Happiness, well being and work: a possible encounter in a managerial perspective?

Felicidade e Bem-Estar e Trabalho: Um encontro possível na perspectiva gerencial?

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Researches on happiness, well-being and quality of life at work have been growing in recent decades, especially in international publications. Examples of this theoretical and empirical work come from the literature and research of Diener, Suh, Lucas & Smith (1999) Kahneman, Diener and Schwarz (1999) ; Keyes, Schmotkin and Ryff (2002); Stratham and Chase, (2010); Seligman (2011).

The question of how well-being and happiness must be identified in the working world is still permeated by a certain amount of cloudiness, which resulted inconclusive or excessively broad definitions of well-being and happiness (FORGEARD, JAYAWICKREME, KERN and SELIGMAN, 2011, p.81).

A subject found throughout this article is the difference between the description of a construct and the possibility of empirical verification in the Brazilian literature. As the interest in topics such as well-being and happiness at work grows, there is a need for greater conceptual clarity, as well as in a research, to seek indicators that have already been endorsed in order to facilitate and unify the interpretation and the measurement of the data.

Joseph Sirgy (2012) defines the well-being of employees, establishing the distinction between well-being and quality of life at work and quality of work. According to the author, there are many conceptualizations on the subject. The author elaborates a classification by establishing six contexts of analysis: (1) meaning of the job; (2) work environment; (3) positive or negative feedback from work experiences; (4) the need to satisfy personal needs through organizational resources; (5) professional satisfaction (6) specific well-being and fulfillment from the job.

In order to know the historical background for the study of happiness and well-being, it is necessary to analyze two of its approaches: the hedonic approach, which emphasizes the constructs of happiness, positive affection, low negative effect and life satisfaction (BRADBURN, 1969, DIENER, 1984, LYUBOMIRSKY & LEPPER, 1999); and the eudaimonic approach, which emphasizes positive psychology and human development (ROGERS, 1961, RYFF, 1989A, 1989B, WATERMAN, 1993).

The understanding of the impact of these constructs on the work activity, in the opinion of the authors of this article, goes through a historical revision of the conceptions of the term, since the current conception of work may not correspond to what it had been in other times.

For a more thorough examination of the conceptions of work in the course of history, it is necessary to understand, even if partially, the relevance it has in today's world.

The basic hypothesis of the research is the assumption that work fills very little of human aspirations. This study is justified as a counterpoint to current trends, where management work absorbs so much the professional, invading his privacy and possibly becoming a limiting element of other possibilities of personal fulfillment.

In order to confirm or refute the hypothesis presented, a field research was conducted with 249 managers of the Rio-São Paulo area to evaluate the degree of satisfaction that they get from their work. The results of the research offer a set of answers that demand reflection on the part of the hirers.

The starting point was an updated and widely amplified bibliographical review about the sense and meaning of work in human life for a later focus into a specific activity: the managers' view of work in contemporary organizations. The research was structured from the benchmarks of a state of happiness, quality of life and well-being at work, which, based on the methodology proposed by Limongi-França (1996), seeks to assess how much each factor impacts these constructs. The statistical model of the collected data was the Exploratory Factor Analysis (HAIR et al, 2009), correlating the existing patterns among the variables and grouping them into factors.

Theoretically, the study went through an investigation in books and scientific articles, aiming at mapping the researches that approached the chosen theme.

The data collected in the field were submitted to Exploratory Factor Analysis (SPSS) to establish valid correlations between blocks and questions, besides allowing an underlying inference between the variables. Because it is a technique of interdependence, it examines the relations between variables that are grouped into factors/dimensions.

The method used was intended to "avoid the use of only a single variable to represent a concept and instead use several variables as indicators, all representing differing facets of the concept to obtain a more well-rounded perspective" (HAIR et al., 2009, p. 26). By techniques of interdependence, we mean those that do not classify a variable as dependent and others as independent and/or prognosticator, but those that consider the whole picture.

The research instrument was developed with one open-ended question (top of mind) about the respondent's perception about happiness and 35 closed-ended questions. The first three blocks have ten statements each, which stimulate a proposition, and the responses given by the survey subjects are measured by scales. Each item has a scale of seven points (LIKERT). As a precaution against a potential bias, the questionnaire chose to formulate statements that could somehow be correlated with block 4, of five questions: Satisfaction With Life Scale (SWLS, DIENER et. al. 1985).

The research was carried out with a proportional distribution between genders. The age range of the respondents was 30-45 years. The degree of education was of managers who sought specialization in stricto sensu courses (master's and doctorate) and MBA.

