Predicting Work Outcomes From Religiosity and Perceived Calling

Research suggests that individuals who perceive their work as a calling experience a variety of positive outcomes, such as occupational identification, career decidedness, and job satisfaction. The present study examined how calling and religiosity interact to influence workplace cognition and behavior. Using a self-regulatory, multiple-goals perspective, the author proposed that individuals with greater religiosity would report lower job involvement and work fewer hours. However, this relationship would attenuate or reverse if individuals perceived a transcendent summons calling them to their jobs. In the present study, 233 employed adults reported perceptions of calling, religiosity, job involvement, and hours worked. Calling and religiosity interacted in the hypothesized manner when predicting both job involvement, ΔR^sup 2^ = .02, and hours worked, ΔR^sup 2^ = .02, although job involvement did not mediate the relationship between calling, religiosity, and hours worked. The results suggest that career counselors and researchers pay particular attention to the role of calling among religious individuals.Keywords: calling, religiosity, job involvementCalling has emerged as a promising construct for use in career counseling. Individuals who perceive a calling, or a belief that they were meant to engage in a particular profession, are more likely to experience positive outcomes, such as greater life satisfaction, occupational identification, job satisfaction, and lower stress and depression (e.g., Bunderson & Thompson, 2009; Duffy, Allan, Autin, & Bott, 2013; Duffy, Bott, Allan, Torrey, & Dik, 2012; Treadgold, 1999). Therefore, researchers have begun to provide recommendations for incorporating calling into counseling practice (e.g., Dik, Duffy, & Eldridge, 2009). The specificity of such recommendations can be enhanced through a more thorough understanding of calling and its effects. For example, although calling has been recognized as multidimensional (e.g., Dik & Duffy, 2009), little research has explored calling's subdimensions. Furthermore, we know little about the types of people for whom calling would be more strongly related to outcomes. This present study extended the calling literature on both fronts. Using a self-regulatory, multiplegoals perspective (e.g., Schmidt & DeShon, 2007), I hypothesized that one aspect of calling (i.e., a transcendent summons) will have stronger effects on workplace cognition and behavior for individuals with greater religiosity.CallingDik and Duffy (2009) defined calling asa transcendent summons, experienced as originating beyond the self, to approach a particular life role in a manner oriented toward demonstrating or deriving a sense of purpose or meaningfulness and that holds other-oriented values and goals as primary sources of motivation. (p. 427)Similarly, Elangovan, Pinder, and McLean (2010) discussed calling as "a course of action in pursuit of pro-social intentions embodying the convergence of an individual's sense of what he or she would like to do, should do, and does" (p. 430). Although these and other definitions differ in terms of specific boundaries (see discussion below), they both encompass a subjective impression that one is meant to engage in a particular activity such as a specific career.Calling perceptions have been the focus of a great deal of research in the past decade. Calling has been related to career-specific concepts, such as occupational or vocational identity, occupational self-efficacy, and career commitment (e.g., Bunderson & Thompson, 2009; Duffy, Bott, et al., 2012; Duffy, Dik, & Steger, 2011; Galles & Lenz, 2013; Hirschi, 2012). Acknowledging that individuals may end up working in jobs to which they do not feel called, some research has related calling perceptions to outcomes such as job satisfaction, withdrawal, and turnover intentions (Cardador, Dane, & Pratt, 2011; Duffy, Bott, et al. …