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Fanxing Meng,1 Yongsheng Xu,1 Yiliang Liu,2 Guozan Zhang,3 Yunze Tong,4 Rong Lin1 1Zhejiang Police College, Hangzhou, Zhejiang, People’s Republic of China; 2College of Economics and Management, Northeast Forestry University, Harbin, Heilongjiang, People’s Republic of China; 3School of Creative Arts and Design, Zhejiang Institute of Mechanical & Electrical Engineering, Hangzhou, Zhejiang, People’s Republic of China; 4College of Computer Science and Technology, Zhejiang University, Hangzhou, Zhejiang, People’s Republic of ChinaCorrespondence: Fanxing Meng, Zhejiang Police College, 555 Binwen Road, Binjiang District, Hangzhou, Zhejiang, People’s Republic of China, Email mengfanxing@zjjcxy.cnPurpose: The issue of employee engagement has increasingly become a focus of concern in public management practice. Based on the theory of purposeful work behavior, integrative theory of employee engagement and Pratt and Ashforth’s typology of work meaningfulness, this study proposes and examines the mediating effects of two types of meaningfulness between transformational leadership and work engagement and the moderating effects of transformational leadership on the relationship between two types of meaningfulness and work engagement.Patients and Methods: By adopting a multilevel cross-sectional design, this study examines assumed mediation and moderation effects. The data collection was conducted anonymously by means of an online survey. A total of 261 local police officers from 32 police stations were recruited in professional training programs as a sample.Results: The analysis reveals that both meaningfulness in work and meaningfulness at work positively mediate the relationship between transformational leadership and work engagement. Transformational leadership moderates the relationship between meaningfulness at work and work engagement rather than the relationship between meaningfulness in work and work engagement. There are no other significant effects of sex, age or length of service.Conclusion: Work meaningfulness transmits and combines the effect of transformational leadership to impact work engagement. These findings not only confirm the critical role of work meaningfulness proposed by the theoretical frameworks of the theory of purposeful work behavior, integrative theory of employee engagement and Pratt and Ashforth’s typology of work meaningfulness, but also further extend and clarify the role of and difference in two substructures of work meaningfulness (ie, work meaningfulness in work and at work) in the context of the linkage between transformational leadership and work engagement.Keywords: transformational leadership, meaningfulness in work, meaningfulness at work, work engagement

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Meaningful work is an important field of research, relating to both organizational outcomes and employee welfare. Organizational democracy has been theoretically proposed as an important antecedent to meaningful work. Nevertheless, this relationship is yet to be empirically explored. Thus, the objective of the current research is to explore the relationship between organizational democracy and meaningful work. We used structural equation modeling with self-reported, cross-sectional data from different nations and industries to test a mediation model in which corporate social responsibility (CSR) perceptions mediate the positive relationship between organizational democracy and meaningful work. Our findings confirmed that CSR perceptions partially mediate in the relationship between organizational democracy and meaningful work. Thus, based on our findings we can conclude that organizational democracy can play a direct role in increasing the experience of meaningful work, but also an indirect role trough the employees experience of CSR. Our findings have theoretical implications by adding to the classical theoretical literature that connect organizational democracy and meaningful work, and by disentangling the role of CSR perceptions in this relationship. Moreover, our findings have practical implications as our results give important knowledge to managers and organizational stakeholders that wish to increase the experience of meaningful work in organizations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Meaningful work is an important field of research, relating to both organizational outcomes and employee welfare. Organizational democracy has been theoretically proposed as an important antecedent to meaningful work. Nevertheless, this relationship is yet to be empirically explored. Thus, the objective of the current research is to explore the relationship between organizational democracy and meaningful work. We used structural equation modeling with self-reported, cross-sectional data from different nations and industries to test a mediation model in which corporate social responsibility (CSR) perceptions mediate the positive relationship between organizational democracy and meaningful work. Our findings confirmed that CSR perceptions partially mediate in the relationship between organizational democracy and meaningful work. Thus, based on our findings we can conclude that organizational democracy can play a direct role in increasing the experience of meaningful work, but also an indirect role trough the employees experience of CSR. Our findings have theoretical implications by adding to the classical theoretical literature that connect organizational democracy and meaningful work, and by disentangling the role of CSR perceptions in this relationship. Moreover, our findings have practical implications as our results give important knowledge to managers and organizational stakeholders that wish to increase the experience of meaningful work in organizations.

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The present study explores the degree of participation of organizational identification as a mediator in search for behaviors associated with knowledge sharing, in a hybrid organization. To do that, the influences of both the person-job fit and the level of meaningfulness at work on those behaviors are evaluated. The study is demarcated by individual perceptions of employees of for-profit but social-oriented companies. In this way, a survey is conducted on 321 employees of a Colombian micro-finance institution, whose data are scrutinized through a structural equation model. The obtained results suggest that, despite the importance exerted by the organizational identification on the behaviors of collection and donation of knowledge, the person-job fit turns out being the factor that shows a more direct influence on those behaviors compared to an improving in the levels of meaningfulness. The study concludes by discussing the implications resulting from these findings. RESUMEN El estudio explora el grado de participación de la identificación organizacional, en cuanto mediadora en la búsqueda de comportamientos asociados al logro del conocimiento compartido, en una organización híbrida. Para esto se evalúa la influencia del ajuste al puesto de trabajo y del nivel de significancia laboral sobre dichos comportamientos, de modo que se delimita el estudio a percepciones individuales de los empleados de organizaciones con ánimo de lucro pero con enfoque social. De esta forma, se conduce una encuesta sobre 321 empleados de una institución de microfinanzas colombiana, cuyos datos se examinan a través de un modelo de ecuaciones estructurales. Los resultados sugieren que, a pesar de la importancia de la identificación organizacional en la obtención de conductas de compartición de conocimiento, es la adaptación al puesto la que muestra una influencia más directa sobre dichas conductas en comparación con una mejoría de la significancia laboral. Se concluye con las discusión de las implicaciones de dichos hallazgos.

