Work and culture: Approaching cultural and work psychology

Abstract

In this article, we aim to explore the potential consequences of an approach to the theme of work that lies between culture psychology and work psychology. We argue that culture and work, considered as entities, have suffered from a process of mutual distancing over the course of history. Our first argument is to show the fallacy underlying this distancing, by arguing that culture is not an entity, but rather a process by which we use signs as tools to mediate our relationship with the environment and to regulate our own action in irreversible time. We also argue that work is a sign-mediated activity that occurs through culture. Most importantly, we advance the urgency of considering work as a cultural phenomenon, whose specific role is to make culture by getting things transformed into objects. The second argument we put forward is that work is a meaning-making complex. We further develop this concept by claiming that work should be analysed at the general level of the semiotic principles of meaning-making.

The Influence of Effectiveness of Management, Work Culture, Trust and Engagement, towards Work Effectiveness of Employee Property Company at Jakarta

“…and generate employee trust in management and the company (Rollins & Robert, 2008). This is also in line with research related to work culture that influences employee job satisfaction (Santosh Dev; Santoshi Sengupta, 2015), as well as work culture related to company performance (Bendassolli, 2017) and employee performance (Den Hartog & Verburg, 2004).…”

Trabalho digno expressando valores universais e respeitando diversidade cultural: Proposições para a intervenção

“…Furnham and Rajamanickam (1992) found differences between the UK and India regarding the "protestant work ethic". Similarly, other authors argue that there are cultural differences concerning the meaning of work (e.g., Bendassolli, 2017;Sharma, 2015). Strauch (2010) found a cultural Decent work, universal values and cultural diversity inf luence on team performance, which leads to the expectation that the perception of having productive work will vary accordingly.…”

Viewing Meaningful Work Through the Lens of Time

“…This suggests two strands of research. Firstly, authors could seek to understand how meaningful work historically changes in the light of the socio-political changes that take place among the factors that contribute to the account-making of work ( Shantz et al, 2015 ; Allan et al, 2017 ; Bendassolli, 2017b ; Lepisto and Pratt, 2017 ). Secondly, in the current economic times, authors can consider different kinds of work (e.g., precarious employments, Patulny et al, 2020 ) to explore further the assessment of account-making the presence of the four significant sources of meaning in work ( Twenge et al, 2010 ; Yeoman et al, 2019 ).…”

“…The style of leadership can shape the emotional atmosphere and hence the experience of positive emotion and meaningful work (Tummers and Knies, 2013;Carton, 2018). Workplace spirituality and organizational democracy can foster a sense of belonging and can shape meaningful work experience (Yeoman, 2014b;Schnell et al, 2019;Weber et al, 2019), but episodic meaningfulness and meaninglessness can also be associated with the low-quality leader-member exchange relationships (Tummers and Knies, 2013;Bailey et al, 2017b;Bendassolli, 2017a), which can prompt a sense of interindividual solidarity and, consequently, the sense of meaning. State affects, affective events, and discrete emotions in the workplace, as reported in the study of Matz-Costa et al (2019), can also determine fluctuations in the meaningfulness of work.…”