Occupational Calling Research Articles

Chamados ocupacionais: uma faca de dois gumes para o burnout e o estresse

Studies indicate the existence of a double-edged sword, between pleasure and pain, which may underlie the experiences of perceiving an occupational calling. In this study, we evaluate the bivalent relationship between perceiving a calling and burnout syndrome and occupational stress. We suggest that although callings are negatively associated with burnout and stress, they are produce a positive effect on both, having the perception of paradoxical tensions as a mediator. For this purpose, we conducted a quantitative survey of 539 individuals. The results showed a direct effect, according to which the more individuals perceive an occupational calling, the smaller the symptoms of burnout and stress. We also found an opposite indirect effect: the more individuals perceive a calling, the greater the symptoms of burnout and stress caused by increased paradoxical tensions that are experienced by individuals.

The effects of relational human resource management: A moderated mediation model of positive affective climate and collective occupational calling

AbstractRelationship‐oriented human resource management (HRM) contributes to organizational functioning by promoting employee relationships, coordination, and cooperation. We propose unit‐level positive affective climate as a motivational mechanism through which relationship‐oriented HR systems can positively influence unit service quality and relationships with beneficiaries, and prevent individual emotional exhaustion. Moreover, we propose collective occupational calling serves as an alternative motivational source that can substitute for the positive effects of positive affective climate. In analyzing a sample composed of 742 nurses from 48 nursing units of two hospitals in China with data collection at three time points before and after the COVID‐19 outbreak, our results supported the substituting effects of unit‐level collective occupational calling on positive affective climate stemmed from relationship‐oriented HR systems. Our study connects strategic HRM and motivation research by shedding light on an affective mechanism from relationship‐oriented HR systems and the contingencies involving employees' various sources of motivation, such as occupational calling. We further discuss theoretical and practical implications of the research.

The Nexus Between Medical Care Policy Alienation and Career Success: A Cross‐Sectional Study

Aim: This study examines the interrelationship between medical staff’s sense of medical care policy alienation (SPA) and their subjective career success and the potential mediating roles of occupational calling (OC) and job satisfaction.Background: Medical staff’s pivotal role in medical care policy implementation outcomes underscores their approach to career success, which affects work efficiency, and willingness to implement medical care policy. Effective policy is anticipated to be positively and rationally implemented, fostering favorable perceptions and career success among policy executors such as medical staff. However, limited research examines the relationship between career outcomes and medical staff′s SPA.Methods: A cross‐sectional study conducted from May to June 2023 collected data from 521 medical staff in 14 hospitals in northern, western, and southern China through questionnaire surveys. The questionnaire measured their SPA, OC, job satisfaction, and career success. A chain multiple mediation model was constructed to explore SPA’s relationship with medical staff’s OC and job satisfaction, resulting in less career success, and whether work overload moderated this relationship.Results: Medical staff’s SPA was negatively related to career success via a chain mediation mechanism involving OC and job satisfaction. Work overload did not moderate SPA’s negative association with OC; however, it moderated its association with job satisfaction. High workload intensified SPA’s association with job satisfaction, increasing the mediating effect on career success compared to those with lower workloads.Conclusion: Medical staff’s SPA was significantly negatively related to career success, reflected in a weakened OC, and decreased job satisfaction. Work overload somewhat moderated the relationship between SPA and job satisfaction. Policymakers and medical stakeholders should emphasize improved communication between medical institutions and staff, which is essential for crafting and disseminating medical care policies. Medical care policy implementation should be enhanced in diverse Chinese contexts to enrich the understanding of medical policy management.

Are Callings Always Ethically Good? Why and When Occupational Calling Inhibits Unethical Decision-Making Among Researchers

Are Callings Always Ethically Good? Why and When Occupational Calling Inhibits Unethical Decision-Making Among Researchers

Care workers' positive health during the COVID-19 pandemic: Psychometric properties of the Finnish version of the Salutogenic Health Indicator Scale and an 18-month follow-up.

