Virtue Ethics and Meaningful Work: A Contemporary Buddhist Approach

Meaningful work (MW) is defined as the degree of significance that employees believe their work possesses. Although it is an established area of scholarship, researchers who have studied this topic still encounter a number of difficulties. To begin with, there is little consensus on what exactly makes work meaningful. From a philosophical standpoint, the search for meaning is an essential part of being human. Thus, MW, according to Lips-Wiersma and Morris (2009, 657), "finds its roots in the humanities rather than in management theory." They also (2009, 508) express the need to consider differences in cultural and spiritual beliefs in studying MW. Most studies in this area are Western-centric, with very few attempts to consider non-Western and cross-cultural perspectives (Michaelson et al. 2014). The question of whether MW varies across cultures is rarely addressed. In this global economy, where major companies outsource their production to different countries and people of diverse cultural and religious backgrounds interact in the workplace, there is a growing need to compare and contrast how different cultures view MW. This study adds to the existing literature on MW by presenting a contemporary virtue-focused Buddhist view. While a virtue-ethics interpretation of Buddhism is now widely accepted and has been applied to several issues, not much has been written about MW using a Buddhist-Aristotelian comparative framework. To develop a Buddhist approach, I draw heavily on the works of Buddhist scholars, particularly in the West, who use a virtue framework in interpreting Buddhism. The aims of my essay are dual. The first is to articulate a straightforward application of Buddhism to the contemporary ethical discussion of MW. The second is to discuss the similarities, clarify the differences, and demonstrate the strengths and weaknesses—relative to each other—of the Buddhist and the Western virtue theories. In my analysis, I argue that while Buddhism is not an alternative to Western virtue theory, it offers significant contributions to the latter's approach to MW and even a corrective to some of its limitations. The integration of Buddhism in our theorizing of MW from a virtue-ethics perspective helps us to better understand ourselves and the virtues that we cultivate in the workplace, and develop a holistic and cross-cultural conceptualization that is relevant to our global economy.