Cultural, National,and Individual Diversity and their Relationship to the Experience of Meaningful Work

Abstract

This chapter explores cultural, national, and individual diversity, and their relationships with meaningful work. Most studies relevant to meaningful work have originated in Western cultures and developed countries. Few studies have focused on the relationship between cultural and national diversity and meaningful work. The study of relationships between meaningful work, values, and organizational practices on individual, organizational, and national levels is challenging given different methods to aggregate data as well as the different levels involved. Both individual-level and multilevel studies are required to study the complex relationships between diversity and meaningful work. Assessing meaningful work from a national culture perspective could be problematic, as national culture fails to account for factors such as within-culture variability, acculturation, the changing nature of cultural aspects (e.g. values), and cultural tightness or looseness. Longitudinal and experimental designs should be used to study the relationship between cultural, national, and individual diversity and meaningful work.