MEANINGFUL WORK: EXPLORING BARRIERS INTERVENING AS WELL AS FACTORS ENHANCING EMPLOYEES’ ENGAGEMENT IN MEANINGFUL WORK.

Course: Careers & Organizations
Student: Isabelle van den Tol
Studentnumber: 2509606
Contact: i.vandentol@student.vu.nl
Coordinators: Prof. dr. Svetlana Khapova & Dr. Sylvia van de Bunt
Datum: October 19th, 2015

MEANINGFUL WORK: EXPLORING BARRIERS INTERVENING AS WELL AS FACTORS ENHANCING EMPLOYEES’ ENGAGEMENT IN MEANINGFUL WORK.
ISABELLE VAN DEN TOL
2509606
Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam

Through interviews and literary findings, a qualitative case study has been done to enrich the theory about the factors enhancing and barriers intervening meaningful work. For this case study two interviews
Organizational scholars’ interest in this topic has been fueled by the breadth of personal and organizational consequences associated with perceptions of meaning and meaningfulness in work (Rosso et al., 2010). However, none of these elements regard the factors that enhance, nor the barriers that intervene the employees’ engagement in meaningful work. This gap was due to the fact that literature remains splintered into a diverse array of theoretical perspectives and methodological approaches (Rosso et al., 2010).
Therefore in this research the main question will be:
Meaningful Work: What are the barriers intervening and the factors enhancing employees’ engagement in meaningful work?
The purpose of the assignment is to gain real-life insights about what employees and their managers say about pursuing meaningful work in the context of the changing business and work environments, and to develop theory that would contribute to better understanding of barriers intervening as well as factors enhancing employees’ engagement in meaningful work.
To accomplish this goal, the barriers and enhancements of the company Moll huiswerkbegeleiding will be examined. Furthermore, a qualitative research has been done to answer the main question. Because the interest of this case study was in building and enriching theory, the bulk of this theory lies at the end of the paper. However, to orient the reader towards the