Meaningful work at a distance: A case study in a hospital

Monika Müller, Christian Huber and Martin Messner

European Management Journal, 2019, vol. 37, issue 6, 719-729

Abstract: Having a positive impact on other people's lives typically increases the likelihood of regarding one's work as meaningful. In some settings, however, employees have little or no contact to those who experience the impact of their work. Our paper examines how such distance affects these employees' construction of their work as meaningful. We present the findings of an in-depth case study of medical laboratory workers who do not typically interact with their patients. Drawing on interviews and observational data, we identify three sensemaking practices through which employees overcome the physical and perceived psychological distance to patients: assembling various pieces of information about the patient, sharing patient-related stories with colleagues, and relating themselves to patients and their medical problems. We also find that overcoming distance to patients can result in emotional stress, which is why some employees prefer staying at a ‘safe’ psychological distance. Our paper contributes to the meaningful work literature by examining how actors make work meaningful when they are physically distant from their object of work. We also contribute to a critical understanding of meaningful work by showing how efforts to render one's work more meaningful can intensify stress and emotional tension.

Keywords: Meaningful work; Distance; Sensemaking; Emotions; Case study (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2019
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0263237319300477
Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:eee:eurman:v:37:y:2019:i:6:p:719-729

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
http://www.elsevier.com/wps/find/journaldescription.cws_home/115/bibliographic
http://www.elsevier. ... me/115/bibliographic

DOI: 10.1016/j.emj.2019.03.008

Access Statistics for this article

European Management Journal is currently edited by Michael Haenlein

More articles in European Management Journal from Elsevier
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Catherine Liu ().