Work and meaningfulness

Affiliated researchers

Anja Visser, Hanneke Muthert, Rogier Hoenders, Christoph Jedan

About

Work is an important source of meaning. It provides structure and livelihoods, and through work, including unpaid work, we become part of a community. However, work is not always perceived as meaningful; 25% of workers experience work as pointless. Even more, work can be a source of distress or even illness; 19% of employees have burnout complaints. What are the reasons for this? Which meaning-making questions are at play here? In addition, technology is developing at lightning speed and associated ethical or values-driven questions do not always receive attention. How might attention to ethics and meaning contribute to health and wellbeing in and of organisation both now and in the future?

The researchers in this cluster study the relationship between work, ethics, and meaning from a philosophical, psychological and (religious) sociological perspective, using both quantitative and qualitative methods.