The impact of perceived calling on work outcomes in a nursing context: The role of career commitment and living one’s calling

AbstractThe current study examined the impact of perceived calling on nurses’ organizational commitment, organizational citizenship behavior, workplace deviant behavior, and turnover intentions. Moreover, the mediating role of career commitment and the moderating role of living a calling are also investigated. This paper posits a mediated moderation model wherein calling and living a calling interact to predict organizational commitment, organizational citizenship behavior, workplace deviant behavior, and turnover intentions with career commitment mediating the effect of the interaction on the three outcome variables. Data were collected from 294 registered nurses who had worked for a minimum of 6 months in the public or private health care system. Correlation and regression analyses were used to test the proposed hypotheses. Living a calling moderated the effect of calling on career commitment, such that these relations were more robust for nurses with a stronger sense of living a calling. Furthermore, career commitment fully mediated the effect of calling on organizational commitment, organizational citizenship behavior, workplace deviant behavior, and turnover intentions. The indirect effects of career commitment were only significant for nurses with high levels of living a calling. These results imply that possessing a sense of calling brings greater career commitment, which evidently leads to stronger organizational commitment and organizational citizenship behaviors, and lower workplace deviant behavior and turnover intentions. More specifically, nurse's sense of calling could lead to voluntary acts of helping colleagues and participation in organizational activities due to features associated with having a sense of calling, including pro‐social intention and other‐oriented thoughts. Calling might also decrease turnover intentions and deviant behaviors among nurses. Research about the dynamics of calling in nursing and medical professionals is limited. Recognizing the need, the present research has widened the scope of calling research by investigating the relationships between calling and various work‐related variables within Asian nursing context.