Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to test if the effects of a self-directed career attitude on career and life satisfaction are mediated by a person’s sense of calling and moderated by job insecurity in a sample of Chinese employees. Design/methodology/approach – Among a sample of Chinese employees (n=263), in this paper, a moderated mediation analysis with bootstrapping was applied to test the hypotheses. Findings – The results showed that calling mediates the effects of a self-directed career attitude on career satisfaction and life satisfaction. Job insecurity moderated the effect on life satisfaction but not on career satisfaction. The effect on life satisfaction were stronger under higher levels of job insecurity. Research limitations/implications – These results suggest that a self-directed career attitude may help people develop a calling, which in turn relates to increased subjective career success and well-being. In addition, the notion of a calling may be especially important for well-being in unstable job circumstances. Originality/value – This study is the first to explore a calling and a self-directed career attitude in a sample of Chinese employees. Corresponding to contemporary China’s rapidly changing context of economy and career development, a self-directed career orientation plays an important role in Chinese employees’ calling and subjective career success.

No abstract

Research on the development of calling is still in its infancy and rarely focused on how calling changes during a major career transition. The current study examined the developmental trajectories of calling and their relation with personality (i.e., conscientiousness, proactive personality) in the transition from university to work with a three-wave longitudinal study with 340 Chinese graduating university students. Results based on growth mixture modeling indicated three developmental trajectories of calling: high and stable calling (23% of sample), high but decreasing calling (74%), and low and increasing calling (3%). Moreover, higher conscientiousness related to a higher chance of being classified into the high and stable calling trajectory. These findings add notable insights to the literature by exploring the previously neglected developmental trajectories of calling and their association with personality in the transition from university to work.

In this study, we adopted a person-centered approach using latent profile analysis to explore whether profiles of calling based on the internal and external sources of a calling are identified and how these profiles relate to successful university-to-work transition outcomes (i.e., higher career satisfaction, higher person-job fit, and lower turnover intentions). We assessed a sample of 684 Chinese university graduates 1 week before and 6 months after graduation and found five profiles of calling: strongly undeveloped calling, moderately undeveloped calling, transcendent calling, highly transcendent calling, and modern calling. We found that a calling that was driven by internal and external sources (i.e., transcendent calling) or predominantly by internal sources (i.e., modern calling) was related to more successful university-to-work transition outcomes. Our findings contribute to the literature on calling by showing that the sources of calling are important to conceptualize different types of calling and differentiate the role of different callings.

No abstract