MEANING OF WORK TO PUBLIC SERVANTS WHO IMPLEMENT EMPLOYMENT POLICIES

ABSTRACT Purpose: To describe the sources of the meaning of work. This research was carried out with civil servants who implement employment policies in the Federal District of Brazil, trying to reintegrate people back into the labor market. Originality/value: This work describes how the different sources affect the construction of the meaning of work. We include and test the service user as a relevant source for the meaning of work. Design/methodology/approach: Qualitative design. It uses semi--structured interviews and content analysis with the previous model based on the Rosso, Dekas, and Wrzesniewski (2010) directions. Findings: Three of the four proposed sources of the meaning of work were found: Self, Others, and Context. The Spiritual Life source does not arise in the content analysis. The most frequent source was Context, followed by Others and Self. Work Design was the most frequent theme in the Others category. It suggests that the relation between the job and self is core to the meaning of work. Not all proposed themes by the authors emerge in each category. Finally, in the Others source, the service user frequently emerges, indicating its pertinence to the meaning of work. Explanatory hypotheses are discussed for the sources and themes that emerge.

摘要 研究目的：旨在阐释工作意义的来源。本研究以巴西联邦特区负责就业政策实施、致力于推动劳动者重返劳动力市场的公务员为研究对象。原创性/研究价值：本研究阐明了不同来源如何影响工作意义的建构过程，首次将服务对象纳入工作意义的相关来源维度并进行了实证检验。研究设计/方法：本研究采用质性研究设计，基于Rosso、Dekas与Wrzesniewski（2010）提出的分析框架，运用半结构化访谈与内容分析法开展研究。研究发现：本研究识别出4种预设工作意义来源中的3种，即自我、他人与情境，精神生活来源未在内容分析中出现。其中出现频率最高的来源为情境，其次依次为他人与自我。在他人类别中，工作设计为最常见的研究主题，表明工作与自我的关联是工作意义建构的核心所在。并非所有预设主题均在对应类别中出现。此外，在他人来源维度中，服务对象频繁被提及，印证了其作为工作意义来源的合理性。最后，研究针对识别出的来源与主题提出了解释性假说。