Sources of Meaningful Work Scale: Development, Validation and Reliability

Abstract

Purpose – This study aims at developing the “Sources of Meaningful Work Scale” which enables individuals to identify the sources of meaning that foster the meaningfulness of the work and explore the psychological processes underlying the experience of meaning at work. Design/methodology/approach – A series of studies were conducted in line with the aim of the study. Firstly, adopting both deductive and inductive approach, an item pool was created. With the participation of 143 white-collar employees Research 1 is carried out in order to determine the factor structure of the scale and prove its construct validity. Then, additional evidence for the construct validity of the scale has been obtained through the data gathered from 283 white-collar employees in Research 2, and the reliability of the scale, the convergent and divergent validity of the scale over the structure, the criterion-related validity over the relations with other variables, and the measurement invariance over the gender have been tested. Findings – According to the research findings, the validity and reliability of the Sources of Meaningful Work Scale consists of 4 dimensions with 14 items has been created to be used in the literature. The dimensions of the scale are “existence and feeling valuable, purpose integration, competency and personal development”. Discussion – Although there are measurement tools related to the meaningfulness of the work in the literature, there is no tool for measuring the sources of meaning of the work, except for a scale developed specifically for the academic profession. Therefore, it is considered that the current study will provide contribution to the literature determining the factors which are the source of the meaningfulness of the work and the development of the scale “Sources of Meaningful Work”. In addition, with the development of this scale, it is expected that the identification and management of individuals' sources of meaning will contribute by obtaining positive results at the individual and organizational level, specifically increasing the meaning at work.