Introduction: The Meaning of Work

Abstract

The theme of this special issue is how cultural, societal, group, and individual factors shape what working has meant, means, and is going to mean in future societies. Concepts and empirical data from the Meaning of Working study (MOW, 1987), an eight-country comparison of work-related attitudes and values, and from complementary follow-up studies, serve as the “red thread” or empirical basis throughout the issue. The original MOW (1987) study and some of the follow-up studies reported in this issue are based on a heuristic model for the subjective meaning of work, which is briefly discussed in the first paper by Ruiz Quintanilla and Wilpert. However, as nearly all of the discussants point out, and Heller's paper tries to discuss specifically, there is still a lot of theoretical work to do. The studies reported in this issue provide some empirical data bases and point towards new and crucial questions that are raised by the results. On the other hand, this issue also wants to contribute to a focused discussion about alternative conceptions of the meaning of work and its central role in understanding the concept of work. Since the way we conceptualize a particular problem issue crucially determines the kind of answers and explanations we derive, as Brief points out in his discussant paper, a thorough and lively discussion about how we are to understand work (and “non-work”), what meaning it has in a person's life, what significance the meaning attributed to work has, and by what processes work attains its meaning for society in general, becomes of utmost importance. Moreover, in the light of European integration across cultures and the global internationalization of organizations, differences in cultural contexts for the meaning of work take on a particularly urgent problem for better understanding. Finally, Fineman in his discussant paper raises the crucial point, that the basic epistemological assumptions that guided both the basic conceptual framework and the methodology used in the MOW (1987) and the follow-up studies reported in this issue can be questioned. He argues that these assumptions allow only a rather restricted view of the meaning of work and forego many options in addressing more holistic perspectives of work and its meaning generating processes. Given the fact that meaning is in principle a product of subjective interpretation processes, the question about what social processes form the basis for the meaning of work and its consequences, as well as what epistemological assumptions make sense in trying to understand better the holistic nature of work and its meaning, must be finally addressed.

In this sense this issue attempts: (1) to contribute to the ongoing debate on the concept of meaning of work; as well as (2) to invite interested researchers and practitioners in W & 0 psychology to join in this debate. This journal strongly encourages such a debate and will publish quality rejoinders, commentaries, and critical alternatives to the problems raised in this special issue.