Trajectories of Calling in the Transition From University to Work: A Growth Mixture Analysis

Abstract

<jats:p> 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. </jats:p>

Measuring Career Adaptability in a Sample of Italian University Students: Psychometric Properties and Relations with the Age, Gender, and STEM/No STEM Courses

“…Spitzmuller and colleagues (Spitzmuller et al 2015), in their meta-analytic review, showed no significant gender differences in the proactive personality, although the literature suggests that women have a lower power perception than men (Keltner et al 2003), and ts it would make them less inclined to engage in proactive behaviors, such as challenging the status quo and overcoming obstacles to making meaningful change for women (Bateman and Crant 1993). Likewise, no significant difference by gender was observed in the studies of Travis and Freeman (2017) on a sample of university students, of Özkurt and Berkan (2018) concerning high school students, of Zhang and colleagues (Zhang et al 2020) on a sample of graduating university students, who were moving from university to work, and of Hua and colleagues (Hua et al 2020) in the analysis of an international students sample. At the same time, De Pater and colleagues (De Pater et al 2009) highlighted how women have a lower proactive personality than male colleagues in research that considered a sample of interns.…”

Work Identity and Future Research on Work as a Calling

“…It is our hope that future research on calling will focus on the four antecedents outlined here because all of them engage conscious thoughts, which are open to interventions. Such focus will require psychometric specification of these antecedents to link them to measures of calling (Dobrow & Tosti-Kharas, 2011), which may allow researchers to provide a clearer glimpse into how a sense of calling evolves over time (Dalla Rosa et al, 2019; Vianello et al, 2020; Zhang et al, 2021) and lead to interventions facilitating work identity.…”

“…Still others suggest that for some variables, calling may function as an outcome rather than a predictor. For example, longitudinal studies have found that the extent to which one believes one has a clear vocation or profession predicts having a calling rather than the reverse (Dobrow & Tosti-Kharas, 2011; Duffy et al, 2014) and have also revealed that a sense of calling is predicted by authentic living (Zhang et al, 2021), by intentional engagement in personal growth and meaning seeking (Bott & Duffy, 2015), and by clarity of professional identity, relevant learning behaviors, and social support (Dalla Rosa et al, 2019).…”

Encouraging job crafting in the workplace for newcomers: A two-year multi-wave study

“…As such, education (Harzer and Ruch, 2016) and counseling (Dik et al, 10.3389/fpsyg.2022.1003276 Frontiers in Psychology 11 frontiersin.org 2009) could support newcomers in and finding their calling clearly. Since research suggests that newcomers' calling is reduced during the transition phase from school-towork (Zhang et al, 2021), identifying strategies to maintain and promote newcomers' calling is important. Finally, it is necessary for newcomers to experience occupational self-efficacy, which was found to mediate the relationship between transformational leadership and job crafting.…”