The notion of centrality of work was introduced by Marx, understanding this activity as the creator of the humanity. The phrase “labor created man himself” is attributed to Engels (1876), but Hannah Arendt (2010) attributed it to Marx and took that conception as seemingly blasphemous.

The image that the work offers to the modern world seems to reveal that this blasphemy was taken seriously. The post-war dream from 1945, which conceived technology as an agent that facilitated the quality of life and human progress, was only partially fulfilled. It was believed that this agent would be an element to provide idleness, and man could devote himself to what gave him the most pleasure (TEIXEIRA, 2012). Judging only by a title from a work by Christophe Dejours, The Madness of Work (1988), the projection was far from reality.

In the Renaissance, the labor activity began to be valued in relation to the contributions of mechanical artisans, as already reflected by Engels (1876), placing labor as the basic condition of all human life.

Kierkegaard (1993) will link work to human dignity (for the individual of higher class is more up to work). As for the malaise that it generates, Dewey attributed it to the social conditions in which it is carried out, since the natural course was for that activity to be pleasant. The fact that productive activity is so unsatisfactory, so much that individuals must be induced to engage, demonstrates that the conditions under which the work is performed are frustrating and "contrary to natural tendencies", rather than guiding them toward fruition (DEWEY, 1958).

In its etymology, the Portuguese word for work (trabalho) comes from tripalium, a Latin word, whose common meaning indicated by dictionaries is "instruments of torture". Understanding it this way, the term is associated with malaise, suffering, pain. Although other dictionaries obey the same conception, they also record that this term corresponded to an instrument used to immobilize large animals to submit them to diverse treatments.

Furtado (2011), when quoting Demaraix (Du tripalium au chagrin, 1998), questions the information that the appropriation of tripalium as the origin for the word trabalho (work) would have occurred in the Middle Ages. The French word "travail", which originated trabalho (work), would have come from the portmanteau of two terms, trabicula and tripalium. If work originally came from an instrument of torture, it would be natural that languages like Italian, German, English and others that shared the Roman domination should refer to this meaning; however, the words laboro, arbeit and work have no relation whatsoever with that instrument.

Furtado (op. cit.) makes a retrospective based on Steven Mithen (2002), which reveals the multiple evolution leaps given by man from his primitive origin to the present day, in which work has acquired the central role of human development. There are two moments to consider: the first is the discovery of the instrument and its transformation in a working tool; the second is the institution of work as a social relation and the possibility that it gave for the accumulation of goods.

From these notions, the development happens in great leaps: a) man began to have some independence of the territory in which he lived; b) man created the work as a "concrete activity, thoughtful, anticipated and projected"; c) man invented agriculture, bringing a sedentary lifestyle and rules of sociability; d) man started to accumulate goods (FURTADO, op. cit., 2011, p.46).

Arendt (2010) dedicates an entire chapter to the concept of work. The center of the philosopher's thinking is the prejudiced way in which the antiquity saw the work activity, particularly servile work. He establishes a significant distinction between work result and work activity by studying the vocabulary of languages like Greek, Latin, German, and French. On the one hand, there are ponein, laborare, arbeiten and travailler, implying in some way a less important activity; on the other hand, ergázesthai, facere, werken and ouvrer are linked to creation.

The reason for the difference in vocabulary would is in the aspiration that the ancient man had for freedom. The daily work imprisons the human being. The Greek ideal of daily occupation is politics and philosophy, not survival. The work was disdained not because it was an occupation of slaves, but the opposite: slaves assumed a function that allowed the freedom of another subject, and this caste even had a distinction of occupations.

Tolfo and Piccinini (2007) explore the question of meaning and senses that the term work can have, encompassing the last forty years. The starting point is the Marxist conception that the work corresponds to the capacity to transform nature in order to meet human needs. In allusions to the etymology of the word meaning, the authors examine the work of Hackman and Oldham (1975), emphasizing three characteristics in order to give meaning to work: a) the use of diverse competences in multiplicity of tasks, allowing the worker to identify himself with the production; b) the non-alienating characteristic, causing the worker to commit himself to his tasks; c) a feedback contributing to the growth of the person.

Researches on MOW (The Meaning of Work, 1987) highlighted three dimensions related to work: a) Centrality of Work, which is fundamental for the self-image of the worker; b) Social Norms on Work, which serves as a reference between what the worker offers with his activity and the rewards he gets; c) Valued results of the work, implying even distinct aspects of the worker himself, such as personal and professional fulfillment, feeling of being socially useful, prestige, among others.

