Organizational Purpose: Definition, Measurement and the Ambivalent Effect on Employee Wellbeing

Research on organizational purpose has gained great popularity in recent decades. Practitioners and scholars anticipate organizational purpose as a potential solution for the issues of solely profit-driven business. However, critical perspectives and empirical studies are scarce to validate the optimistic prospects. In our study, we critically elaborate and empirically test the outcomes of organizational purpose on employee job satisfaction and subjective well-being. We theorize and empirically show that organizational purpose does not always have positive consequences for employees’ job related and general well-being, particularly, if they seek too much meaning through their work and therefore neglect their work-life balance. In our paper, first, we develop a multi-dimensional construct definition of organizational purpose based on a systematic literature review. Second, building on our theoretical construct definition, we develop and validate a four-dimensional organizational purpose scale. Third, we disentangle the related yet differentiated concepts of organizational purpose and meaningful work to theorize how the substantial knowledge in the field of meaningful work can be transferred to the relatively new and untested field of organizational purpose. Fourth, our study provides a rigorously tested critical perspective on the potential outcomes of organizational purpose, which results in a more complex discussion of managerial implications.