high, and turning point scenes were also considered. Affective theme alone did not predict PWB; however, when considering age, rehearsal, and cue, redemption and positive affect predicted personal growth. More work should cue meaning-making in specific ways for different age groups in order to understand why there were no associations for middle-aged adults. Efforts should also be made to understand cross-cultural differences in life stories and PWB.

Purpose, Meaning, and Career Pathways

2020 ◽  
pp. 191-213
Author(s):  
Bryan J. Dik ◽  
Alexandra J. Alayan ◽  
Kaitlyn A. Reed
Keyword(s):  
Work Motivation ◽  
Meaningful Work ◽  
Well Being ◽  
Career Pathways ◽  
Vocational Psychology ◽  
Future Directions ◽  
Research And Practice ◽  
Protean Career ◽  
Meaning In Work ◽  
Meaning And Purpose

In addition to providing financial means, work offers an opportunity for individuals to experience meaning and purpose. Meaningful work, defined in this chapter as work that is worthwhile and personally significant, is linked to job satisfaction, work motivation, and psychological well-being. Several vocational psychology theories of career development, along with research on work as a calling and the protean career orientation, have addressed factors that likely influence meaning and purpose in work, either directly or indirectly. This chapter examines the opportunities for career pathways programs and professionals for promoting purpose and meaning in work over the course of a career. Specific strategies related to career choice, choice implementation, career engagement and maintenance/management, as well as retirement, bridge employment, and encore careers are addressed. Future directions for research and practice are also discussed.

Dialogical Integration of Life Experiences and Successful Aging

2020 ◽  
pp. 009141502091768
Author(s):  
Miroslav Filip ◽  
Iva Poláčková Šolcová ◽  
Marie Kovářová ◽  
Kateřina Lukavská ◽  
Jan Hofer ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Successful Aging ◽  
Life Experience ◽  
Life Story ◽  
Life Experiences ◽  
Well Being ◽  
Hypothetical Model ◽  
Low Level ◽  
Complete Integration ◽  
Life Story Interviews ◽  
Partial Integration

This article examines the hypothesis that the dialogical integration of life experiences is related to successful aging. Life story interviews with 93 older Czech adults were sorted into categories characterized by specific patterns of life experience integration: (i) without dialogical processes, (ii) with differentiated I-positions, (iii) with dialogical relationships, (iv) partially integrated, and (v) completely integrated. The results indicated that the categories were ordered, yielding low-level correlations with scales of successful aging in predicted directions. A comparison of the categories revealed that they were related to successful aging in a cumulative way, starting with the most essential indicator (lower scores of rumination) in the participants who had developed at least dialogical relationships, continuing to higher well-being linked with partial integration, and ending with an advanced indicator (optimism toward future) linked with complete integration. These relationships were summarized in a hypothetical model that is open to further examination.

scholarly journals Meaningful Leadership: How Can Leaders Contribute to Meaningful Work?

2020 ◽  
pp. 105649261989712
Author(s):  
Sandrine Frémeaux ◽  
Benjamin Pavageau
Keyword(s):  
Leadership Practices ◽  
Positive Attitude ◽  
Life Story ◽  
Meaningful Work ◽  
Professional Support ◽  
Self Awareness ◽  
Work Commitment ◽  
Making Sense ◽  
Life Story Interviews ◽  
Past Experiences

This study addresses the question of how leaders can contribute to their own meaningful work and to the meaningful work of their employees. Based on 42 interviews with leaders, including 27 life story interviews, our article examines the extent to which leaders give meaning to leadership practices that are regarded by the existing literature as factors contributing to meaningful work. This article provides new insights into the concept of meaningful leadership that complements meaningful work theories. Our first contribution is identifying new components of meaning related to leadership activity: moral exemplarity, self-awareness, personal or professional support, community spirit, shared work commitment and positive attitude towards individuals and situations. Second, we also delineate the dynamics of meaningful leadership related to leaders’ past experiences and employees’ meaningful work. We contend that awareness of these components and dynamics can help leaders encourage employees’ meaningful work while making sense of their own leadership activity.

Multi-modal visually-oriented translanguaging among Deaf signers

2018 ◽  
Vol 4 (3) ◽  
pp. 384-404 ◽  
Author(s):  
Karin Allard ◽  
Deborah Chen Pichler
Keyword(s):  
Life Story ◽  
Meaning Making ◽  
Deaf Education ◽  
Deaf Children ◽  
Deaf Students ◽  
Lip Reading ◽  
Total Communication ◽  
Life Story Interviews ◽  
The Impact ◽  
Deaf Signers

Abstract Translanguaging is often regarded with great skepticism in the context of Deaf education, as an approach that has already been tried, with disastrous results. Already in the 1960’s educators understood the critical importance of allowing deaf children to exploit their full linguistic repertoire for learning: not only listening, lip-reading and reading/writing, but also sign language, fingerspelling, gesture, and other strategies that render language visually accessible. The resulting teaching philosophy, Total Communication (TC), quickly became the dominant approach employed in Deaf education. Yet despite its progressive stance on multilingualism and multimodality, TC ultimately failed to provide deaf students with full access to a natural language. This chapter contrasts the ineffective multilingual practices under TC with characteristically “Deaf ways” of multilingual meaning-making observed among skilled Deaf signers. Excerpts from life story interviews illustrate the impact these practices have for scaffolding learning among Deaf students newly arrived in Sweden. We conclude that prioritizing visually-oriented practices and supporting both students and teachers to become skilled signers offer the best assurance for successful translanguaging in Deaf education without engendering the problems that caused TC to fail.

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