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.

Viktoria Ritter is an HR professional with a background in psychology and marketing research and a passion for developing people through training and coaching. After high school, she volunteered in the social sector in São Paulo, Brazil, which fostered her interest in human behavior. In 2014, she graduated with honors from Johannes Gutenberg University in Mainz, Germany, specializing in organizational psychology. Viktoria Ritter continued to work as a researcher for the Deutsche Post Endowed Chair of Strategic Marketing at Steinbeis University, designing and implementing training programs together with her team under the direction of Prof. Dr. Dr. Helmut Schneider. She finished her dissertation in 2021.