Hostname: page-component-6898cfcb55-cbk24 Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2026-11-11T03:22:29.534Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Virtue and Meaningful Work

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  23 January 2015

Ron Beadle and
Kelvin Knight
Ron Beadle
Affiliation:
Northumbria University
Kelvin Knight
Affiliation:
London Metropolitan University
Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract:

Core share and HTML view are not available for this content. However, as you have access to this content, a full PDF is available via the 'Save PDF' action button.

This article deploys Alasdair MacIntyre’s Aristotelian virtue ethics, in which meaningfulness is understood to supervene on human functioning, to bring empirical and ethical accounts of meaningful work into dialogue. Whereas empirical accounts have presented the experience of meaningful work either in terms of agents’ orientation to work or as intrinsic to certain types of work, ethical accounts have largely assumed the latter formulation and subjected it to considerations of distributive justice. This article critiques both the empirical and ethical literatures from the standpoint of MacIntyre’s account of the relationship between the development of virtuous dispositions and participation in work that is productive of goods internal to practices. This reframing suggests new directions for empirical and ethical enquiries.

Keywords

meaningful workvirtuebusiness ethicsself-determination theoryMacIntyre

Information

Type
Special Issue: Reviving Traditions: Virtue and the Common Good in Business and Management
Information
Business Ethics Quarterly , Volume 22 , Issue 2 , April 2012, pp. 433 - 450
Copyright
Copyright © Society for Business Ethics 2012

