The Experience of Untapped Potential: Towards a Subjective Temporal Understanding of Work Meaningfulness

• DOI: http://doi.org/10.1111/joms.12417
• Author: Giverny Boeck,Nicky Dries,Hans Tierens
• Date: 01 May 2019
• Published date: 01 May 2019

© 2018 John Wiley & Sons Lt d and Society for the Adva ncement of Management Stud ies

The Experience of Untapped Potential: Towards

a Subjective Temporal Understanding of Work

Meaningfulness

Giverny De Boeck, Nicky Dries and Hans Tierens

KU Leu ven

ABST RACT In this paper, we propose that u ntapped potential acts as a subjective tempora l

meaning-mak ing mechanism. Using a two-w ave survey desig n, we examine the relationship

between job character istics, untapped potential, and work mean ingfulness in a heterogeneous

sample of 542 employees. We found that employees’ perceived amount of untapped potentia l

mediates the effect s of skill variety, autonomy, and job feedback on work meaningfu lness. This

mediated relationsh ip was moderated by the valence employees attributed to thei r untapped

potential. Moreover, decreases in t he perceived amount of untapped potential over time were

related to increases i n perceived work meaningfulness. O ur research shows that work that

allows employees to move beyond the here-and-now by prov iding opportunities to real ize

future work selves is exper ienced as particularly mean ingful. We conclude that, if we wish to

understand what ma kes work meaningf ul for employees in the present, we need to know how it

aligns w ith their self-perceptions in the f uture.

Keywo rds: job characterist ics, possible self, subjective time, untapped potent ial, work

meaning fulness

INTRODUCTION

Terkel (1972) once famously wrote that work ‘is a search for dai ly meaning as well as

daily bread, for recognit ion as well as cash, for astonishment rather than torpor; in short,

for a sort of life, rather than a Monday through Friday sort of dyi ng’ (p. xi). Research

has indeed found that most people attach great import ance to the meaningful ness of

work – i.e., the feeling that work activities are worthwhile, useful, and valuable, judged

in relation to personal ideals or sta ndards (Kahn, 1990; May et al., 20 04). Perceived

Journal of Man agement Studi es 56:3 May 2019

doi: 10 .1111/j oms .12417

Address for re prints: Giverny D e Boeck, KU Leuven, Depar tment of Work and Organisat ion Studies,

Naamsestra at 69, 3000 Leuven, Belgiu m (giverny.deboeck@kuleuven.be).

530 G. De Boeck et al.

© 2018 John Wiley & Sons Lt d and Society for the Adva ncement of Management Stud ies

work meaningful ness has also been shown to relate to numerous positive organizational

outcomes such as engagement, job satisfaction, employee wellbeing, performance, and

retention (Arnold et al., 2007; Grant, 2007; May et al., 2004; Steger and Dik, 2009).

Traditionally, research has examined work meaningfulness from a work-centric per-

spective, focusing on how meaningfulness can be managed by manipulating the external

work environment (e.g., through job design; Hackman and Oldham, 1975). More re-

cently, however, this managerial approach has been critiqued for disregarding humans’

intrinsic need for meaningfulness (Lips-Wiersma and Morris, 2009). Consequently, re-

searchers have begun to explore what makes work meaningful from the perspective of

the worker (e.g., Bailey and Madden, 2016). In the worker-centric literature, emphasis is

placed on the importance of the self-concept, and in particular on the identity-related

mechanisms that underlie employees’ meaning-making at work (Pratt and Ashforth,

2003; Rosso et al., 2010).

So far, however, the focus has been exclusively on employees’ ‘authentic’ self in the

present. Current research thereby neglects the fact that people draw meaning from mul-

tiple selves that can also be temporally located in the past or future (Markus and Wurf,

1987). Arguably, possible selves that represent how people see their potential for the fu-

ture make up an important part of the self-concept (Markus and Nurius, 1986; Williams

et al., 2012). An interview study by Ekman (2013), for instance, showed that fantasies

about future potential featured prominently in employees’ current perceptions of work

meaningfulness. Moreover, in a study of 131 senior HR executives, respondents consis-

tently ranked the ability to realize one’s potential as the number one factor that makes

jobs most meaningful to employees, placing it before making money and serving others

(Mitroff and Denton, 1999).

At the same time, however, the realization of potential at work is by no means self-

evident. In practice, work structures often frustrate employees’ desire to realize their

potential (Berg et al., 2010). As a result, a significant amount of employees risks being left

with the feeling that a lot of their potential remains untapped at work – i.e., that a large

discrepancy exists between their actual self and their desired future self. In fact, the prev-

alence of perceptions of untapped potential might explain why a recent survey found

that 55 percent out of 19,900 employees across a wide range of industries struggled to

find their work meaningful (Schwartz, 2014).

In the present paper, we introduce untapped potential as a subjective temporal experi-

ence that can make work more, or less, meaningful from the perspective of the individual

employee by functioning as a cognitive bridge between the present and the future. In

doing so, we advance understanding of the role of time in work meaningfulness at the

micro-level. More specifically, we examine whether the subjective temporal experience

of untapped potential mediates the relationship between job characteristics and work

meaningfulness, using a two-wave survey design among a large, heterogeneous group of

Belgian employees. By simultaneously investigating the influence of factors internal and

external to the individual employee, we integrate worker- and work-centric perspectives

on meaningful work (Michaelson et al., 2014). In doing so, we address recent calls for

more comprehensive models of work meaningfulness (Lips-Wiersma and Morris, 2009;

Rosso et al., 2010).