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1 – 10 of over 85000The argument that work engagement enhances job performance has gained wide acceptance among practitioners and human resources management literature. There is consensus in…
Abstract
Purpose
The argument that work engagement enhances job performance has gained wide acceptance among practitioners and human resources management literature. There is consensus in management literature that job crafting can affect work engagement. The concept of callings from theology has been resurrected in job behavior and continues to garner growing attention from practitioners in recent years. However, few studies examine how and why living a calling influence job crafting and work engagement. The purpose of this paper is to examine the relationships between living a calling, job crafting and work engagement for knowledgeable employees through questionnaires.
Design/methodology/approach
The part-time MBA students were asked to reflect on present jobs. In total, 390 effective questionnaires were collected from part-time MBA students of four universities in Chongqing, China for finance, administration, manufacturing, service, technology, medication, education and others. Results were analyzed using SPSS and Amos. The measurement scale is given in Appendix.
Findings
First, the author explicitly proposes and validates the direct relationship between living a calling and job crafting. Second, this study confirms that crafting challenging job demands are significant to vigor subdimension and dedication subdimension of work engagement, whereas crafting challenging job demands not significant to absorption subdimension of work engagement. Third, this study indicates that crafting hindering job demands are nonsignificant to vigor, dedication and absorption about three subdimensions of work engagement. Fourth, this study showed living a calling can enhance work engagement for employees. Fifth, this study finds three groups (eight items) of mediation effect between living a calling, job crafting and work engagement.
Practical implications
These insights may help managers to focus on living a calling and encourage beneficial job crafting behaviors in China. The sample is original and has the potential to contribute to debate on work life balance and particularly the meaning of work/careers in China.
Social implications
This study is an interesting revisit to the old workplace sociology and organizational psychology which has become somewhat neglected these days.
Originality/value
This study has provided insight in the relationships between living a calling, job crafting and work engagement.
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Lindsey Lee, Sandra Sun-Ah Ponting, Ankita Ghosh and Hyounae (Kelly) Min
This study aims to provide important insights in advancing the hospitality workforce by exploring the dimensions of calling. By identifying significant calling dimensions among…
Abstract
Purpose
This study aims to provide important insights in advancing the hospitality workforce by exploring the dimensions of calling. By identifying significant calling dimensions among hospitality employees, the study is guided by work as calling theory by also examining the mediating role of employees’ professional identity on intention to leave the industry.
Design/methodology/approach
This study used an exploratory mixed-methods approach. Study 1 included an online qualitative survey to explore the significant dimensions of calling among hospitality employees. Study 2 measured the significance of hospitality calling dimensions on intention to leave the industry, mediated by professional identity.
Findings
Study 1 identified transcendent summons, passion and purposeful life as significant dimensions of hospitality calling. Study 2 examined calling as a second-order construct with the aforementioned dimensions and proposed calling increases professional identity and decreases intention to leave the industry. However, professional identity did not significantly influence the intention to leave the industry.
Originality/value
This study brings value to the calling literature by exploring the calling dimensions unique to the hospitality workforce. Findings also highlight that subjective professional identity alone cannot lower employees’ intention to leave the industry. Organizational and industry support focusing on transcendent summons, passion and purposeful life are recommended.
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Peter Skilling and Helen Tregidga
The purpose of this paper is to analyse justifications for, and accounting’s role in, arguments for and against the living wage.
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to analyse justifications for, and accounting’s role in, arguments for and against the living wage.
Design/methodology/approach
A systematic content analysis of arguments made for and against the living wage in a range of secondary data sources is conducted. Boltanski and Thévenot’s typology of “orders of worth” provides the framework for analysis.
Findings
Arguments for a living wage are found to draw on a range of orders of worth. These arguments hold that while market signals have a valid role in informing wage decisions, such decisions should also take into account the civic order’s emphasis on collective outcomes, the industrial order’s emphasis on long-term organisational performance, and an emphasis on the inherent dignity of the human worker drawn from the domestic and inspired orders. Business arguments against a living wage hold that the current weight given to the tests and objectives of the market order is optimal and that a living wage would undermine firm competitiveness and, ultimately, collective well-being. Justifications of existing low-wage practices are shown to be reflected in, and naturalised by, accounting discourses and practices.
Originality/value
This study contributes to the emergent literature on the relationship between accounting and inequality. It elucidates accounting’s role in supporting the market order of worth and thus the stabilisation and perpetuation of income inequalities. Its analysis of the orders of worth invoked by those calling for a living wage contribute to the task of imagining and constructing an alternative, more equitable, accounting discourse and practice.