References

REFERENCES

Anscombe, G.E.M. 1958. “Modern Moral Philosophy,”Philosophy.33:1–19.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Arneson, R. 1987. “Meaningful Work and Market Socialism,”Ethics.97:517–45.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Bakker, A. 2005. “Flow among Music Teachers and their Students: The Crossover of Peak Experiences,”Journal of Vocational Behavior.66 (1): 26–44.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Beadle, R.,andKönyöt, D. 2006. “The Man in the Red Coat: Management in the Circus,”Culture and Organization.12 (2):127–37CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Beadle, R.,andMoore, G. 2011. “Maclntyre: Neo-Aristotelianism and Organization Theory,”Research in the Sociology of Organizations.32:85–121.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Behson, S.J.,Eddy, E.R.,and Lorenzet, S.J. 2000. “The Importance of the Critical Psychological States in the Job Characteristics Model: A Meta-Analytic and Structural Equations Modeling Examination,”Current Research in Social Psychology.5(12):170–89Google Scholar
Bellah, R.N., Madsen, R.Sullivan, W.M.Swidler, A. and Tipton, S.M. 1985. Habits of the Heart: Individualism and Commitment in American Life.Berkeley:University of California Press.Google Scholar
Bowie, N. 1998. “A Kantian Theory of Meaningful Work,”Journal of Business Ethics.17:1083–92.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Breen, K. 2007. “Work and Emancipatory Practice: Towards a Recovery of Human Beings’Productive Capacities,”Res Publica.13(4): 381–414.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Bunderson, J.S.,and Thompson, J.A. 2009. “The Call of the Wild: Zookeepers, Callings, and the Double-Edged Sword of Deeply Meaningful Work,”Administrative Science Quarterly.54(1) :32–57.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Care, N.S. 1984. “Career Choice,”Ethics.94(2): 283–302.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Ciulla, J. 2000.The Working Life: The Promise and Betrayal of Modern Work.New York:Three Rivers Press.Google Scholar
Cohen, P.,and Cohen, J. 1996.Life Values and Adolescent Mental Health.Mahwah,N.J.:Lawrence Erlbaum.Google Scholar
Czikszentmihàlyi, M. 1977.Beyond Boredom and Anxiety.San Francisco:Jossey-Bass.Google Scholar
Czikszentmihàlyi, M. 1990.Flow: The Psychology of Optimal Experience.New York:Harper and Row.Google Scholar
Czikszentmihàlyi, M. 1997.Finding Flow: The Psychology of Engagement with Everyday Life.New York:HarperCollins.Google Scholar
Czikszentmihàlyi, M. 2003.Good Business: Leadership, Flow and the Making of Meaning.New York:Penguin Books.Google Scholar
Czikszentmihàlyi, M.,and Czikszentmihàlyi, I.S. eds.1988.Optimal Experience: Psychological Studies of Flow in Consciousness.Cambridge:Cambridge University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
de Grazia, S. 1962.Of Time, Work and Leisure.New York:The Twentieth Century Fund.Google Scholar
Deci, E.I.,and Ryan, R.M. eds.1985.Intrinsic Motivation and Self-Determination in Human Behaviour.New York:Plenum Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Demerouti, E. 2006. “Job Characteristics, Flow and Performance: The Moderating Role of Conscientiousness,”Journal of Occupational Health Psychology.11(3): 266–80.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Dempsey, S.E.,and Sanders, M.L. 2010. “Meaningful Work? Nonprofit Marketization and Work/Life Imbalance in Popular Autobiographies of Social Entrepreneurship,”Organization.17(4): 437–59.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Dutton, J.E.,L.M., L.M.,and Bednar, J. 2010. “Pathways for Positive Identity Construction at Work: Four Types of Positive Identity and the Building of Social Resources,”Academy of Management Review.35(2): 265–93.Google Scholar
Frankl, V. 1959.Man’s Search for Meaning.New York:Pocket Books.Google Scholar
Fried, Y.,andFerris, G.R 1987. “The Validity of the Job Characteristics Model: A Review and Meta-Analysis,”Personnel Psychology.40(2): 287–322CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Fromm, E. 1955.The Sane Society.New York:Holt, Rinehart and Winston.Google Scholar
Gardner, H.,Czikszentmihàlyi, M.,and Damon, W. 2001.Good Work: When Excellence and Ethics Meet.New York:Basic Books.Google Scholar
Gini, A. 2001.My Job, My Self: Work and the Creation of the Modern Individual.New York:Routledge.Google Scholar
Gomberg, P. 2007.How to Make Opportunity Equal.New York:Wiley-Blackwell.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Grant, A.M. 2007. “Relational Job Design and the Motivation to Make a Prosocial Difference,”Academy of Management Review.32(2): 393–417.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Grant, A.M. 2008. “Designing Jobs to Do Good: Dimensions and Psychological Consequences of Prosocial Job Characteristics,”The Journal of Positive Psychology.3(1): 319–39.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Hackman, J.R.,and Oldham, G.R. 1975. “Development of the Job Diagnostic Survey,”Journal of Applied Psychology.60(2): 159–70.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Hall, D.T.,and Chandler, D.E. 2005. “Psychological Success: When the Career is Calling,”Journal of Organizational Behavior.26(2): 155–76.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Herzberg, F. 1957.The Motivation to Work.New York:John Wiley and Sons.Google Scholar
Hsieh, N. 2008. “Survey Article: Justice in Production,”The Journal of Political Philosophy.16(1): 72–100.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Isaksen, J. 2000. “Constructing Meaning Despite the Drudgery of Repetitive Work,”Journal of Humanistic Psychology.40(3): 84–107.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Johns, G.Xie, J.L.andFang, Y. 1992. “Mediating and Moderating Effects in Job Design,”Journal of Management.18(4): 657–76.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Karlsson, M.M. 2002. “Agency and Patiency: Back to Nature?,”Philosophical Explorations.5(1): 59–81.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Kasser, T.,and Kasser, V.G.andFang, Y. 1992. “The Dreams of People High and Low in Materialism,”Journal of Economic Psychology.22(6): 693–719CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Kasser, T.,and Ryan, R.M. 1993. “A Dark Side of the American Dream: Correlates of Financial Success as a Central Life Aspiration,”Journal of Personality and Social Psychology.65(2): 410–22.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Kau, A.K., Kwon, J.Jiuan, T.S.andWirtz, J. 2000. “The Influence of Materialistic Inclination on Values, Life Satisfaction and Aspirations: An Empirical Analysis,”Social Indicators Research.49(3): 317–33.Google Scholar