There is a need to shift from biomedical and pathogenic approaches to salutogenic approach. To validate the Finnish version of the SHIS by testing its psychometric properties in care workers and to assess the SHIS score over time. We first conducted a survey in 2020 (T1) and tested the psychometric properties of SHIS among care workers. We repeated the survey in spring 2022 (T2) among the same subjects. We analyzed the changes in SHIS, self-rated health (SRH), work ability (WAS), sickness absence and occupational calling between T1 and T2. Thereafter, we compared changes between health care sectors' and the other sectors' care workers. The results showed an increase in positive health measured with the SHIS and the occupational calling, a decrease in the SRH, and an increase in the number of sickness-related absences among all the care workers between T1 and T2. There was no change in their WAS. The health care workers had a lower SHIS than the other sectors' care workers in both T1 and T2, but the increase in their SHIS was parallel to that of the other workers. SHIS is a useful and reliable measure of positive health and can be used in studies when determining subjective health instead of, or in addition to, diagnoses. It was able to detect the health changes caused by the COVID-19 pandemic. SHIS is capable of capturing the underlying salutogenic approach of health promotive resources.

Chamados ocupacionais em um contexto de restrições estruturais

Abstract Purpose: The purpose of this study was to evaluate the moderating effect of structural constraints on the relationship between the perception of a calling, living a calling, and life satisfaction. Originality/value: This is the first attempt to discuss the role of structural restrictions on the consequences of perceiving a calling in the context of a developing country. Design/methodology/approach: We conducted quantitative research with 165 Brazilian professionals (structural equation modeling). Findings: The results showed that perceiving a calling is positively associated with living a calling and satisfaction with life, in general. However, both relationships were moderated by structural constraints, so that the stronger the constraints, the weaker the relationships described above. This result indicates that seeing a job as an occupational calling does not always lead to desirable outcomes, as it is often advocated by the vocational and career literature and career guidance professionals. Thus, it is suggested that the limitations on access to resources should be taken into account in career guidance processes so that individuals are more aware that, in cases of resource constraints, occupational calling may not provide the much-acclaimed positive career outcomes. Implications for theory and practice and suggestions for future research are presented.

The conceptualization, antecedents and interventions of occupational calling in Chinese context

The conceptualization, antecedents and interventions of occupational calling in Chinese context

The impact of public responses toward healthcare workers on their work engagement and well-being during the Covid-19 pandemic.

Healthcare workers (HCWs) play an important role in fighting against the COVID-19 pandemic. However, they have been exposed to mixed public responses more significantly during the COVID-19 pandemic, which have potentially affected their work and life. We aim to study what public responses toward HCWs existed, how and why such public responses impacted HCW's work engagement and well-being, and how Human Resource (HR) professionals navigate these impacts. These understandings are important for improving HCWs' work and life quality. We adopted a mixed approach including both quantitative and qualitative methods to investigate how the public responses impact HCWs' work engagement and well-being and how human resource management (HRM) shall intervene. Our quantitative study enables us to collect and analyze a large amount of public responses toward HCWs from the social media platform during the COVID-19 pandemic globally, and uncover the sentiments and topics of these pubic responses via big data and AI technologies. Our qualitative study allows us to understand how and why these public responses impact HCWs' work engagement and well-being via interviews and further identify how HR professionals shall navigate these impacts. The sentiment analysis showed that 55.9% of the discussions toward HCWs were positive, 27.2% were neutral, and 16.9% were negative. The topic modeling analysis indicated that the commonly identified topics were related to fear (the negative responses) and gratitude (the positive responses). The interviews with 18 HCWs revealed that HCWs' work engagement and well-being were decreased by negative public responses through experiencing tension or disappointment due to social and physical ostracism, rejection, discrimination, and criticism. On the other hand, positive public responses in terms of encouragement, recognition, and tangible donations increased their work engagement and well-being. The analysis also suggested that occupational calling served as a mechanism that explained why public responses had such impacts on HCWs. The interview results also highlighted the significance of HRM in bridging positive public responses toward HCWs and revealed problems with communication from HRM during the pandemic. This research provides practical implications about how to improve HCWs work engagement and well-being during the pandemic via public and HRM efforts.

