Moments of Meaningfulness and Meaninglessness: A Qualitative Inquiry Into Affective Eudaimonia at Work

Meaningful work (MW) is an important topic in psychological and organizational research with theoretical practical implications. Many prior studies have focused on operationalizing MW distinguish between the attributes of a job that make it meaningful, such as task variety or significance, affective experience meaning during work, feeling what one does at meaningful. However, most empirical focuses former definition utilizes quantitative scales deductive questions omit people find their experiences. To address this, we conduct qualitative investigation narratives focusing in-depth quality content feelings meaningfulness meaninglessness experiences work—crucially, without any framing around attributes. We introduce term eudaimonia to describe these Overall, our results corroborate many existing thematic findings literature, importance connecting contributing others avoiding confinement. also offer new findings: Although way give language meaningless more descriptive, vivid, experiential tone than meaningful narratives, are structurally static constrained. use inform suggestions promote day-to-day provide basis for further academic discussion.