ABSTRACT
Human beings construct meaning to render, e.g., salaried work rewarding and a source of self-identification. Previous studies of deeply meaningful work show that personal beliefs and convictions play a key role in certain career and life style choices, but such studies tend to undervalue the role of institutional conditions. The concept of the institutional self emphasizes how the individual constructs meaning on the basis of the acceptance of certain conditions as being facts of life, and only thereafter acts to change institutional conditions on the basis of private and communal beliefs. The empirical data show that the commitment to this mode of production is premised both on institutional conditions that are accepted as they are and on the basis of private beliefs and convictions. The chapter calls for more research that examines how meaning is constructed in the domain of work and in particular under conditions where the meaning-making process is not intuitively understood by outside observers.
