Cutting Through the Clutter: Cleaning the Lens on Work-Related Wellbeing Concepts

Area of Science:

• Organizational Psychology
• Occupational Health
• Wellbeing Science

Background:

• Current work-related wellbeing research faces significant challenges due to conceptual and terminological ambiguity.
• Inconsistent definitions and overlapping labels (e.g., worker wellbeing, employee wellness, occupational health) hinder cumulative theory development and cross-study comparability.
• Legacy terminology, interdisciplinary language gaps, and issues with the overarching concept of wellbeing contribute to definitional disarray.

Purpose of the Study:

• To critically analyze the sources of conceptual and terminological clutter in work-related wellbeing research.
• To propose a novel conceptual map to resolve the current disarray in defining and measuring wellbeing at work.
• To enhance construct selection, specification, and measurement in both research and applied occupational health settings.

Main Methods:

• A conceptual and semantically-focused critical analysis of existing literature on work-related wellbeing.
• Development of a framework that distinguishes overall wellbeing from work-related wellbeing.
• Clarification of life-domain labels, wellbeing components, and population segmentations with unified definitions.

Main Results:

• Identified legacy terminology, interdisciplinary gaps, and conceptual issues as primary drivers of disarray in wellbeing research.
• Proposed a conceptual map that differentiates key wellbeing constructs, including overall vs. work-related wellbeing.
• Established a unified set of definitions for wellbeing constructs to improve clarity and consistency.

Conclusions:

• The proposed conceptual map offers a structured approach to navigate the complexities of work-related wellbeing terminology.
• Implementing this framework is expected to improve the rigor and comparability of research in occupational health and employee wellness.
• A future research agenda is outlined to further refine and apply the conceptual framework in practice.