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Fuqiang Zhao, Hanqiu Zhu, Yun Chen and Longdong Wang
Drawing on the work as calling theory, the purpose of this study is to explore how and when career calling promotes taking charge by focusing on the mediating effects of work…
Abstract
Purpose
Drawing on the work as calling theory, the purpose of this study is to explore how and when career calling promotes taking charge by focusing on the mediating effects of work meaningfulness and felt obligation and the moderating role of family-friendly human resource practice (FF-HRP).
Design/methodology/approach
The authors collected data from 293 supervisor–employee dyads at three time points in southeastern China. Path analysis and bootstrap method were used for hypothesis testing.
Findings
Employees' perceived career calling positively affected taking charge through work meaningfulness and felt obligation. The positive effects of career calling on work meaningfulness and felt obligation as well as the indirect effect of career calling on taking charge are stronger when employees perceive high levels of FF-HRP.
Practical implications
Organizational interventions should be designed to enhance employees' sense of calling, and the organization should inspire employees to take charge by awakening their perception of work meaningfulness and obligation. Moreover, FF-HRP should be implemented as a form of organizational support.
Originality/value
This research identifies work meaningfulness and felt obligation as mediators that link career calling to taking charge and reveals the role of FF-HRP in amplifying the positive impact of career calling.
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Faith‐based activism in living wage campaigns is on the rise. Summarizes recent campaigns to enact living wage ordinances in US municipalities, underscoring the role of…
Abstract
Faith‐based activism in living wage campaigns is on the rise. Summarizes recent campaigns to enact living wage ordinances in US municipalities, underscoring the role of community‐church partnerships such as Clergy and Laity United for Economic Justice, National Interfaith Committee for Worker Justice, and other local organizations in the struggle for wage justice. Explores the theological bases of this activism by tracing the evolution of the concept of a just, living wage in Christian social economic thought. To illustrate the historical and philosophical roots of living wage discourse, provides textual analysis of major Roman Catholic and Episcopal Church documents and briefly considers writings by US social economists in the first half of the twentieth century.
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The aim of the study is to identify the ways of making work a calling for employees. Based on signaling theory, the authors present an integrated model to develop calling in…
Abstract
Purpose
The aim of the study is to identify the ways of making work a calling for employees. Based on signaling theory, the authors present an integrated model to develop calling in employees by finding an indirect effect of meaningful leadership on calling through sustainable human resource management (SHRM) practices. Furthermore, the authors predict that meaningful work will moderate this mediating effect.
Design/methodology/approach
In a three-wave time-lagged study, the authors followed 187 workers from multiple organizations across Pakistan to examine how meaningful leadership influences employee calling through SHRM practices in the form of signals. The authors established that this indirect effect is stronger when employees perceive their work as meaningful. The authors used structural equation modeling in MPlus to test a moderated mediational model.
Findings
The results show that meaningful leadership is positively related to calling through SHRM practices, and meaningful work significantly moderates this mediating relationship. Specifically, the indirect effect of meaningful leadership is stronger when meaningful work is high.
Originality/value
The study substantiates the high importance of meaningful leadership as a signaler and provides insight into the mechanism of meaningful work as a contingency to develop a calling. The uniqueness of the study lies in testing meaningful leadership empirically and identifying external antecedents of calling among employees.
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Despite the advancement, it appears that much has to be done to clarify the understanding of the effects of the meaning of work (MOW) in the lives. Thus, the purpose of this paper…
Abstract
Purpose
Despite the advancement, it appears that much has to be done to clarify the understanding of the effects of the meaning of work (MOW) in the lives. Thus, the purpose of this paper is to explore such a theoretical stream by means of the Spiritism Doctrine (SD) tenets. In fact, the spiritual knowledge derived from this religion alludes to aspects worthy of investigation.
Design/methodology/approach
Religious lens serves as a robust frame to approach the MOW, given that people’s beliefs likely shape their view about work. Toward that end, it examines pivotal aspects of MOW literature and the SD revelations thereof.
Findings
The wise revelations and teachings from the spirits examined throughout this paper suggest that work embraces one of God’s laws. In this regard, the SD tenets deepen this by providing sound explanations, reflections and arguments about the MOW, as well as highlighting that we all must do the best in the work regardless of the profession or activity. In doing so, this paper is serving the neighbors by fulfilling or at least mitigating their needs and consequently engaging in something indefinitely greater than the own desires, that is, the celestial Father’s wish.
Practical implications
There is no denying that the knowledge brought by the SD, as a source of transcendental epistemology, has deep implications for workers and organizations likewise. Overall, such knowledge enriches the understanding of a very important theme to human beings through an understudied but also insightful lens.