Research on meaningful work has proliferated in recent years, with an increasing understanding of the centrality of meaningfulness for work-related motivation, commitment, and well-being. However, ambiguity around the main construct, “meaningful work,” has hindered this progress as various researchers have used partly overlapping, partly differing conceptualizations. To bring clarity to this issue, we examine a broad range of various definitions of meaningful work and come to argue that meaningfulness in the broadest sense is about work significance as an overall evaluation of work as regards whether it is intrinsically valuable and worth doing. Furthermore, we argue that there are two key sub-dimensions to this work significance: Broader purpose as work serving some greater good or prosocial goals (the intrinsic value of work beyond the person in question). And self-realization as a sense of autonomy, authenticity and self-expression at work (the intrinsic value of work for the person in question). Previous definitions of meaningful work feature typically one or two of these elements—significance, broader purpose, self-realization –, but in the future it would be beneficial to clearly acknowledge all three elements in both definitions and operationalizations of meaningful work.

Meaningful work is a key element of positive functioning of employees, but what makes work meaningful? Based on research on self-determination theory, basic psychological needs, and prosocial impact, we suggest that there are four psychological satisfactions that substantially influence work meaningfulness across cultures: autonomy (sense of volition), competence (sense of efficacy), relatedness (sense of caring relationships), and beneficence (sense of making a positive contribution). We test the relationships between these satisfactions and perceived meaningful work in Finland (n = 594, employees of several organizations), India (n = 342, collected through Mturk), and the United States (n = 373, collected through Mturk). Regression analyses show that – except for competence in United States – all four satisfactions are significantly and independently associated with meaningful work. Moreover, structural equation modeling shows that they fully mediated the relationship between occupational position and work meaningfulness in India and in the United States. In sum, the results support the importance of these four satisfactions in explaining the psychological underpinnings of meaningful work. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Research on meaningful work has proliferated in recent years, with an increasing understanding of the centrality of meaningfulness for work-related motivation, commitment, and well-being. However, ambiguity around the main construct, "meaningful work," has hindered this progress as various researchers have used partly overlapping, partly differing conceptualizations. To bring clarity to this issue, we examine a broad range of various definitions of meaningful work and come to argue that meaningfulness in the broadest sense is about work significance as an overall evaluation of work as regards whether it is intrinsically valuable and worth doing. Furthermore, we argue that there are two key sub-dimensions to this work significance: Broader purpose as work serving some greater good or prosocial goals (the intrinsic value of work beyond the person in question). And self-realization as a sense of autonomy, authenticity and self-expression at work (the intrinsic value of work for the person in question). Previous definitions of meaningful work feature typically one or two of these elements--significance, broader purpose, self-realization -, but in the future it would be beneficial to clearly acknowledge all three elements in both definitions and operationalizations of meaningful work. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Drawing from research on meaningfulness at work, contingent leadership, and ethicality, the authors investigate the relationship between servant leadership and meaningfulness at work, as well as how this relationship might be moderated by leader's ethical sensitivity. Data captured from 154 employees of companies from different sectors show that servant leadership enhances meaningfulness, especially at higher levels of leader's ethical decision making capability. These findings have significant implications for HRD research and practice. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Employees can be a driving force behind organisational corporate social responsibility (CSR) efforts, yet the vast majority of literature has focused on firm-level understanding and implementation of CSR. Recent literature that explores the relationship between employees and CSR has not investigated how employees conceive of their role in CSR. We propose that in order to understand the factors that affect employee engagement in CSR, we must first understand how employees conceptualise the phenomenon of CSR and how that conceptualisation fits into their work. Our exploratory, inductive study interviews two cohorts of employees, one in a not for profit and the other in a corporate organisation, revealing stark contrasts in how the different cohorts conceptualise and engage in CSR, particularly with regards to how CSR contributes to meaningfulness at work. Implications for organisations are discussed.

This study investigates why and where self-employment is related to higher levels of eudaimonic well-being. We focus on meaningfulness as an important eudaimonic process and subjective vitality as a eudaimonic well-being outcome that is central to entrepreneurs' proactivity. Building on self-determination theory, we posit that self-employment, relative to wage-employment, is a more self-determined and volitional career choice, which enhances the experience of meaningfulness at work and perceptions of work autonomy. In a multi-level study of 22,002 individuals and 16 European countries, meaningfulness at work mediates the relationship between self-employment and subjective vitality and explains this relationship better than work autonomy. We identify moderating effects of context: the societal legitimacy of entrepreneurship in a country affects the choice set of alternative career options that individuals can consider and thus shapes the experience of meaningfulness at work and work autonomy, and thereby indirectly subjective vitality. These findings expand our understanding of eudaimonic well-being, entrepreneurs' work, and the role of context in entrepreneurship and well-being research. They complement existing research on hedonic well-being of entrepreneurs and extend the scarce literature on their eudaimonic well-being., (© 2020 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.)