Autonomy in Work and Self-Esteem

The relationship between work experience and self-esteem is an important one for social psychologists interested in how social structure affects personality. Research on this relationship has consistently documented the importance of autonomy in work for self-esteem. This research has failed, however, to closely examine the meaning of autonomy within the workplace culture and, therefore, has also failed to see how this meaning allows autonomy to contribute to self-esteem formation in a variety of ways. Because of these problems the relationship between autonomy in work and self-esteem, though heavily researched, has yet to be adequately described. Based on a theoretical analysis of self-esteem formation and field research in five work organizations, this article attempts to develop a more complete view of the relationship between workplace autonomy and self-esteem.