(The Social and Cultural Determinants of Creating Meaning at Work: An Integrative Social Environment or a Diversified Organizational Culture)

Abstract

Purpose – This research aims to empirically examine the role of social integration and cultural diversity on perceived meaningfulness of work as rather neglected factors in analyzing how meaning of work is shaped. Design/methodology/approach – The sample of the study consists of 216 firms affiliated to Istanbul Chamber of Industry. Managers and senior employees who have been working in these firms for two years or more were included as key informants representing the firms. The research data collected from the employees through the survey method were subjected to validity and reliability analyses by using structural equation modeling in AMOS 21.0 program and hypotheses were tested using path analysis. Findings – According to the findings of the study, while social integration has positive relationship with positive meaning, meaning-making through work, and greater good motivations as meaningfulness dimensions, cultural diversity has negative relationship with positive meaning and meaning-making through work and surprisingly has positive relationship with greater good motivations. Discussion – The results show that individuals' perceptions about meaningfulness of work are constructed collectively. With generating social integration within the organization, increased degree of psychological attraction and attachment of employees leverages their perception of work meaningfulness. At the same time, the results show that when social integration in the workplace is achieved, the perceived cultural diversity surprisingly increases employees' perceptions that they contribute to a greater good through their work, thereby motivates employees to see the diversity in the organization as a valuable resource. In general sense, this research extends the theory on work meaningfulness by developing an integrative model involving the simultaneous and concurrent effects of social and cultural mechanisms within the organization and empirically testing this social and cultural “web of meaning”.