The Sociomaterial Negotiation of Social Entrepreneurs’ Meaningful Work

• Date: 01 May 2019
• Published date: 01 May 2019
• DOI: http://doi.org/10.1111/joms.12421
• Author: Gillian Symon,Rebecca Whiting

The Sociomaterial Negotiation of Social

Entrepreneurs’ Meaningful Work

Gillian Symona and Rebecca Whitingb

aDigital O rganization and Societ y Research Centre, School of Man agement, Royal Hollo way, University

of London; bD epartment of Organ izational Psycholog y, Birkbeck, Universit y of London

ABST RACT This resear ch examines the role of digital t echnology in the constitution of mean-

ingful work. A dopti ng a sociomaterial perspective, we arg ue that meaningful work emerges a s

an outcome of a complex negotiation between ind ividuals and their digit al devices. This

process was explored th rough video diaries and interv iews with social entrepreneurs, c aptur-

ing moments of their everyday mea ning-making and encourag ing reflexivity. Accounti ng for

their sociomateri al practice led participants to rea ffirm their work as u niquely meaningful,

produce more nuanced accounts of meani ngfulness and/or make pragmatic adjust ments to

their meaning m aking. Whilst authenticit y was a key meta-narrative in these ac counts, it also

produced tensional knots wh ich, in their unravelling, requ ired the adoption of more practica-

ble meanings of work. The paper conc ludes by urg ing scholars to de-centre the human f rom

their analy sis to provide a more complete account of meaningful work.

Keywo rds: digita l technology, meaningful work, nar rative, social entrepreneurs,

sociomateriality, tensions

INTRODUCTION

Meaningfu l work has been defined as ‘when an indiv idual perceives an authentic con-

nection between their work and a broader transcendent life purpose beyond the self’

(Bailey and Madden, 2016, p. 55), and has largely been conceptua lised as a positive

individual subjective eva luation (e.g., Rosso et al., 2010). However, recent research has

sought to re-position our understanding of meaningfulness as an interactive and dy-

namic negotiation of tensions in meani ng-making (e.g., Mitra and Buzzanell, 2017). We

apply this approach to explore meaning ful work amongst social entrepreneurs (SEs)

in the UK. SEs’ work is often cultur ally positioned as particu larly meaningfu l (Mort

et al., 2003), but is also a site of contested meanings (Choi and Majumdar, 2014) and

Journal of Man agement Studi es 56:3 May 2019

doi: 10. 1111/j oms .12 421

Address for re prints: Gi llian Symon, D igital Orga nization and Soc iety Research Centr e, School of

Management, Roy al Holloway, University of London, Eg ham TW20 0EX, U K (Gillian.Sy mon@rhul.ac.uk).

This is an op en access article u nder the terms of the Creat ive Commons Attr ibution License, which pe rmits use,

distri bution and reproduction in a ny medium, provided t he original work is pr operly cited.

© 2018 The Authors

Journal of Ma nagement Studies publ ished by Society for the Adv ancement of Managment St udies and

John Wiley & Son s, Ltd.

656 G. Symon and R. Whiting

© 2018 The Authors

Journal of Ma nagement Studies publ ished by Society for the Adv ancement of Managment St udies and

John Wiley & Son s, Ltd

thus fertile ground for a tensional exploration of meani ngful work. We extend this per-

spective by incorporati ng an explicit consideration of the role of materiality (specifica lly

digital tech nologies) within this negotiat ion.

We provide three main contributions to research on meaningful work: exploring the

role of digital technology in the everyday practice of meaningful work at an individual

and micro-analytical level; identifying the narrative tensions which follow from work being

positioned as ‘meaningful’; and demonstrating a (digital) methodological mechanism for

amplifying reflexivity in the practice of meaningful work. Below, we first provide a critique

of academic studies of meaningful work, before outlining our own tensional (Mitra and

Buzzanell, 2017) and sociomaterial (Pickering, 1995) perspective. We briefly summarise

contemporary research on the nature of social enter prise and the work of SEs, highlighting

underlying tensions in this practice before outlining our own research focus. Our qualita-

tive narrative methodology is described, emphasising the reflexive and abductive reasoning

(Tavory and Timmermans, 2014) behind our analysis. We present our detailed exploration

of our SEs’ narratives of meaningful work and the role materiality (specifically digital tech-

nology) plays in their constitution. Our findings show how meaningful work is constituted

through a process of negotiation and justification of meaning which includes negotiation

with material objects (digital technologies). In this process, existing interpretations and

practices of meaningful work may be confirmed and justified, but more nuanced under-

standings of meaningful work may also emerge as SEs accommodate to material agency.

MEANINGFUL WORK , TENSIONS AND (DIGITAL) MATER IALITY

A number of commentators assert that humans have an in herent desire or need to find

meaning in their ac tivities, especially work, as a centra l activity for many (Lips-Wiersma

and Morris, 2018). In the management literature, meaning ma king is predominantly

said to be an indiv idual process of sense-making based on our experience of work (Rosso

et al., 2010). Meaningful work is the signi ficance of that meaning to the self, wh ich is po-

sitioned as ‘positive in valence’ (Steger et al., 2012) and related to personal development

and growth rat her than simple enjoyment. Rosso et al. (2010) differentiate four possible

sources of meaning in work: the self ( personal values and beliefs); others (providing cues

to the meaningf ulness of work); the content of work (its design); and spir ituality (including

pursuing a ‘call ing’). However, meaning ful work also encompasses negative experiences

and struggle (Bunderson a nd Thompson, 2009) and it is in the struggle that individuals

sometimes experience the greatest mean ingfulness ( Bailey and Madden, 2016).

However, the meaning of work has also been argued to be ‘communicatively con-

stituted’ (Broadfoot et al., 2008, p. 155) arising from ‘complex negotiations of mean-

ing-making’ (Mitra and Buzzanell, 2017, p. 597). From this perspective, meaning-making

is construed as an inter-subjective and situated process. In this case, work may come to be

regarded as meaningful through the active negotiation of meaning in particular contexts

and in particular times (Zorn and Townsley, 2008). Indeed, Lepisto and Pratt (2017)

suggest that ‘meaningful work involves account-making, where individuals seek to justify

their work as possessing positive worth’ (p. 109), within a complex context of competing

accounts and accepted norms and practices.