Discerning Work as a Calling: The Role of Job Crafting

Abstract

On the basis of career construction theory (CCT), the authors aimed to describe mechanisms by which work may be perceived as a calling. They did so by measuring the mediation and moderation effects of job crafting and power distance orientation (PDO) within the relationship between cognitive flexibility and calling. PDO levels become essential for high‐power‐distance societies such as Indonesia because PDO can decrease proactive behaviors, such as job crafting. Three hundred four employees in Indonesia responded to measures of calling, PDO, job crafting, and cognitive flexibility. Analyses indicated that the relationship between cognitive flexibility and calling is mediated by cognitive crafting and moderated by PDO. Results support CCT as useful for understanding the mechanisms of calling. For a high‐power‐distance country, the process of discerning a calling is influenced by submissive attitudes toward a superior. Thus, in assisting job‐crafting processes, counselors should focus on the relationship between employees and their superiors.

The Mediating Effect of Self-Regulation on the Association Between Growth Mindset About Work and Living a Calling Among Primary and Secondary School Teachers

“…During the last two decades, the concept of career calling has been an important topic within vocational psychology due to its positive effects on career-specific constructs, such as career preparation, 1,2 career adaptability, 3 career commitment, 4 vocational identity, 5 job crafting, 6 and career satisfaction. 7 Most importantly, career calling can alleviate the negative effects of work stress and burnout on well-being, 8 motivate employees to fully engage in work and derive meaning from work.…”

How does proactive personality promote calling at work? A dual-path mediation model

“…Considering that many workers in Indonesia are still struggling with low availability of employment openings (BPS, 2017), many are forced to stay and adapt to find their calling in their current job. Employees themselves have an important role in finding calling in their respective jobs through active adaptation such as aligning their desires with the work they are doing (Riasnugrahani et al, 2019). This adaptation process can help employees achieve positive work results such as job satisfaction, commitment, and career success in their work (Duffy et al, 2012).…”

“…This argument is relevant with the fact that during one's career, one has to continuously make meaning of various personal and interpersonal experiences. CCT itself consists of several processes such as adaptive readiness, including psychological traits that represent willingness, readiness and support for work-related changes; adapting responses, namely the behaviors that individuals engage to cope with changing career conditions and making job choices; and adaptation results, which refer to the conditions achieved through career process construction or career outcomes (Riasnugrahani et al, 2019;Šverko & Babarović, 2018). In this study, calling is understood as the result of individual adaptation (adaptation results) to their social environment in which those who successfully adapt can integrate their personal needs and social expectations as to such so that they can control their work (Riasnugrahani et al, 2019).…”

“…Previous research has shown that the CCT perspective can explain the calling discovery mechanism through individual adaptability, namely adaptive readiness (i.e., cognitive flexibility, proactive personality) and adapting responses (i.e., job crafting) (Bakker et al, 2012;Riasnugrahani et al, 2019;Rudolph et al, 2017;Savickas & Porfeli, 2012;Zhang et al, 2016). Nevertheless, this perspective has not considered external factors that might influence job crafting behavior.…”

“…Further researches are needed to examine the internal and external antecedents of calling together (Bott & Duffy, 2014), Therefore, it is important to simultaneously investigate the effect of both internal and external antecedents on calling because previously these variables were only studied in a separate model (Riasnugrahani et al, 2019;Vermooten et al, 2019;Wijaya, 2019). This study may provide more insight into the internal and external factors of calling through the offered research model by understanding the importance of the process of adaptation done by employees and the support offered by superiors for their subordinates to find the calling in their job.…”