The meaning of the work then establishes itself from these definers: utility of what one does, self-fulfillment, feeling of personal development and freedom to perform tasks. Antunes (2000, apud TOLFO and PICCININI) complements the remarks by stating that in order for life to have meaning outside of work, life needs to have meaning within it, which includes the concepts of fulfillment and freedom. The psychodynamics of work is the perspective with which Dejours (2011) examines it.

In doing so, Dejours considers the way in which he shares the life of individuals, because far from being just something that is aggregated in the individual life or social life, it is a constituent part of the person and also affects the social group that the person belongs. Dejours removes the character of anomaly in the illness resulting from the work activity, making it a participant of this activity. That is to say, neither the psychological discipline is disconnected from work, nor work dispenses a psychoanalytic view. Finally, the work ends up being the (obligatory) space of personal and social fulfillment of the individual.

Once the meaning and sense of the work is examined, the focus of this study turns to the activities of management and the role of the manager. The Enlightenment dream that the mastery of technology would bring man more independence, more time for leisure, has become a fantasy, especially for executives (GIANETTI, 2011). If the work gives back to man an image which he constructs of himself, made of the degree of his internal measure of efficiency, of technical knowledge, of control over means and ends, it also carries with it its meaning, and the pre and post occupations in a continuum to the journey.

The role played by the "manager" offers several perspectives that can be analyzed. Hierarchical levels are increasingly "ambiguous and imprecise", with typical managerial functions of one level sharing another (MOTTA 2007, p. 101). This analysis suggests that the manager's role remains uncertain in the unstable space of the organizations. Even the categorization of managerial activity is difficult to be determined because it presents a conceptual diversity. Several authors have reflected on the nuances of these functions and their categorizations, such as Mintzberg (1990), Kotter (1996), Pfeffer (1997), Prahalad (1997), and Drucker (1999).

However, it is a consensus that managers are essential in companies as catalysts for their success. In an anthropological organizational approach, Davel & Melo (2005) defined the manager as homo administrativus, based on more recurring traits and factors. The conditions listed by the authors are: scope of activities; power relations and interactions with subordinates; superiors and peers; and framework provided by the company's symbolic standards. Power relations and interaction with others are key competencies in this role.

However, for Sterret (2000), when migrating to the position of manager, leadership and sociability are not always listed as prerequisites, but rather the technical performance of the professional promoted to the function. This role may be merely technical and bureaucratic; however, when leadership is added to it, the work becomes effective.

In the classical administration theory, managers had the task of planning, organizing, coordinating and controlling (MINTZBERG, 1990; BOLTAX, 2011). In the postmodern scenario, of the questioning of hierarchy, the loss of solid references and the deconstruction of values, a new managerial world emerged, with volatile and mutable characteristics, generating tension, uncertainty and anxiety. This new environment no longer has the same perspective of managerial performance, since the ability to recognize, identify and diagnose irrefutable aspects of the contemporary reality demands from the manager a resilient profile.

The representation of this irrevocable change of the competences inherent to the current manager necessarily goes through emotional aspects. The management and control of emotions that are present in the managerial work are directly related to the emotional repertoire of each manager to be used and regulated in the myriad of situations and moments of his work universe and even outside of it (BARCAUI, 2009). The understanding and acceptance of a new paradigm requires for the manager to be a specialist in people, although this ability has not been a lever of his promotion to the managerial status.

For Johnson (2008), the role of the new manager goes through these sieves and involves three fundamental skills: balance between the multiple demands that he receives, influence and persuasive power over other stakeholders and the ability to delegate wisely. Cameron and Tschirhart (1988) conducted a survey with 500 managers in 150 organizations, considering the 25 management skills most mentioned in the academic literature of the decade. The analysis revealed that the most desirable skills were in four groups: interpersonal relations; competitiveness and control; entrepreneurship and innovation; and maintenance of order and rationality with time management and decision making.

