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Knowledge sharing is increasingly important in today’s information age and extant literature considers knowledge hoarding as an undesirable form of knowledge-withholding behavior. As knowledge hoarding is a generic, nonintentional behavior, specific attitudes and organizational processes are unlikely to curb it. Hence, the study postulates that reflection, awareness and group identification are necessary to combat innate tendencies toward knowledge hoarding. To test these hypotheses, this study aims to explore the role of mindfulness and relational systems in reducing employees’ knowledge hoarding by increasing their meaning-making through work.

The study results are based on a cross-sectional survey of 203 employees in India working for different organizations. Standardized scales were used for capturing data, and partial least squares structural equation modeling was used for analysis.

Mindfulness and team cohesion were positively related to an increase in meaning-making through work. Supervisor support improved perceptions of team cohesion. However, contrary to expectations, team cohesion and meaning-making through work were positively, rather than negatively, related to knowledge hoarding.

The cross-sectional nature of the study prevents strong inference of causal relationships. Future studies may use a longitudinal design to test the relationships.

It highlights the role of meditation sessions and supervisory support in improving employees’ perceptions of meaning-making through work. It exhorts managers to systematically assess the impact and societal perceptions regarding knowledge hoarding rather than automatically assume a negative attitude.

To the best of the authors’ knowledge, this is the first study to investigate the impact of mindfulness, team cohesiveness and meaning-making through work on employees’ knowledge hoarding behaviors. The study results suggest that knowledge hoarding may be perceived positively in certain cultures. It highlights the inconsistencies in the conceptualization and operationalization of knowledge hoarding and suggests the need for better construct delineation and empirical studies related to knowledge hoarding.

This paper aims to identify a possible solution as to how meaningful work could be considered as a lever in attracting and retaining Generation Y (Gen-Y) employees to work in the Singapore hotel industry.

This paper draws on the perspectives of earlier conceptual papers by Chacko et al. (2012) and Solnet and Hood (2008) in an effort to identify root causes and a possible solution. The context of Singapore and the international literature are also reviewed to establish theoretical and practical gaps that need to be filled.

The results from this study can be used as a guide to enable hotels to improve the attraction, retention and management of Gen-Y employees. This is crucial in hotels where many properties are facing challenges in attracting and retaining hotel employee talent.

The paper provides a fresh examination of the characteristics and behaviours of Gen-Y employees, as well as suggests an improved organizational approach to attraction and retention. This methodology includes an element of positive psychology, in the form and experience of meaningful work.

This study aims to explore how employees’ meaningful work is associated with organizational outcomes at public Jordanian universities with the existence of individual work performance as a mediating variable.

The population of the study was 7,746 administrative staff working at four public Jordanian universities. Questionnaires were distributed to 576 participants. However, only 442 questionnaires were acceptable for further investigation, and these questionnaires were analyzed using SPSS version 22. Several statistical data analysis techniques were used including exploratory factor analysis, Cronbach’s alpha, descriptive analysis and multiple regression. Moreover, Baron and Kenny’s approach was applied to test the hypotheses developed.

A new dimensionality of variables under investigation emerged at the purification stage using validity and reliability techniques. The findings of the study show that meaningful work has a positive relationship with organizational outcomes. The findings also indicate that individual work performance shows a partial mediating role in the link between meaningful work and organizational outcomes. In addition, the findings imply that any effort to improve individual work performance at public Jordanian universities can help in offering a better understanding of organizational outcomes.

This study recommends that universities focus more on meaningful work and individual work performance programs and practices.

This study provides a framework and understanding of how work meaning and individual work performance relates to organizational outcomes in one model.

The COVID-19 pandemic has seen a growing emergence of “quarantine hotels” that provide accommodation to guests who are mandated to self-isolate for 14 days upon entry to a country to prevent the spread of virus. Why are young hotel workers willing to endure relatively poor working conditions and expose themselves to dangerous COVID-19 workplace environments? Perhaps, the opportunity to participate in meaningful work is the prime motivator for hotel workers who choose to work in quarantine hotels. This study aims to investigate the motivations that young hotel employees hold towards working in a potentially dangerous hotel workplace.

