Calling for a meaningful contribution? Bridging contributing to society with motivation theory.

This paper examines the concept of "contributing to society" in the context of meaningful work and calling. While previous studies have identified it as a significant dimension within these concepts, little attention has been paid to trying to conceptualize it. Also, with "self-oriented" fulfillment being an important aspect of the experience of meaningfulness, the understanding of contribution to society might be more complex than being simply an "other-oriented" concept. In response to this conceptual unclarity, we define contributing to society as a belief individuals hold about whether tasks positively impact work beneficiaries. We integrate this with Situated Expectancy-Value Theory (SEVT) to determine the expected task value of such belief. Our argument is that fulfillment of a contribution depends on three factors: (1) the expectation of a contribution based on someone's calling and expected meaningfulness; (2) the extent to which the employee is invested in the task, the costs of such task, whether the beneficiary and impact value and the utility for the self and beneficiary match the preference; (3) the extent to which this contribution is sufficient considering someone's expectation. Therefore, the expected task value can differ between individuals concerning the number and types of beneficiaries and the extent and value of the impact. Moreover, in this way contributions to society should also be perceived from a self-oriented perspective to be fulfilling. This original concept offers a theoretical framework and a research agenda that proposes new avenues of inquiry for calling, meaningful work, contributing to society, and related fields such as job design, and public policy.

Ethics and the Future of Meaningful Work: Introduction to the Special Issue.

The world of work over the past 3 years has been characterized by a great reset due to the COVID-19 pandemic, giving an even more central role to scholarly discussions of ethics and the future of work. Such discussions have the potential to inform whether, when, and which work is viewed and experienced as meaningful. Yet, thus far, debates concerning ethics, meaningful work, and the future of work have largely pursued separate trajectories. Not only is bridging these research spheres important for the advancement of meaningful work as a field of study but doing so can potentially inform the organizations and societies of the future. In proposing this Special Issue, we were inspired to address these intersections, and we are grateful to have this platform for advancing an integrative conversation, together with the authors of the seven selected scholarly contributions. Each article in this issue takes a unique approach to addressing these topics, with some emphasizing ethics while others focus on the future aspects of meaningful work. Taken together, the papers indicate future research directions with regard to: (a) the meaning of meaningful work, (b) the future of meaningful work, and (c) how we can study the ethics of meaningful work in the future. We hope these insights will spark further relevant scholarly and practitioner conversations.

Employee reactions to CSR in the pursuit of meaningful work: A case study of the healthcare industry.

With the growing interest in the microfoundations of corporate social responsibility ('micro-CSR'), many questions linger regarding how the workforce reacts to CSR, which has consequences for their meaningful work experiences. To address this lack of understanding, we conducted an inductive, comparative case study of two healthcare organisations to examine how employees experience meaningful work through reacting to their organisation's CSR initiatives. We demonstrate how CSR triggers employees' meaning-making of work, which takes the form of a misalignment perceived between CSR at the strategic-level and CSR as it is implemented at the employee-level, limiting the experiences of meaningful work. We identify four proactive behaviours in which employees engage to infuse their work with meaning as a way of dealing with this experienced misalignment. We consolidate these behaviours into a typology of meaning-infusing behaviours in the context of CSR. Specifically, we found that when guided by the need for making a positive impact on their beneficiaries, employees engage in what we call 'reshaping work for impact' next to 'collectively enabling impact'. In contrast, when guided by the need for having a sense of meaningful membership, employees are guided by either 'creating a sense of belonging' or 'envisioning prosocial potential'. Through these behaviours, they either navigate within given organisational structures or enact new ones. Overall, we expand research on the CSR-meaningful work relationship, emphasising the role of employees' proactive behaviours in understanding their experiences and reactions to CSR initiatives in their pursuit of meaningful work. Moreover, we highlight implications for micro-CSR research and practice.

Employer Attractiveness From an Employee Perspective: A Systematic Literature Review.

With the growing interest in employer attractiveness, research is unsystematic on how this phenomenon can be conceptualized and studied. Studies tend to make little conceptual differentiation regarding for whom employers should be attractive, and therefore, address the perspectives of potential as well as current employees, who work in organizations for long periods of time. In this study our arguments relate to the phenomenon's conceptual clarity as well as its differentiation from other related concepts. By focusing on employer attractiveness for current employees, we have systematically reviewed 48 studies published in business and management journals, and categorized findings into the Inputs-Mediators-Outputs model. This approach allowed us to depict significant limitations in the existing knowledge about employer attractiveness from the current employees' perspective, and offer avenues for future research. Next, to delineate the future research agenda, we have suggested that employer branding in organisations needs to be targeted more toward current employees.

Get Noticed to Get Ahead: The Impact of Personal Branding on Career Success.

There is a growing amount of attention being brought to personal branding as an effective career behavior, but little is known about the factors that predict personal branding behaviors and their outcomes. In two studies (N = 477) across two distinctly different cultural contexts (Western and Asian) based on a newly developed and validated scale of personal branding, we have examined the antecedents and outcomes of personal branding. The findings confirm that personal branding leads to greater career satisfaction, fully mediated by perceived employability. Career achievement aspiration was the strongest predictor of engaging in personal branding, while career feedback negatively related to personal branding intention and career self-efficacy positively related to personal branding but not to personal branding intention. These findings highlight the importance of personal branding as a contemporary career technique in promoting one's personal brand identity to achieve beneficial career outcomes.

Personal Branding: Interdisciplinary Systematic Review and Research Agenda.

Personal branding has become an important concept in management literature in recent years. Yet, with more than 100 scholarly papers published on the concept to date, it has developed into a fragmented area of research with a diversity of definitions and conceptual boundaries. This paper posits that this heterogeneity of extant research impedes theoretical and empirical advancement. To strengthen the foundation for future work, we review the extant literature and offer an integrative model of personal branding. Through our systematic literature review we identify the key attributes of the construct, establish its clarity by comparing it with similar concepts in its nomological network, and suggest the definitions of personal branding and personal brand based on the reviewed literature. Further, we propose a theoretical model of personal branding summarizing the findings from the reviewed papers. The proposed model outlines the trends conducive to personal branding, as well as its drivers, processes, and outcomes. Finally, we discuss ethical implications of personal branding for both scholarly work and practice. In conclusion, we outline a further research agenda for studying personal branding as a critical career and organizational behavior activity in contemporary working environment.

Servant Leadership and Innovative Work Behavior in Chinese High-Tech Firms: A Moderated Mediation Model of Meaningful Work and Job Autonomy.

Scholars acknowledge the critical role of employee innovative work behavior (IWB) in facilitating organizational innovation in high-tech industries. However, the current knowledge is far from complete to paint a clear picture of how to evoke employee IWB in the Chinese high-tech industry. Many Chinese high-tech firms face a challenge moving from hierarchy-based leadership toward more employee-centered leadership styles, as the styles have different effects on employees' IWB. This perspective may complement and sharpen the incomplete picture. Drawing on a dynamic componential model of creativity and innovation, this study proposes and tests a moderated mediation model that examines the hypothesized positive influence of servant leadership on employee IWB via meaningful work as well as the moderating role of job autonomy in this process. We collected data (N = 288) from three Chinese high-tech firms and found that employees' perceptions of meaningful work mediate the relationship between servant leaders and IWB. We also found that this mediating relationship is conditional on the moderating role of job autonomy in the path from servant leadership to meaningful work. The results further show that the indirect effect of servant leadership on employee IWB via meaningful work exists only when job autonomy is high.