From the organizational point of view, the difficulty of defining an accurate set of managerial skills is perceptible. It is not a trivial role, since the manager must also worry about the balance and quality of life of his team (HOPKINS, 2005; LIRIO et al., 2008). In a world stripped of its usual boundaries and networked societies, the ethical and social issues enter into the manager's daily agenda, such as aspects of inclusion and well-being, quality of life at work and social responsibility (PLESS and MAAK, 2004). His attitudes, values and beliefs tend to influence the performance of his team and therefore the results he must deliver. Hill (1993, p. 80) explains: "Each new manager comes from a progressive process of negotiation with his new partners: subordinates, superiors, colleagues and clients". Following the negotiation process is the legitimation in the role. In it, the analysis of his role can be performed from several angles, isolatedly or together. One of them is the constant innovation and the resulting stress, indicative of the excessive variability of situations, as well as the expectations created on these professionals (MUKHERJEE and RAY, 2009). Such facts show the sensitivity of the function, within which Fineman (2000, p.2) called it "a cauldron of repressed thoughts, fantasies and desires", which is the organization.

The mere mention of the term "manager" brings in a set of expectations, stereotypes and representations, from the simplest version of the managerial post up to the highest function (BARCAUI, 2009). It is a position of multifaceted symbolism, which still carries the technical focus of Taylor (1911), the classic of Fayol (1916) and the charismatic of Weber (1917). However, it is necessary to return to the concept of what is the act of managing, what is required of the manager and the very reason why the organization needs a manager. By nature, his work involves dynamic processes of great stress, adaptation to the organizational changes and the intrinsic and extrinsic reality of his area of action, its environment and the sense that it gives to his work. Thus, the search for the meaning of happiness in the working world may be for the manager to enter a real emotional labyrinth.

Kant considered that "the problem to determine certainly and universally what action would promote the happiness of a rational being is completely insoluble" (apud GIANNETTI, 2002, p. 27). For Schopenhauer (2001, p. 231) "complete and positive happiness is impossible; instead, one can expect only a relatively less painful state”. The Freudian psychoanalytic theory considers that the organism guarantees its preservation precisely through impulses for the pursuit of happiness (FREUD, 1976). For the first two German philosophers, the impossibility of the task is already advanced, as the use of the adjectives "insoluble" and "impossible" denounces; the Austrian psychoanalyst does not declare that (full) happiness is impossible, but treats it as if it were a target beyond ordinary life.

The interest on the subject is so wide that 27,335 publications were found in a period of 18 months. Giannetti establishes two dimensions of evaluation: the objective that offers numerical indicators such as health, housing, income; and the subjective that is related to the inner experience. Happiness would then be the confluence of these dimensions and perceptible in the absence of them: one does not experience joy in the lack, nor wealth is a guarantee of a pleasant life.

In the significant number of works dedicated to the theme in the last ten years, there is an effort to conceptualize happiness, or at least to characterize it. Paschoal and Torres (2008, p. 2) state that it can be replaced by well-being, which is understood as eudaimonic (from the Greek term eudaimonia, translated as happiness, and eudaímōn, ‘happy destiny’). Along the same lines are the reflections of Kristjansson (2010), which focuses on eudaimonic happiness - denoting subjective well-being, translated as satisfaction with life; preponderance of positive feelings and few negative feelings. The conception of eudaimonic happiness, for Sheldon, Elliot (1999), Seligman (2001) and Warr (2007), is to do what is right, virtuous, to pursue goals that are meaningful, lasting and that produce growth. Other authors of positive psychology have also dedicated themselves to the theme as Sonja Lyubomirsky, who considers: "to be happy is to experience positive emotions often and to feel that life is good". Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi developed the concept of flow: "a state in which the person is so involved in what he does that nothing else seems to matter". It is a level of concentration that generates an immersion in the activity. To achieve this, the balance between skills and challenges must be found (TEIXEIRA, p.15-16). This is what Csikszentmihalyi calls "autotelic" personality, when we depend less on external rewards to feel happy and fulfilled.

Thus, in order to avoid aporia, we added to the construct happiness terms that share the same semantic field, such as satisfaction, well-being and fulfillment. Although they imply certain subjectivity, they belong to the daily experience, being closer to quantification. These references were based on the research instrument.

The data were collected in the presence of the researcher, and the average duration of the responses was thirteen minutes. The opening question asked the interviewee to define happiness from the first word that came to the mind.

Graph 1
Opening question on the perception of happiness.
Source: Data collected by the authors in the field research (2013)

In the research, the perception of happiness and well-being is directly affected by the presence or absence of an active cultural and social life. Family life occupied a very significant space, followed by values and situations denoting peace of mind, quality of life, including health in the latter concept. Peculiar concepts, unique of each individual, have been grouped under the field "other", such as to be whole, here and now, lightness, life, completeness and simplicity. The material aspects had reduced mentions, such as "money" and material goods, with only three answers.

