Job Love

The ongoing competition for talented and highly skilled workers has forced companies to think harder about how to attract and retain highly skilled employees. While research in employer-employee relationships has primarily focused on characteristics such as employee retention, commitment, and happiness, one driving force of interpersonal relationships has been largely overlooked: love. People aspire to more than just a job to earn a living, and many long for work that fulfills them and gives them meaning, work they can love. Yet we still do not know what it means to love a job. Therefore, this dissertation attempts to clarify the question of what loving a job means. It also introduces the Job Love Scale (JLS), which provides an easy-to-use measurement concept. Furthermore, this dissertation identifies the key drivers of job love and provides recommendations for companies on what they can do to foster job love among their employees.