Superando os desafios de viver um chamado ocupacional: um estudo com veterinários

Abstract This study aims to understand how individuals experience the challenges of living their occupational calling. We performed qualitative research using the grounded theory approach through narrative interviews. We developed a substantive theory that argues that: a) workers, veterinarians in this study, can experience an occupational calling under different self-constructed meanings; b) these different self-constructed meanings lead workers to experience distinct short - and long-term emotions and challenges; c) workers apply a variety of strategies to overcome these challenges. Thus, this work contributes to the literature on callings by parting with the traditional view that having an occupational calling reflects a monolithic meaning itself. In contrast, the study suggests that different meanings related to a calling may produce different effects on the subjects’ career path.

Overcoming the challenges of living an occupational calling: a study with veterinarians

Resumo O objetivo deste estudo é compreender como indivíduos vivenciam os desafios de viver seu chamado ocupacional. Foi realizada uma pesquisa qualitativa, com o método grounded theory, por meio de entrevistas narrativas. Assim, desenvolvemos uma teoria substantiva que sustenta que um chamado ocupacional pode ser vivenciado sobre diferentes significados construídos pelos trabalhadores - no caso particular, os veterinários pesquisados -, que essas diferentes construções de sentido levam os trabalhadores a vivenciar diferentes emoções e desafios de curto e longo prazo no trabalho, bem como que esses diferentes desafios são superados por distintas estratégias de superação. Assim, este trabalho contribui para a literatura no sentido de romper com a visão tradicional de que ter um chamado ocupacional enseja um significado monolítico em si. Ao contrário, o estudo sugere que diferentes significados relativos a um chamado podem produzir efeitos díspares na trajetória de carreira dos sujeitos.

Necessary Evil but Necessary Guilt? How Managers’ Occupational Calling Influences Their Felt Guilt

Despite the accumulated evidence showing that an individual’s occupational calling can bring positive work outcomes, recent studies have cautioned that people with a high occupational calling may also experience negative emotions. Relying on the perspective of moral dissonance, we argue that when managers make tough decisions (i.e., “necessary evil”), during a difficult time, their high perceived occupational calling could exacerbate their felt guilt as they usually view their jobs more meaningfully and thus possess a higher moral standard for themselves at work. We conduct a vignette experiment by describing a difficult decision-making situation under the COVID-19 pandemic in Taiwan. Through randomly assigning 271 respondents into two calling conditions (high vs low), the results show that people in the high calling condition had significantly higher perceived work meaningfulness. However, their high work meaningfulness was also positively associated with their felt guilt after making a tough decision that potentially hurt their employees. We also found that those with lower levels of self-efficacy were more vulnerable to experiencing guilt when doing necessary evil in exchange for fulfilling their callings via perceiving work meaningfulness. Our research should help HR professionals and practitioners understand how to help managers with callings avoid harm and truly leverage the positive benefits of calling.

Saved by Society: The Compensatory Effects of Occupational Calling & Relational HRM for Nursing Work

This study examines whether the pre-pandemic established human resources (HR) can help nursing units deal with the challenges posed from the COVID-19 outbreak. Specifically, we investigate a mediation mechanism through which relational HR practices and related positive affective climate built prior to the COVID-19 pandemic help elevate nursing unit performance and attitudes amid the pandemic. Moreover, we take a contingency perspective and further examine the compensatory effects of unit-level nurse occupational calling triggered from the COVID-19 outbreak on relational HR practices, as relational HR practices on unit outcomes via affective climate are more pronounced for nursing units with low occupational calling. In testing a sample composed of 432 nurses from 46 nursing units of two hospitals in China, we found a significant indirect effect of relational HR practices on unit nurse-patient relationship via positive affective climate. The positive indirect effects of relational HR practices on unit post-outbreak outcomes were more evident for nursing units with lower levels of calling. We conclude the paper with implication for research and practice.

Authentic Leadership and Taking Charge Behavior: A Moderated Mediation Model of Psychological Capital and Occupational Calling.

