Organizational purpose in practice: impact on the meaning of work and employee engagement

This article aims to analyze how organizational purpose influences the meaning of work and employee engagement. The article is relevant due to the scarcity of studies on the subject, but also because organizations have faced numerous challenges linked to new ways of working, resignations from professionals who are looking for greater personal and professional fulfillment, among other factors that impact the meaning of work and employee engagement. Given this scenario, this article makes contributions as it identifies: (i) how the phenomenon “organizational purpose” manifests itself in practice; (ii) its relevance; (iii) its positive impact on the meaning of work and engagement and (iv) the importance of the role of leadership in this process. To achieve the objective of this work, ten semi-structured, qualitative research studies were carried out, using the thematic analysis technique to process the data. The study concludes that: (i) the organizational purpose needs to be authentic; (ii) that there is a direct relationship between a company with an organizational purpose and the positive impact it generates on the meanings of work; (iii) the organizational purpose is the “differentiator” in engagement; (iv) and leadership is a driver and guardian of purpose.