Marjolein Lips-Wiersma


Marjolein Silvia Lips-Wiersma is a New Zealand academic. She specializes in ethics, meaningful work and sustainability. She is currently a full professor at the Auckland University of Technology.

Academic career

Marjo Lips-Wiersma is Professor of Ethics and Sustainability Leadership at AUT. In 1999 she submitted a doctoral thesis titled The influence of 'spiritual meaning-making' on career choice, transition and experience at the University of Auckland. Her research takes place at the nexus of meaningful work, sustainability, hope and well-being.
Lips-Wiersma is amongst the top 2 % of global academics. Her research on meaningful work is well known. It is also used in a variety of organisations around the world and she is chair of the board of the Map of Meaning which, through training and certifying practitioners, helps individuals, organisations and communities to make meaning and its absence visible.
Lips-Wiersma has published in journals such as Human Relations, the Journal of Business Ethics, the Journal of Organizational Behavior, the Journal of Management Studies, Leadership Quarterly, Group & Organization Management and the Journal of Management Inquiry. She has teaches ethics, sustainability, responsible leadership and qualitative research methods at postgraduate and MBA levels.

Selected works

  • Lips-Wiersma, Marjolein, and Lani Morris. "Discriminating between ‘meaningful work’and the ‘management of meaning’." Journal of Business Ethics 88, no. 3 : 491-511.
  • Algera, Puck M., and Marjolein Lips-Wiersma. "Radical authentic leadership: Co-creating the conditions under which all members of the organization can be authentic." The Leadership Quarterly 23, no. 1 : 118–131.
  • Lips-Wiersma, Marjolein. "The influence of spiritual “meaning-making” on career behavior." Journal of Management Development 21, no. 7 : 497-520.
  • Lips‐Wiersma, Marjolein, and Douglas T. Hall. "Organizational career development is not dead: A case study on managing the new career during organizational change." Journal of Organizational Behavior: The International Journal of Industrial, Occupational and Organizational Psychology and Behavior 28, no. 6 : 771–792.
  • Lips-Wiersma, Marjolein, and Colleen Mills. "Coming out of the closet: Negotiating spiritual expression in the workplace." Journal of managerial Psychology 17, no. 3 : 183–202.