Khanna, S.and Kasser, T. 2001. “Materialism, Objectification, and Alienation from a Cross-Cultural Perspective,”unpublished manuscriptGoogle Scholar
Knight, K. 2007.Aristotelian Philosophy: Ethics and Politics from Aristotle to MacIntyre Cambridge:Polity Press.Google Scholar
Knight, K. 2011. “Revolutionary Aristotelianism,”in Virtue and Politics: Alasdair Mac- Intyre's Revolutionary Aristotelianism, ed.Blackledge, P.andKnight, K.Notre Dame,Ind.:University of Notre Dame Press.Google Scholar
Kohn, M.L.,and Schooler, C. 1983.Work and Personality: An Inquiry into the Impact of Social Stratification Norwood,N.J.:Ablex.Google Scholar
Kornhauser, A. 1964.Mental Health and the Industrial Worker: A Detroit Study New York:John Wiley and Sons.Google Scholar
Kreiner, G.,Ashforth, G. and >Sluss, D. 2006. “Identity Dynamics in Occupational Dirty Work: Integrating Social Identity and System Justification Perspectives,”Organization Science.17(5): 619–36.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
MacIntyre, A. 1988.Whose Justice? Which Rationality? Notre Dame,Ind.:University of Notre Dame Press.Google Scholar
MacIntyre, A. 1994.“A Partial Response to My Critics,”in After MacIntyre: Critical Perspectives on the Work of Alasdair MacIntyre ed.Horton, J. and Mendus, S.283–304Notre Dame,Ind.:University of Notre Dame Press.Google Scholar
MacIntyre, A. 1998.“The Theses on Feuerbach: A Road Not Taken,” in The MacIntyre Reader Knight, K.223–34Notre Dame,Ind.:University of Notre Dame Press.Google Scholar
MacIntyre, A. 1999. Dependent Rational Animals: Why Human Beings Need the Virtues London:Duckworth.Google Scholar
MacIntyre, A. 2007. After Virtue: A Study in Moral Theory 3rd ed.Notre Dame,Ind.:University of Notre Dame Press.Google Scholar
Maitland, I. 1989. “Rights in the Workplace: A Nozickian Argument,”Journal of Business Ethics.8(12): 951–54.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Malka, A.,and Chatman, J. 2003. “Intrinsic and Extrinsic Work Orientations as Moderators of the Effect of Annual Income on Subjective Well-Being,”Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin.29(6): 737–46.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Maslow, A. 1954. Motivation and Personality New York:Harper and Row.Google Scholar
Michaelson, C. 2008. “Work and the Most Terrible Life,”Journal of Business Ethics.77(3): 335–45.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Muirhead, R. 2004. Just Work Cambridge,Mass.:Harvard University Press.Google Scholar
Murphy, J.B. 1993. The Moral Economy of Labor: Aristotelian Themes in Economic Theory New Haven,Conn.:Yale University Press.Google Scholar
Noponen, N. 2011. “Alienation, Practices, and Human Nature: Marxist Critique in MacIntyre's Aristotelian Ethics,” inVirtue and Politics: Alasdair MacIntyre's Revolutionary Aristotelianism,ed Blackledge, P. and Knight, K.Notre Dame,Ind.:University of Notre Dame Press.Google Scholar
Nozick, R. 1974. Anarchy, State, and Utopia New York:Basic Books.Google Scholar
Paul, W.J., Robertson, K.B. and Herzberg, F. 1969. “Job Enrichment Pays Off,”Harvard Business Review.47(2): 61–78Google Scholar
Pratt, M.G., and Ashforth, B.E. and Herzberg, F. 2003. “Fostering Meaningfulness in Working and at Work,” in Positive Organizational Scholarship,ed Cameron, K.S.Dutton, J.E.,and Quinn, R.E.309–27.San Francisco:Berrett-Koehler Publishers,Inc.Google Scholar
Pratt, M.G.,Pradies, C. and Lepisto, D.A. Forthcoming. “Doing Well, Doing Good and Doing With: Organizational Practices for Effectively Cultivating Meaningful Work,” in Purpose and Meaning in the Workplace,ed Dick, B.Byrne, Z.,and Steger, M.Washington D.C.:APA Books.Google Scholar
Rawls, J. 1999. A Theory of Justice 2nd ed. Oxford:Oxford University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Rindfleisch, A., Burroughs, J.E. and Denton, F. 1997. “Family Structure, Materialism and Conspicuous Consumption,”Journal of Consumer Research.23(4): 312–25.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Rogers, C. 1961. On Becoming a Person Boston:Houghton Mifflin.Google Scholar
Ryan, L.,and Dziurawiec, S. 2001. “Materialism and Its Relationship to Life Satisfaction,”Social Indicators Research.55(2): 185–97.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Ryan, R.M.Chirkov, V.I.Little, T.D.Sheldon, K.M.Ryan, R.M.Timoshina, E.,and Ryan, R.M.Deci, E.L. 1999. “The American Dream in Russia: Extrinsic Aspirations and Well Being in Two Cultures,” Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin 25(12): 1509–24.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Sayer, A. 2009. “Contributive Justice and Meaningful Work,”Res Publica 15(1): 1–16CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Schmuck, P., Kasser, T. and Ryan, R.M. 2000. “Intrinsic and Extrinsic Goals: Their Structure and Relationship to Well-Being in German and US College Students,”Social Indicators Research.50(2): 225–41.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Schwartz, A. 1982. “Meaningful Work,”Ethics 92(4): 634–46.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Seeman, M. 1967. “Contributive Justice and Meaningful Work,”American Sociological Review 32(2): 273–85.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Walsh, A. 1994. “Meaningful Work as a Distributive Good,”The Southern Journal of Philosophy 32(2): 233–50.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Williams, G.C., Cox, E.M.Hedberg, V.E.,and Deci, E.L. 2000. “Extrinsic Life Goals and Health-Risk Behaviors in Adolescents,”Journal of Applied Social Psychology 30(8): 1756–71.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Wrzesniewski, A. 2003. “Finding Positive Meaning in Work,” in Positive Organizational Scholarship ed.Cameron, K.S.Dutton, J.E. and Quinn, R.E.298–308San Francisco:Berrett-Koehler Publishers,Inc.Google Scholar
Wrzesniewski, A.,and Dutton, J.E. 2001. “Crafting a Job: Revisioning Employees as Active Crafters of Their Work,”Academy of Management Review 26(2): 179–201.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Wrzesniewski, A., McCauley, C., Rozin, P.,and Schwartz, B. 1997. “Jobs, Careers, and Callings: People's Relations to Their Work,”Journal of Research in Personality 31(1): 21–33.CrossRefGoogle Scholar