For Work / Against Work
Debates on the centrality of work

"The Influence of Spiritual “Meaning‐making” on Career Behavior"

by Lips‐Wiersma, Marjolein (2002)

Abstract

This paper presents the results of a participative psycho‐biographical study that investigated the effect of spirituality on career behavior. This study shows that spirituality influences career purpose, sense‐making and coherence. Spirituality was found to inspire four purposes of “developing and becoming self”, “unity with others”, “expressing self”, and “serving others”. Spirituality was also found to influence an ongoing process of sense‐making through discovering, prioritizing and balancing the four purposes over a lifespan, in response to ongoing tensions between “being” and “doing” as well as “self‐ versus other‐orientation”. Spirituality furthermore influences perceived career‐coherence as individuals align their careers with perceived spiritual orderings outside of themselves. The paper concludes with suggestions for practice and future research.

Keywords

Meaningful Work, Meaning Of Work, Well-Being, Psychology, Happiness, Spirituality, Self

Themes

Meaningful Work

Links to Reference

Citation

Share


How to contribute.