Using personal interviews, this research explored the antecedents behind Generation Z employees’ (n = 42) actual behaviour towards working in quarantine hotels through the lens of the extended theory of planned behaviour (TPB) model (attitudes, subjective norms, perceived difficulties and meaningful work).

Results revealed that meaningful work such as making the world safer and going beyond the call of duty was a key motivating factor behind a willingness to work in quarantine hotels. Hotel employees also viewed working in quarantine hotels as exciting but dangerous, and the support from their family nuclei was seen as a key underlying motivator.

The key implications are the image of the hospitality industry in terms of professional identity to be an industry that is respected by society given the high-risk work environment with increased exposure to COVID-19. Even though Generation Z still see some long-standing negatives in hotel work such as long hours and emotional challenge, it is positive to know that there are contexts in which they can have more pride and meaningfulness from their jobs.

To the best of the authors’ knowledge, this is the first paper to examine Generation Z hotel workers’ motivations to work in quarantine hotels. A key theoretical contribution to the body of knowledge is the extension of the TPB framework with the additional meaningful work variable.

The purpose of this paper is first, to test the validity of a new scale measuring the construct of meaning‐making, defined as the ability to integrate challenging or ambiguous situations into a framework of personal meaning using conscious, value‐based reflection. Second, to explore whether meaning‐making is distinct from other personal resources (self‐efficacy, optimism, mastery, meaning in life), and coping (positive reinterpretation, acceptance). Third, to explore whether meaning‐making facilitates work engagement, willingness to change, and performance during organizational change.

Cross‐sectional survey‐data were collected from 238 employees in a variety of both public and private organizations.

Confirmatory factor analyses showed that meaning‐making can be distinguished from other personal resources, coping and meaning in life. Regression analyses showed that meaning‐making is positively related to in‐role performance and willingness to change, but not to work engagement, thereby partly supporting the hypotheses.

The paper focuses on meaning‐making that has not yet been studied empirically in organizational change settings. It shows that the new construct of psychological meaning‐making is related to valuable employee outcomes including in‐role performance and willingness to change. Meaning‐making explains variance over and above other personal resources such as self‐efficacy, optimism, mastery, coping and meaning in life.

Drawing on the work as calling theory, the purpose of this study is to explore how and when career calling promotes taking charge by focusing on the mediating effects of work meaningfulness and felt obligation and the moderating role of family-friendly human resource practice (FF-HRP).

The authors collected data from 293 supervisor–employee dyads at three time points in southeastern China. Path analysis and bootstrap method were used for hypothesis testing.

Employees' perceived career calling positively affected taking charge through work meaningfulness and felt obligation. The positive effects of career calling on work meaningfulness and felt obligation as well as the indirect effect of career calling on taking charge are stronger when employees perceive high levels of FF-HRP.

Organizational interventions should be designed to enhance employees' sense of calling, and the organization should inspire employees to take charge by awakening their perception of work meaningfulness and obligation. Moreover, FF-HRP should be implemented as a form of organizational support.

This research identifies work meaningfulness and felt obligation as mediators that link career calling to taking charge and reveals the role of FF-HRP in amplifying the positive impact of career calling.

Today’s organizations continue to suffer from the detrimental effects of employee disengagement. Leaders and their behavior play a significant role in limiting these negative effects. The literature provides evidence that facets of the full-range leadership model impact employee engagement. This paper aims to extend the leader-engagement connection to include the role authentic leadership plays in cultivating meaningfulness and engagement.

This research uses a quantitative survey of 90 working professionals to test a mediated model and its hypothesized relationships among authentic leadership, meaningfulness and employee engagement. Hypotheses were tested with ordinary least squares regression in the PROCESS macro for Statistical Packages for the Social Science.

