Meaningful work across value-laden contexts: how organizational settings shape job crafting pathways

This study examines how employees’ religious and non-religious identities interact with organizational context to shape meaningful work through job crafting. Drawing on 40 interviews conducted in religious and secular organizations in Italy, the study adopts a configurational perspective and applies fuzzy-set Qualitative Comparative Analysis (fsQCA) to identify multiple pathways to meaningful work. The findings reveal six configurations showing how specific combinations of belief, organizational context, and crafting behaviors foster or hinder meaningfulness. Results indicate that value congruence enhances meaningful work when supported by proactive crafting, while value misalignment can be overcome through cognitive or relational crafting, though not in all cases. By conceptualizing religious identity as an active meaning-making resource and organizational context as a structuring condition, the study advances research on job crafting, meaningful work, and person–organization fit. The findings highlight the non-linear and context-dependent nature of meaning-making and offer insights for managing value diversity in contemporary organizations.