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Sense of calling in the workplace: The moderating effect of supportive organizational climate in Taiwanese organizations

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  29 July 2016

Amber Yun-Ping Lee ,
I-Heng Chen  and
Po-Chien Chang
Amber Yun-Ping Lee
Affiliation:
Department of Public Administration and Management, National University of Tainan, Tainan, Taiwan
I-Heng Chen
Affiliation:
Institute of Human Resource Management, National Sun Yat-sen University, Kaohsiung, Taiwan
Po-Chien Chang*
Affiliation:
School of Business, Macau University of Science and Technology, Taipa, Macau
*
Corresponding author: pcchang@must.edu.mo
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Abstract

The sense of calling has emerged as a burgeoning research interest for the past decade due to its close connection to the meaningfulness of work. However, the effects of a sense of calling and how it functions in the workplace remain unclear. This study aims at enhancing the concept of calling and understanding its application in organizations. Therefore, a cross-level model was proposed according to data collected from 24 organizations in Taiwan. As a result, our study demonstrated that sense of calling is positively related to individual performance, and the supportive organizational climate also plays an important role in the relationship between sense of calling and contextual performance. Consequently, by incorporating factors at both the organizational and individual levels into the mechanism of calling, a valuable insight into and application of an individual’s sense of calling in the work context has been established, and management implications were also provided.

Keywords

sense of callingsupportive organizational climateindividual performance
Type
Research Article
Information
Journal of Management & Organization , Volume 24 , Issue 1 , January 2018 , pp. 129 - 144
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press and Australian and New Zealand Academy of Management 2016 

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