Abstract
Orientation: Meaningful work can yield benefits for organisations and lead to positive work outcomes such as satisfied, engaged and committed employees, individual and organisational fulfilment, productivity, retention and loyalty.Research purpose: The aim of the study was to investigate the relationships amongst psychological meaningfulness, work engagement and organisational commitment and to test for a possible mediation effect of work engagement on the relationship between psychological meaningfulness and organisational commitment.Motivation for the study: Managers have to rethink ways of improving productivity and performance at work, due to the diverse, and in some instances escalating, needs of employees (e.g. financial support) to uphold their interest in and enjoyment of working.Research approach, design and method: A quantitative approach was employed to gather the data for the study, utilising a cross-sectional survey design. The sample (n = 415) consisted of working employees from various companies and positions in Gauteng, South Africa.Main findings: The results confirmed a positive relationship between psychological meaningfulness, work engagement and organisational commitment. Further, psychological meaningfulness predicts work engagement, whilst psychological meaningfulness and work engagement predict organisational commitment.Practical/managerial implications: Employers identifying their employees’ commitment patterns and mapping out strategies for enhancing those that are relevant to organisational goals will yield positive work outcomes (e.g. employees who are creative, seek growth or challenges for themselves).Contribution/value-add: This study contributes to the literature through highlighting the impact that meaningful work has on sustaining employee commitment to the organisation.
Highlights
BackgroundEmployees consider jobs that are more interesting, emit feelings of accomplishment, promote helpfulness and contribute to people’s lives to be critical in achieving meaningful work (Bibby, 2001)
This study investigated the positive effect that meaningful work has on promoting work engagement and organisational commitment
Model 1 consisted of three latent variables, namely (1) psychological meaningfulness, (2) work engagement and (3) organisational commitment, consisting of two latent variables, namely positive organisational commitment and negative organisational commitment
Summary
Employees consider jobs that are more interesting, emit feelings of accomplishment, promote helpfulness and contribute to people’s lives to be critical in achieving meaningful work (Bibby, 2001). Fulfilment, autonomy, satisfaction, engagement, working relations and learning have been identified as important in a meaningful job (cf Cartwright & Holmes, 2006; Chalofsky, 2003; Rosso, Dekas & Wrzesniewski, 2010; Seligman, 2008; Steger & Dik, 2010). The above highlights a necessity for an investigation into meaningful work and the role it plays in contributing towards positive work outcomes. If employees yearn for meaningful work, organisations would benefit in accommodating for this. This study investigated the positive effect that meaningful work has on promoting work engagement and organisational commitment
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