Lessons learned from meaningful work: Implications for understanding meaningfulness in elite/high performance sport

Abstract

Exploring meaningful work in sport holds potential for organizational sport psychologists and could be particularly appealing because research in other fields demonstrates its benefits for well-being, productivity, and organizational commitment. Although the concept of meaningful work in sport is not completely new, its emergence can be facilitated by consulting disciplines with longer histories of meaning-focused scholarship for structure and guidance. Therefore, the aim of this article is to critically review the advances in study of meaningful work to identify key lessons learned that can inform research with high-performance athletes and sport organizations. Using a narrative review approach, we explored the key debates in meaningful work literature and present them in a form of four tensional knots: (1) beyond “the self” and subjectivity, (2) time and context, (3) the management of meaning, and (4) the dark side of meaningful work. Each tension is discussed with implications for sport psychology scholarship and organizational sport psychology. We conclude with a brief reflection on how the lessons extracted are embedded in current topical issues in sport organizational life and how the study of meaningful work can extend already prominent strands of organizational sport psychology research. Lay summary In this review, we explore the potential applications of the concept of meaningful work in organizational sport psychology. By identifying key tensions in meaningful work literature and their relevance to sport organizations, we provide directions for future research and recommendations for how sport psychologists can address meaningful work in their applied practice. IMPLICATIONS FOR PRACTICE Job design and task clarity can support meaningful work Reflective practice is a good starting point for sport psychologists to start exploring the tensions of meaningful work addressed in this paper Attempts to intervene with what is considered meaningful can be conceived as unwarranted manipulation and lead to skepticism