Participants:
Annette Kamp, Klaus T. Nielsen and Helge Hvid from RU, Pernille Bottrup and Per Bruhn from Kubix.

Project objectives:
The project aims at exploring the concept of meaning and its impact on the quality of the working environment and developing methods to identify, understand, maintain and renew 'meaning' in a working environment context within care work - taking care for the elderly as an example. The intention is to achieve practice-based insights that can be used in the everyday working environment activities of the workplaces such as workplace assessments, job satisfaction surveys and planning of organizational changes.

Brief description of the project:
Meaning is a key working environment factor, but has only been studied to a limited extent in working environment research. It is the assumption of the project that the ability to establish, maintain and develop meaning within the communities of practice of the workplace is crucial for the psycho-social working environment.
This is particularly true in elderly care, where meaning is a very critical factor. Elderly care is furthermore an interesting area because current restructuring puts established contexts of meaning under pressure.
The project will examine three critical issues related to the ability to maintain and develop meaning in communities of practice in care for the elderly: a) Formal and informal communication in the community of practice, b) Exchange of views and experience between neighbouring communities of practice, and c) The ability of organizations to generate exchanges of meaning between top and bottom.
The project is based on a literature study of the significance of meaning in care work, and a literature study of concrete practices of working with meaning as a working environment factor.
The project carries out 5 intervention-oriented case studies, where the above three dimensions are examined, and interventions are implemented in a cooperation between workplace and researchers in order to strengthen the generation of meaning in the workplace.
Moreover, a method-development-network is established. The intention is that the methods developed can be included in the everyday activities of the workplaces to improve the working environment, and that they can be used by communities of practice and workplaces without the assistance of consultants.
Furthermore, a final evaluation of the project effects will be conducted.
Read an extended description of the project here (only in Danish)
The project has so far resulted in a comprehensive literature-report on Meaning at work -> Download it here (only in Danish)

Contact: Annette Kamp, kamp@ruc.dk