Meanings of work and instrumental and substantive rationality: interfaces between management and psychology

The debates about rationality and its concepts are classical in management studies. Nevertheless, research on the meanings attributed to work, from psychology, are from the 1970s. When studying the meanings of work, authors have not referred to the issue of instrumental and substantive rationality, but have prioritized the identification of that which characterizes work with meaning/sense. In this theoretical essay, the presumption is that the meanings attributed to work are related to the types of rationality present in society and work organizations. As such, the aim is to identify approximations between the features that characterize the meanings attributed to work and instrumental and substantive rationality. Elements that describe the meanings of work are presented, based on psychological references and focusing on research by Morin (1996, 2001); as well as studies that characterize the constitutive features of instrumental and substantive rationality, traditionally studied in management, with emphasis on Serva (1993, 1996, 1997a, 1997b). This possible articulation allowed for the development of work meaning/sense conception of the instrumental type and work meaning/sense of the substantive type; highlighting that there is an overlap between both types of senses in organizations.