The results confirmed the positive impact of authentic leadership on engagement. The indirect effect of authentic leadership on engagement through meaningfulness was not found to be significant. However, post hoc analysis found evidence that the impact of authentic leadership is mediated by the dimensional aspect of meaningfulness, positive meaning.

These findings extend the empirical evidence tying leadership behavior to employee engagement by clarifying how authentic leadership influences employees to participate more fully in their organization’s activities. Further, this research provides alternative pathways for leaders to encourage and elicit engagement from their followers.

Through focusing on gig workers registered in three crowdsourcing platforms, the authors investigate how individual and collaborative job crafting may be positively related to the meaningful work and affective commitment those gig workers develop towards the crowdsourcing platforms they register in.

The authors employed a quantitative research method in which they focused on date from surveys completed by 327 gig workers. They tested the hypotheses using SmartPLS 3, which is more suitable when dealing with complex models, non-normal data, small samples and higher-order constructs.

The results showed that the proactive behaviour embedded within both individual and collaborative job crafting may lead to a sense of meaningfulness for gig workers and subsequently, their affective commitment towards the crowdsourcing platforms they register in. Specifically, the more gig workers undertake individual (H1) and collaborative (H2) job crafting behaviour, the greater the sense of meaningfulness they develop. Moreover, meaningfulness for gig workers positively affects their affective commitment towards the crowdsourcing platforms they register with (H3).

To the best of the authors' knowledge, this study is the first of its kind in the context of France and the European Union to focus on job crafting and its effect on both meaningful work and the affective commitment of non-traditional workers. This paper contributes by filling a gap in human resource (HR) management, in which empirical studies that address gig work have been limited so far.

Providing employees with meaning in their work has inspired numerous researchers to study the role of personal meaningful work and its related outcomes. Despite this high level of interest, the theoretical views and methodological approaches used to explore this concept still require refinement and development. Without a comprehensive review of these views and approaches, the concept of meaningful work will remain an ill defined notion. The purpose of this paper is to address this gap with a review of the theoretical and empirical research on meaningful work.

The paper includes a discussion on the concepts of “meaning” and “work”, and its importance and the sources for conceptual confusion, and a synthesis of the common features that form the idea of meaningful work in numerous empirical and theoretical studies.

The paper found meaningful work is derived when the employee has a perfect understanding of the nature and expectations of the task environment (i.e. the work has a clear goal, purpose and value that is connected to the employee), the employee feels a sense of fit or congruence between their own core values and the job requirements and organizational mission and goals, and when perfect understanding exists of how employees’ roles contribute to the purpose of the organization.

As part of an effective HRM strategy, organizations should actively encourage and develop managers’ abilities to redesign jobs and the climate to build enhanced feelings of meaning in work. Furthermore, organizations can promote greater experiences of meaningful work among employees by implementing the “job crafting” concept. Also, the role of top management is to focus on job elements that would possibly change personal needs of employees and hence perceive their jobs to be more meaningful.

Given the limited amount of recent literature focused on defining meaningful work, this paper provides valuable resources to help organizations succeed in their understanding of how to engage in creating meaningful work environment. It also examines the underlying features that constitute the meaningful work concept and offers guidance for future research by presenting the current state of knowledge about meaningful work.

The current paper is part of a larger scoping review project investigating the intersection of leader(ship) identity development and meaning-making. In this review, we analyzed 100 articles to determine the current extent of literature that covers the intersection of leader(ship) identity development, meaning-making and marginalized social identities.

A review of the extant literature is included, and a conceptual model is suggested for further exploration into this critical and under-researched domain.

More research is needed at the intersection of leadership identity development, meaning-making and marginalized social identities.

As this area of study has expanded, scholars have noted an absence of research on the effect of multiple social identities, especially marginalized identities, on meaning-making and leadership identity construction.