Originality/value
Therefore, this essay contributes to the MOW through transcendental epistemology (Maslow, 1993). Rather, it focuses on a very sensitive issue (work) and its corresponding implications to mankind through the knowledge of a spiritual and religious framework. In addition, such endeavor also adds to the field of management, spirituality and religion Interest Group of Academy of Management.
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Chunyu Zhang, Andreas Hirschi, Anne Herrmann, Jia Wei and Jinfu Zhang
The purpose of this paper is to test if the effects of a self-directed career attitude on career and life satisfaction are mediated by a person’s sense of calling and moderated by…
Abstract
Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to test if the effects of a self-directed career attitude on career and life satisfaction are mediated by a person’s sense of calling and moderated by job insecurity in a sample of Chinese employees.
Design/methodology/approach
Among a sample of Chinese employees (n=263), in this paper, a moderated mediation analysis with bootstrapping was applied to test the hypotheses.
Findings
The results showed that calling mediates the effects of a self-directed career attitude on career satisfaction and life satisfaction. Job insecurity moderated the effect on life satisfaction but not on career satisfaction. The effect on life satisfaction were stronger under higher levels of job insecurity.
Research limitations/implications
These results suggest that a self-directed career attitude may help people develop a calling, which in turn relates to increased subjective career success and well-being. In addition, the notion of a calling may be especially important for well-being in unstable job circumstances.
Originality/value
This study is the first to explore a calling and a self-directed career attitude in a sample of Chinese employees. Corresponding to contemporary China’s rapidly changing context of economy and career development, a self-directed career orientation plays an important role in Chinese employees’ calling and subjective career success.
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Jinsoo Choi, Yonguk Park and Young Woo Sohn
This study investigated how and when corporate social responsibility (CSR) fosters job seekers' application intention using a mediated moderation model. Specifically, the study…
Abstract
Purpose
This study investigated how and when corporate social responsibility (CSR) fosters job seekers' application intention using a mediated moderation model. Specifically, the study explored the positive effect of CSR on job seekers' intention to apply, the moderating role of applicants' calling and the mediating role of value congruence in the relationship between the person and organization.
Design/methodology/approach
The study sample consisted of 259 college students in South Korea. A quasi-experimental design and survey were used. Data were analyzed using a regression-based path analysis to test a mediated moderation model.
Findings
The results showed that CSR significantly increased job seekers' application intention, which was moderated by their calling. Furthermore, the interaction between CSR and calling on application intention was fully mediated by the value congruence between person and organization.
Practical implications
The results suggest that engaging in active CSR can effectively attract job applicants, especially those with a high calling, who are known as qualified workers needed for the organization. The findings can provide a competitive advantage to organizations in this highly competitive environment.
Originality/value
This study contributes to the understanding of the micro-effect of CSR by showing the positive influence of CSR on job seekers' application intention. Further, by evaluating a mediated moderation model, this study advances the field's understanding of the underlying mechanisms of CSR, especially in terms of calling and value congruence.
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Bianca N. Jackson, Suzanne C. Purdy and Helena D. Cooper Thomas
Highly-experienced allied health professionals have the opportunity to perform at the expert-level by sharing knowledge and skills with more junior staff, with the aim of…
Abstract
Purpose
Highly-experienced allied health professionals have the opportunity to perform at the expert-level by sharing knowledge and skills with more junior staff, with the aim of upskilling the workforce. The study explored the current motivators, aspirations and the role of work in the life of highly-experienced practitioners, revealing factors that hinder or support them to further develop their own expertise and be inspiring role-models and mentors for less experienced staff.
Design/methodology/approach
Taking a grounded theoretical research design, we report on interviews with 45 allied health practitioners with at least seven years of professional experience from different professions and across organisational sectors. Transcripts were coded iteratively in conjunction with reviewing the literature, and cases were categorised to form a conceptual typology of work orientation.
Findings
Four work orientations are characterised capturing the diversity of the allied health workforce, particularly in relation to two dimensions of personal fulfilment and future ambition. The relationship between the types and expert-level performance is discussed, leading to recommendations for support that can be implemented to develop and sustain expert-level performance within a community.
Originality/value
A new view of work orientation is introduced that relates expert-level performance with meaningful work. The findings highlight a diversity of work orientation for highly-experienced allied health professionals, that all require managerial awareness. Once recognised, the four types would benefit from different supports that could develop and maintain expert-level performance in those that seek it. Alternatives are also available for those that do not. Implications for workforce policy are discussed.
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