Profiles of Calling and Their Relation to University-to-Work Transition Outcomes

Abstract

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.