To achieve sustainable development goals, it is necessary to establish a positive organization so that employees can pay attention to their strengths and talents and engage in more proactive behaviors, such as taking charge behavior. Taking charge behavior involves the voluntary and constructive effort of employees to make organizationally functional change, which may consume more scarce resources of employees. Previous studies have shown that support from leaders can promote employees’ taking charge behavior, but most of them are from the perspective of social exchange. By drawing on the conservation of resources theory, we develop a theoretical model in which authentic leadership can provide employees with more positive resources and guide them into gain spiral of resources. We conducted two-wave questionnaire surveys to collect data from 199 employees and their supervisors at 16 companies in China. The results showed that authentic leadership was positively associated with employee taking charge via the mediation role of psychological capital. Furthermore, the direct and indirect relationship between authentic leadership and employee taking charge was demonstrated to be stronger when employees have a higher stage of occupational calling. This study provides a new explanation for the mechanism of authentic leadership and clarifies the boundary conditions of authentic leadership effectiveness.

Cultivating Psychological Resilience of Israeli Medical Directors of COVID-19 Divisions: The Dynamic Spheres of Salutogenics.

PurposeThere are a few qualitative studies on the psychological resilience of COVID-19 medical directors upon outbreaks of pandemics. Psychological resilience is essential to providing quality care through the pandemic.Materials and MethodsWe conducted narrative interviews with 14 out of 21 medical directors of COVID-19 divisions in Israeli public hospitals upon the outbreak of the pandemic and through its first wave. We adopted the Salutogenic paradigm to identify personal and organizational resources that both deterred and promoted resilience of front-line medical directors. Thematic analysis was performed based on the Sense of coherence construct, an anchor of Salutogenics.ResultsLow comprehensibility was compensated by ethical boundaries and managerial experience. A few organizational and personal resources promoted manageability. The hospital management both deterred and promoted resilience. In contrast to Salutogenics theory, meaningfulness was driven by the occupational calling rather than by comprehensibility and manageability. Gaps in personal resources inhibited resilience.ConclusionsOur study adds to the scant qualitative research performed upon the outbreak of the pandemic and extends the Salutogenic paradigm suggesting that the three axes of sense of coherence are multi-layered, intertwined, and evolving. We introduce the dynamic spheres model that we adopted from Physics to illustrate the findings. We propose interventions to build resilience in front-line medical directors.

How does COVID-19 pandemic strength influence work fatigue? The mediating role of occupational calling.

Drawing on event system theory, this study explored the mechanism by which COVID-19 pandemic strength (including criticality, disruption, and novelty) influences work fatigue through the mediating role of occupational calling. A two-wave field study was conducted with 857 Chinese police officers using COVID-19 pandemic strength, occupational calling, and work fatigue questionnaires. The results showed that COVID-19 pandemic criticality had a positive effect on work fatigue and occupational calling, and that occupational calling mediated the direct link between COVID-19 pandemic criticality and work fatigue. Additionally, the first and second stages of the mediating effect were jointly moderated by COVID-19 pandemic disruption and novelty. When COVID-19 pandemic disruption and novelty were high, the positive relationship between COVID-19 pandemic criticality and occupational calling, and the mediating role of occupational calling, were stronger. The negative relationship between occupational calling and work fatigue was strengthened when COVID-19 pandemic disruption was high and novelty was low.

The Impact of Ethical Leadership on Occupational Calling

Empirical studies on positive outcomes of occupational calling are increasing, but there are relatively few considerations of psychological variables and mechanisms that predict perceiving a calling. We studied a mediating effect of leader identification and moral identity in a relationship between ethical leadership and occupational calling. 324 Navy personnel participated in this study and responded to the following questionnaires: Ethical Leadership Scale (ELS); Leader Identification Scale; Moral Identity Scale; Calling and Vocation Questionnaire (CVQ). The results showed a significant relationship between ethical leadership, leader identification, moral identity, and occupational calling. Also, ethical leadership was positively related to occupational calling, and moral identity was also positively related to occupational calling. Lastly, a sequential mediating model showed the relationship between ethical leadership and occupational calling was mediated by both leader identification and moral identity sequentially. Based on the results, theoretical and practical implications for promoting moral identity and occupational calling, limitations, and suggestions for future research were discussed.

