ABSTRACT
When you think of yourself at work, how do you think you are faring? Are you flourishing at work, feeling a sense of engagement, motivation, growth, and learning, or is languishing a better descriptor for your state of well-being? This chapter explores one important way in which organizations shape our ability to flourish at work. As employees, we spend more time engaged with our work organizations than we do with our families, friends, or other institutions (Hochschild, 1997). New technologies are quickly blurring the boundaries between work and nonwork, amplifying work immersion for the average employee. In such a world, how do work organizations leave their imprint on employees, or, from a positive organizational psychology perspective, how do work contexts cultivate employee flourishing? In this chapter, we explore how work contexts cultivate employee flourishing through the way they shape the identities that employees construct at work.
