The meaning of work and sense of calling for students in nanyang business school.

• Main Authors: Kang, Zhijue., Lim, Guorong., Yeh, Sing Hwa.
• Other Authors: Koh Siew Kuan
• Format: Final Year Project
• Language: English
• Published: 2013
• Subjects: DRNTU::Business
• Online Access: http://hdl.handle.net/10356/51413
• Institution: Nanyang Technological University

Research has consistently highlighted the importance of meaning of work. Therefore, this study applies some of these theories and concepts in determining meaningful work for students in Nanyang Business School (“NBS”) in particular. It adopts a qualitative grounded approach to identify a set of fourteen themes that reflected the meaning of work to NBS students. Students were found to describe meaning of work themes in terms of achievement and autonomy/growth striving more than communion and status striving. Next, this study also examines the concept of calling as applied to the student population. Our results show that NBS students have little clarity in their calling, but they are actively searching for a calling in their lives. Lastly, we look at different factors that potentially impact concepts of meaning of work and calling. The study reflected significant results for specializations, work experience and gender on themes of meaning of work. On the other hand, personality, work experience and gender were found to affect calling orientations.