What matters for meaningful work? A Short-Term prospective study of ethical leadership and decent work
Clément Chassaing-Monjou, Nicola Cangialosi, Jacques Pouyaud, Guillaume R.M. DéprezPurpose
Ensuring decent work is a strategic objective of labour policies and organisational practices, as well as ensuring ethical leadership. These two components have been shown to foster meaningful work (Lysova et al., 2019). However, no study has examined their relationship from an asymmetric analytical perspective. The purpose of this study is to investigate the configurations of decent work and ethical leadership, with the aim of identifying the elements that contribute to meaningful work.
Design/methodology/approach
Using fuzzy-set qualitative comparative analysis on three-wave longitudinal data from 73 employees, this study examines how ethical leadership and decent work dimensions combine to foster meaningful work over time.
Findings
The findings reveal that no single dimension of ethical leadership or decent work is a necessary condition for meaningful work. However, ethical leadership and complementary organisational values consistently appear through time as core conditions in the profiles of employees who report high levels of meaningful work.
Originality/value
These findings contribute to leadership research by highlighting the importance of ethical leadership in shaping employees’ perceptions of work beyond its structural conditions. It therefore offers preliminary configurational evidence for expanding the Psychology of Working Theory by incorporating perceived ethical leadership as an organisational condition associated with meaningful work. From a practical perspective, organisations should focus on fostering ethical organisational values and aligning corporate values with employee expectations to enhance their sense of purpose.