Abstract
Meaningful work is the subjective experience that work has meaning and is understood as an avenue for personal development, from a eudaimonic point of view. The aim of this study is to adapt the WAMI scale of meaningful work to Spanish, as well as to explore its relationship with job and life satisfaction. Two independent studies were developed. A first study analyzed the consistency of the original factorial model using a sample of Spanish varied workers (N = 350) through a confirmatory factor analysis. Results show an adequate replication of the original model and the validity of the Spanish version. A second study addressed the predictive capacity of the scale in relation to two satisfaction measures in a sample of Spanish health workers (N=312), through a mediation analysis. The relationship between meaningful work and job satisfaction is mediated by life satisfaction. The idea of meaningful work as a eudaimonic construct discards it as a variable resulting from or consequence of work, as it is an inherent part of occupational activity itself.
Highlights
Work plays a central role in the lives of individuals and, has a clear impact on their health (World Health Organization, 2007)
Meaningful work analysis has been consolidating itself as a relevant investigation field in work and organizational psychology over the last few decades, whether it be in terms of life goals, working environment adjustments or the updating of an individual’s capacities (e.g., Fairlie, 2011; Lee, 2015; Rosso et al, 2010; Steger et al, 2012)
The objective of this research is to adapt and verify the Work and Meaning Inventory (WAMI) scale to the Spanish working population, in order to make a reliable meaningful work metric available, considering that most studies focus on English-speaking contexts and the fact that not many empirical studies are developed in Europe (Bailey et al, 2019), in addition to the scarcity of instruments on the construct in Spanish
Summary
Work plays a central role in the lives of individuals and, has a clear impact on their health (World Health Organization, 2007). Oldham and Hackman’s Job Characteristics Model (1975; Rosso et al, 2010) proposed five characteristics, of which three are considered to be key for the analysis of meaningful work: i) the variety of personal skills and/or talents the person must use during the execution of their job; ii) task identity, understood as the possibility of detecting specific tasks from beginning to end during the whole work process; and iii) task significance, referring to the impact of work on other people and/or society as a whole Those who experience meaningful work would have personal motivation to perform their tasks correctly and, even when their performance was adequate, wouldn’t be satisfied if their job lacked meaning (Oldham & Hackman, 2010). This positive nature is not related, to pleasure in hedonic terms, but as various eudaimonic phenomena associated with self-fulfilment (Bailey et al, 2019; Martela & Pessi, 2018)
Sign-in/Register to view highlights & summary Sign-in/Register to access full text options 
Talk to us
Join us for a 30 min session where you can share your feedback and ask us any queries you have
Schedule a callDisclaimer: All third-party content on this website/platform is and will remain the property of their respective owners and is provided on "as is" basis without any warranties, express or implied. Use of third-party content does not indicate any affiliation, sponsorship with or endorsement by them. Any references to third-party content is to identify the corresponding services and shall be considered fair use under The CopyrightLaw.