Work as replenishment or responsibility? Moderating effects of occupational calling on the within-person relationship between COVID-19 news consumption and work engagement.

As the result of the novel coronavirus (COVID-19), individuals have been inundated with constant negative news related to the pandemic. However, limited research examines how such news consumption impacts employees' work lives, including their ability to remain engaged with their work. Integrating conservation of resources theory and insights from the media psychology literature with research on occupational calling, we propose that weekly COVID-related news consumption heightens employees' anxiety levels, thereby frustrating their ability to remain engaged with work and that this process is differentially moderated by different facets of occupational calling. Specifically, we postulate that those who are called to their work primarily because it gives them personal meaning and purpose (i.e., higher in purposeful work) will remain more engaged with work in the face of the anxiety that arises from consuming COVID-related news, as their work may facilitate resource replenishment for these individuals. Conversely, we postulate that those who are drawn to their work primarily because it allows them to help others (i.e., higher in prosocial orientation) will experience the opposite effect, such that their inability to help others during the pandemic will strengthen the negative effect of anxiety on work engagement. Results from an 8-week weekly diary study with a sample of 281 Canadian employees during the pandemic provided support for our hypotheses. Implications are discussed for maintaining employee work engagement during the pandemic era, and beyond. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2021 APA, all rights reserved).

How critical activities within COVID-19 intensive care units increase nurses' daily occupational calling.

During normal and predictable circumstances, employees' occupational calling (i.e., a transcendent passion to use their talent and competencies toward positive societal impact and a sense of meaningfulness derived from working in a chosen occupational domain) is observed to be relatively stable. However, with the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic, circumstances have become anything but normal and predictable, thus putting employees' sense of occupational calling to the test. In this study, we investigate the possibility that occupational calling fluctuates across days during situations of crisis, and we identify antecedents and consequence of such fluctuations. To test our model, we conducted a daily diary study of 66 nurses working in intensive care units over 5 consecutive work days in a specialized Wuhan hospital that only admitted confirmed COVID-19 patients during the peak of the pandemic in China. We found that the daily number of code blue events (i.e., cardiopulmonary resuscitation efforts with the primary goal of patient revival) was positively related to daily occupational calling for nurses. Moreover, individual differences in prosocial motivation predicted the average level and variability of occupational calling over the 5 days, which subsequently related to the nurses' job performance. Our study sheds light on how occupational calling enables people with the needed occupational knowledge and skills to function effectively in crisis situations. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2021 APA, all rights reserved).

Supplemental Material for How Critical Activities Within COVID-19 Intensive Care Units Increase Nurses’ Daily Occupational Calling

Supplemental Material for How Critical Activities Within COVID-19 Intensive Care Units Increase Nurses’ Daily Occupational Calling

The Quality of Life, Psychological Health, and Occupational Calling of Korean Workers: Differences by the New Classes of Occupation Emerging Amid the COVID-19 Pandemic.

This study aimed to create new classifications for occupations that have emerged from the COVID-19 pandemic in Korea, based on Reich’s classifications for the United States. We examined Korean workers’ occupational calling, psychological health, and quality of life. An online questionnaire was administered and data from 1029 Korean workers were analyzed. The questionnaire comprised the Korean version of the Multidimensional Calling Measure to assess occupational calling, the Psychosocial Well-being Index-short form for psychological health, and the Control, Autonomy, Self-realization, and Pleasure (CASP-19) scale for quality of life. We created a Korean-adapted version of the classes of occupation based on those created by the COVID-19 situation in the USA. Our results showed that Korean workers had a high perceived calling to work, and different classes showed different levels of quality of life and psychological health. We need a health concentration management system for essential groups or personal safety protection equipment should be provided. Education on infection control should be offered and effective medical system processes should be in place. We need to develop technology to respond to medical needs online, remotely, or telephonically. The government should implement policies to ensure job security and to improve wages and welfare.