Toward a "Meaningful Self" at the Workplace: Multinational Evidence From Asia, Europe, and North America

Abstract

The quest for meaning has long concerned thinkers of all cultures. According to Austrian Jewish neurologist and Nazi death-camp survivor Viktor E. Frankl (1905-1997), man's search for meaning is our paramount motivational driving force. It has become common knowledge that experiencing meaning is positively associated with well-being in general. The main focus of the present article, however, is the workplace as the scene where it arguably makes a difference whether workers are able to materialize their inherent will to meaning. Extrinsic reward systems often constitute a psychological quid pro quo contract between managers and employees in the workforce. Although incentives are well established, accepted, expected, and easily deployable, their value is both deficient and unsustainable for employee motivation, for employee performance, and subsequently for firm performance. Firms therefore need to counterbalance the above negative ends. The counterweight this work comes up with is meaning at work as a key driver of intrinsic motivation. In the course of a territory-mapping, large-scale, around-the-globe investigation, we offer a ranking of framework conditions that are most fruitful to promote the management of meaning. On the basis of fresh primary data from Europe, America, and Asia (specifically from China, Germany, India, Korea, and the United States), the perception of the relation between self and leaders is identified as the most important facilitator of a meaningful self at the workplace. Our findings are discussed, limitations are admitted, and future research avenues are illuminated.