The elaboration of the research questions focused at obtaining the individual perceptions about attitudes, values and feelings that composed the perception of happiness and well-being of the managers. It was taken into account that the feeling extracted from the working world could bring with it other latent elements in the moment of the answer, such as family and social life and economic aspects. We therefore sought to insert into three blocks the statements that could reveal the researched constructs.

The first three blocks brought ten statements each (Likert scale from 1 to 7, with 1 for strongly disagree and 7 for strongly agree). In the fourth block, an already validated model was used (SWLS), which results were juxtaposed to the answers of each item of the first three blocks to analyze the connections.

Table 1
Researched Dimensions.

Source: Dimensions 1, 2 and 3 - elaborated by the Authors. Dimension 4 - SWL by Dienner et al.

Exploratory factor analysis

The estimations of the variables that impact the perception of happiness and quality of life were based on the observations of Hair, "to define the inherent structure among the variables in the analysis (...) where one must have a set of variables on which one should form relations" (HAIR et al., 2010, p.102).

The results from the factor analysis showed that 11 questions were responsible for 63.58% of the sample variation. A single factor alone (Component 1) accounted for 19.2% (Table 1). The variables such as education level, age and gender did not stand out. The model was consolidated in eight explanatory dimensions when juxtaposed to the BPSO/96 research instrument (Limongi-França, 2001). The Factor Analysis is not a reduction of the number of variables, but a facilitator by grouping the factors, where each factor corresponds to a latent dimension that explains the correlations between a set of variables. In the case of the present analysis, eight factors stood out:

1. Great need to adapt to new situations and new environments;

2. Importance of the family in the life of the individual;

3. Work related to creativity;

4. Work related to personal fulfillment;

5. Remuneration compatible with functions;

6. Autonomy at work;

7. Workplace;

8. More social, cultural and spiritual conception of life.

Table II below illustrates the positive or negative coefficients of the first three blocks of questions.

Table 2
Estimated Coefficients.

We want to point out that the reduced analysis of the search results are a consequence of the limitations of this article. They are not complete in this study - they are rather a summary of the findings and a starting point for later work. The same question may have a repeated evaluation, depending on the juxtaposition of the questions of block 4 (table 1). What was strongly evidenced was a change of paradigm in the priorities of the professionals surveyed. The statements of block 1 (Likert scale) juxtaposed to block 4 point to a migration of values and attitudes and symbolic representations. Values like family life, friendships, care for health and eating, attention to social and cultural life, search for a greater meaning of life and establishing commitments to strengthen spiritual life, are in the priorities of managers as much as personal fulfillment. In the second block, satisfaction with remuneration is balanced with both satisfactory and unsatisfactory responses. However, the concept of "money" contrasted with the opening question, which does not stand out significantly.

The reflections proposed in this article took some time in the notion of work when examining its historical sense and bringing it up to the present value. The association between the meaning of work and personal suffering was partly reviewed in the restudy of the relation between the other meanings that are present in the etymology of tripalium. The pace of activities imposed on managers in recent years may reinforce the negative meaning of the traditional meaning of the term, if not arbitrated by a real quality of life program at work.

In the definition of the keyword that translated the perception of happiness by the interviewees, there was some variation of meanings given to the term. Many reflected the notion of comfort, since the synonym found was well-being. However, there were answers that were out of the ordinary. A large number reflected specific peculiarities of their perception, which is why they were grouped into "others". What corroborates their value is the difference in the grade given to this concept in comparison to well-being. Regarding the material world, money and comfort share the concept of happiness not as synonyms, but as supporting elements to ensure a comfortable life. But "comfort" is far from being translated as happiness.

Some managers who responded to the survey understood happiness as fullness, and with a high grade, which is a very revealing sign that the concept in its maximum comprehension and metaphysics remains captured by some words of infrequent use (such as 'completeness' or 'wholeness', which are often synonymous with moral truths, not metaphysical notions). For a view of a materialistic world, the results of this research show a change in life purpose. The research revealed that well-being and quality of life at work are not isolated proposals, but they are aligned with the aspirations of the present time. The old dichotomy between professional and personal life seems, in short, less vigorous, since personal, professional and social life, when in harmony, was defined by one of the interviewees as a "state of completeness".

A continuation of the study on this theme is necessary in order to verify whether the situation outlined here will remain or the organizations, aware of the psychological impact caused to their executives, will develop programs focused on the quality of life and well-being of their employees, or whether the increased connectivity provided by technology would be a factor of greater acceleration of occupational stress. As a suggestion for the continuity of the studies, it would be interesting to know the types of organizations where the stresses are most intense.