The Relationship Between Personal Agency and Meaningful Work: An Exploratory Study
Open AccessThe Relationship Between Personal Agency and Meaningful Work: An Exploratory StudyAbstractThis qualitative study explored the relationship between personal agency (comprised of ego strength (resilience), internal locus of control, purpose in life, and self-esteem) and meaningful work (defined as work which is interesting, satisfying, has a significant purpose and impact, and allows the employee to express him or herself through work). More than 300 employees of the NASA Goddard Space Flight Center took part in a survey to determine personal agency scores and identify a sample of 20 participants for face-to-face in-depth interviews. Results indicated that employees who took part in the study have high personal agency scores and find their work meaningful. Employees experience conflict between the desire for autonomy which characterizes their agentic personalities, and the organizational bureaucracy which prevents them from taking complete ownership and experiencing the full enjoyment of their work. It is making a contribution toward the mission, however slow and incremental that contribution may be, and the resulting recognition (rather than simply recognition for their work) which allows employees to feel successful at their jobs. Employees enjoy flexible work arrangements, but may experience work/life conflict as a result. The study highlights the importance of professional autonomy to knowledge workers, such as the NASA scientists and engineers who took part in this study. Implications for practice include ensuring that organizational processes are critically analyzed to ensure they are truly necessary and do exist simply based on the assumption that employees will shirk their responsibilities and must be externally controlled. Such processes infringe on knowledge workers' abilities to apply their expertise autonomously and lead to great frustration. Management can have a significant impact on how employees experience their work by moving from industrial-type manager/director to a reinvented role as a coach and partner of engaged, self-managed knowledge workers, who are very different from the "hired hands" of previous ages. In this role, managers do less telling and more facilitating employees in a process of collaborative problem-solving around organizational issues.
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