Public service work and public-serving institutions are evolving by incorporating neoliberal modes of working more and more. Contemporary research oftentimes neglects to account for these changes in how we understand public service work, however. This article draws on the meaningfulness in work and public service motivation literature to explore how public service workers are making sense of their work and work environments to create meaningful work experiences under evolving conditions. The findings from 45 interviews with public and nonprofit managers are presented and compared. The changing world of work has implications for how public and nonprofit workers narrate and find meaningfulness in work but not what they find meaningful about their work. The findings suggest that both public and nonprofit workers create positive meaningfulness in work but in dissimilar ways. The findings also suggest that organizational leaders play a substantial part in workers’ meaningfulness-making process. The findings hold theoretical and practical implications for understanding the role workplaces and organizational leaders play in workers’ experience of meaningful public service work.

公共服务工作和公共服务机构通过越来越多地融入新自由主义工作模式而不断发展。然而，当代研究往往忽略了我们如何理解公共服务工作的这些变化。本文借鉴工作中的意义和公共服务动机文献，探讨公共服务工作者如何理解他们的工作和工作环境，以在不断变化的条件下创造有意义的工作体验。展示并比较了 45 次对公共和非营利组织管理者的采访的结果。不断变化的工作世界对公共和非营利工作者如何叙述和发现工作的意义有影响，但不是他们认为工作有意义的地方。研究结果表明，公共和非营利工作者在工作中创造积极意义，但方式不同。研究结果还表明，组织领导者在员工的意义塑造过程中发挥着重要作用。研究结果对于理解工作场所和组织领导者在工人有意义的公共服务工作经验中所扮演的角色具有理论和实践意义。