The effect of occupational meaningfulness on occupational commitment

• Main Authors: Itai Ivtzan, Emily Sorensen, Susanna Halonen
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Published: Universidad de San Buenaventura 2014-11-01
• Series: International Journal of Psychological Research
• Subjects: Personal Meaning; Occupational Meaningfulness
• Online Access: http://mvint.usbmed.edu.co:8002/ojs/index.php/web/article/view/667/719

Existing research lacks a scholarly consensus on how to define and validly measure ‘meaningful work’ (e.g., Rosso, Dekas & Wrzesniewski, 2010). The following correlational study highlights the value of investigating meaningfulness in the context of occupational commitment. The study hypothesizes that occupational commitment is positively correlated with occupational meaningfulness, where meaningfulness is defined as the extent to which people’s occupations contribute to personal meaning in life. One-hundred and fifty-six full-time office based UK workers completed an online questionnaire including 18 questions measuring levels of occupational commitment (Meyer, Allen & Smith, 1993), in addition to six novel items measuring occupational meaningfulness. The results supported the hypothesis and also showed that the affective sub-type of occupational commitment had the highest correlation with occupational meaningfulness. Such results exhibit the importance of finding meaning at work, as well as the relevance of this to one’s level of commitment to his or her job. This paper argues that individuals should consider OM before choosing to take a specific role, whereas organizations ought to consider the OM of their potential candidates before recruiting them into a role. Possible directions for future research directions are also discussed.