“It’s in my blood.” Examining the link between calling and productivity at Work

Abstract

A ‘calling’ is a very important issue for individuals, corporations, and society at large. Working on what you have been called to do can give you a sense of purpose, meaning, and personal fulfillment which in turn can impact your well-being, career, and performance, as well as the results of the entity you are working for. Despite scholars having shown growing interest in the topic, especially over the last decade, there are only a few empirical studies that have explored the relationship between a perceived calling and productivity. They however, arrived at different conclusions. Among them, only a handful used supervisor ratings to assess job performance. Furthermore, most of the empirical research is based on specific types of jobs, where employees are expected to experience high levels of calling. Additionally, no study, to the best of my knowledge, has examined life satisfaction as a possible mediator between a perceived calling and job performance. Only a few examines both types of job performance (in-role behavior and organizational citizenship behavior). Neither has any previous empirical research explored the mediator effect of the presence of a calling and life satisfaction when studying job performance. Moreover, no prior research of this type has included both qualitative and quantitative analysis. Finally, until the study which I present here, there was not a single calling scale validated in Spanish that could enable researchers to study this variable empirically in this language. Consequently, to explore the relationship between perceived calling and productivity, and also the abovementioned mediating effects, I have conducted empirical research in 25 Spanish companies from different sectors and covering a range of occupations with a sample of 548 employees. My study employs a combination of both quantitative and qualitative analysis. Using structural equation modeling (SEM), I tested my research model and validated three new scales for the Spanish population: one concerning calling, and two others concerning job performance (task performance, and organizational citizenship behavior). My qualitative analysis (two panels of experts) provides a richer interpretation of the quantitative results of my model. Finally, I compared some sociodemographic and labor characteristics to test whether there were significant differences among the classification groups when comparing the presence of a calling. My study uses the Work as a Calling theoretical model (WCT) as a framework (Duffy et al., 2018). The three scales were successfully validated for the Spanish population, showing reliability and validity. My model displayed a good fit. Most of the hypotheses I put forward regarding the model were confirmed through SEM and supported by the two panels of experts. Effectively, people who feel a calling at work are more productive. Life satisfaction and the presence of a calling turned out to be mediators in my model. As a result of the comparison of the groups, I identified some differences in the way the various classification groups perceived the presence of a calling, according to: gender, age, leadership position, subordinates, spirituality, type of company, and company sector. The main contributions of this thesis are the attempt to clarify the relationship between callings and productivity, and the comparison of different groups of people along the lines of calling. An important source of originality is the provision of scales in Spanish. The study concludes with recommended practical interventions for companies which can benefit from having higher levels of performance by providing their employees with meaningful work and helping them feel the presence of a callings at work while increasing their life satisfaction.