Research

The meaning of meaningful work in my research has evolved through the years in these and many other articles I have published on the topic:

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• Michaelson, Christopher. 2021. A normative meaning of meaningful work. Journal of Business Ethics 170: 413-428. Meaningful work should be meaningful to me, meaningful to others, and meaningful in itself.

• Tosti-Kharas, Jennifer, & Michaelson, Christopher. 2021. To mean is to be perceived: Studying the meaning of work through the eyes of others. Academy of Management Perspectives 35(3): 503-516. How do our appraisals of the meaning of work change when considering it from the perspective of other beneficiaries, such as family, co-workers, or others?

• Michaelson, Christopher, Pratt, Michael G., Grant, Adam M., and Dunn, Craig P. 2014. Meaningful work: Connecting business ethics and organization studies. Journal of Business Ethics 121(1): 77-90. Philosophers and social scientists both study meaningful work and ask some of the same questions, but they do not always provide the same answers.

• Michaelson, Christopher. 2005. Meaningful motivation for work motivation theory. Academy of Management Review 30(2): 235-238. Many classical managerial motivation tactics treat workers as if they can be manipulated by money or other material inducements. 

My papers, book chapters, and reviews include pieces inspired by an ancient Chinese proverb, Plato's cave allegory, and authors ranging from Mary Shelley to Zadie Smith, Leo Tolstoy and David Foster Wallace. Below are a few other pieces about music, theater, storytelling, and novels:

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• Michaelson, Christopher. 2021. How a catchy bass line might someday resonate beyond my business ethics classroom: Rock music in management learning. Management Learning 52(2): 188-202. My students may not recall every detail of what they learned in my class, but with the help of British rock, I hope they will remember how my class made them feel.

• Michaelson, Christopher., & Tosti-Kharas, Jennifer. 2020. A world changed: What post-9/11 stories tell us about the position of American, purpose of business, and meaning of work. Academy of Management Review 45(4): 877-895. Two decades after 9/11, we examined the position of America, purpose of business, and meaning of work through four stories in which business is a central force: Art Spiegelman’s 2004 graphic comix storyboard, In the Shadow of No Towers; Mohsin Hamid’s 2007 novel, The Reluctant Fundamentalist; Irene Sankoff and David Hein’s 2015 musical, Come from Away; and Laila Lalami’s 2019 novel, The Other Americans. 

• Beigi, Mina, Callahan, Jamie, & Michaelson, Christopher. 2019. A critical plot twist: Changing characters and foreshadowing the future of organizational storytelling. International Journal of Management Reviews 21(4): 447-465. The story of research on organizations is largely told by science, but our research reveals an emerging story highlighting underrepresented perspectives, voices, and characters in organizations.

• Michaelson, Christopher. 2016. A novel approach to business ethics education: Exploring how to live and work in the 21st century. Academy of Management Learning & Education 15(3): 588-606. Few great novels are about business, but those that are may be worth the investment to help business students become better businesspersons -- and better people.

My other scholarship has appeared in journals and books in many disciplines, including management, ethics, finance, literature, architecture, accounting, philosophy, and medicine. Here are some examples:

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• Michaelson, Christopher. 2022. Making money from misfortune: Casuistry for future capitalism. Philosophy of Management 21: 371-390. It is both hard to accept and difficult to deny what Michel de Montaigne wrote in 1580, "that the profit of one [hu]man is the damage of another."  

• Brunnquell, Donald, and Michaelson, Christopher. 2016. Moral hazard in pediatrics. American Journal of Bioethics 16(7): 29-38. The people who make momentous healthcare decisions for pediatric patients are rarely the ones who bear the burdens of treatment. 

• Michaelson, Christopher. 2014. The competition for the tallest skyscraper and its implications for global ethics and economics. Council for Tall Buildings and Urban Habitat Journal Issue IV: 20-27. Binge-building of supertall skyscrapers may be motivated by the need to "fake it 'til you make it."

• Michaelson, Christopher. 2010. Revisiting the global business ethics question. Business Ethics Quarterly 20(2): 237-251. Are the established norms of global business ethics the right ones -- or merely the preferences of the most dominant powers in recent economic history?