The moderating role of calling in the work–family interface: Buffering and substitution effects on employee satisfaction

• Author: Lori L. Wadsworth,Joel D. Vallett,Jeffery A. Thompson,Jordan D. Nielsen
• DOI: http://doi.org/10.1002/job.2469
• Published date: 01 September 2020
• Date: 01 September 2020

RESEARCH ARTICLE

The moderating role of calling in the work–family interface:

Buffering and substitution effects on employee satisfaction

Jordan D. Nielsen

1

| Jeffery A. Thompson

2

| Lori L. Wadsworth

2

| Joel D. Vallett

3

1

Krannert School of Management, Purdue

University, West Lafayette, Indiana, U.S.A.

2

Marriott School of Business, Brigham Young

University, Provo, Utah, U.S.A.

3

Department of Political Science and Criminal

Justice, Southern Utah University, Cedar City,

Utah, U.S.A.

Correspondence

Jordan Nielsen, Krannert School of

Management, Purdue University, West

Lafayette, IN, U.S.A.

Email: jniel@purdue.edu

Summary

This research seeks for improved understanding regarding the interaction of mean-

ingful work and the work–family interface. Existing literature suggests that

experiencing a sense of calling toward work makes the work domain particularly

salient to employees compared to other life domains. In this article, we draw on this

idea, rooted in identity theory, to hypothesize that a sense of calling toward work

diminishes the effects of work–family conflict and work–family enrichment on

employee's job and life satisfaction. We test these ideas in two studies. First, we sur-

veyed an alumni sample of 598 employees from various jobs, industries, and job

levels. Then, in a constructive replication, we surveyed 327 employees using a time-

lagged design. Calling was found to significantly buffer the effect of work–family

conflict on job satisfaction in Study 2, but not Study 1. Calling did not buffer the

effect of conflict on life satisfaction in either study. However, both studies demon-

strated that calling attenuated (substituted for) the effect of work–family enrichment

on job satisfaction. Study 1 supported the idea that calling attenuates the effect of

enrichment on life satisfaction; however, this interactive effect was reversed in Study

2, contrary to expectations. We discuss implications for theory and practice related

to callings and career choices, as well as for the role of calling and work identity in

the work–family interface.

KEYWORDS

calling, job satisfaction, life satisfaction, meaningful work, work, family conflict, work–family

enrichment

1|INTRODUCTION

More than past generations, today's employees strive to simulta-

neously achieve two lofty objectives: meaningful work and work–life

harmony (Ng, Schweitzer, & Lyons, 2010; Twenge, 2014; Twenge,

Campbell, Hoffman, & Lance, 2010). Academe has devoted significant

attention to both meaningful work (Rosso, Dekas, &

Wrzesniewski, 2010) and the work–family interface (Shockley &

Singla, 2011). Yet it has rarely explored them in tandem. Generally

speaking, scholars have recognized that a sense of meaning in work

can be a transcendent experience that colors one's experience of the

work–family interface (Berg, Grant, & Johnson, 2010; Kossek,

Ruderman, Braddy, & Hannum, 2012; Rosso et al., 2010). For exam-

ple, deep meaningfulness in work seems to make the boundary

between various life domains more permeable by making one's work

identity persistently salient (Kreiner, Hollensbe, & Sheep, 2006;

Kreiner, Hollensbe, & Sheep, 2009). This suggests that work–family

perceptions (i.e., work–family conflict and work–family enrichment)

may affect the well-being of people doing deeply meaningful work in

ways that differ from people doing other forms of work. Given that

work–family perceptions have a large effect on the well-being of

employees and that the pursuit of meaningful work is increasingly

being prioritized by today's workforce (Ng et al., 2010), it is important

for contemporary managers and organizations to gain a clear

Received: 1 August 2017 Revised: 24 March 2020 Accepted: 28 June 2020

DOI: 10.1002/job.2469

622 © 2020 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. J Organ Behav. 2020;41:622–637.wileyonlinelibrary.com/journal/job

understanding of how meaning in work shapes peoples' reactions to

work–family perceptions.

Scholars and practitioners alike have been increasingly fascinated

by work as a calling, which has long been considered a facet of mean-

ingful work (Rosso et al., 2010), and may represent its most extreme

form (Dobrow, 2004; Wrzesniewski, 2012). When work is a calling,

one's employment is drenched in lofty purpose and passion

(Berkelaar & Buzzanell, 2015). An employee's sense of calling is often

built around a narrative of self that elevates the salience of one's work

identity in a uniquely positive way (Bunderson & Thompson, 2009;

Hirschi, ). Although a sense of calling often entails a demanding focus

on duty and obligation (Bunderson & Thompson, 2009), empirical

research overwhelmingly links calling to positive outcomes including

job satisfaction (Dobrow & Tosti-Kharas, 2011; Duffy, Dik, &

Steger, 2011; Wrzesniewski, McCauley, Rozin, & Schwartz, 1997) and

life satisfaction (Duffy, Allan, Autin, & Bott, 2013; Duffy &

Sedlacek, 2010; Steger, Pickering, Shin, & Dik, 2010; Hirschi &

Hermann, 2012).

In the calling literature, the work–family interface has thus far

been a mostly peripheral concern. This is surprising given the well-

established importance of the work–family interface for employee

satisfaction. Work–family conflict (hereafter WFC) has long been

found to result in negative employee attitudes (Kossek & Ozeki, 1998;

Shockley & Singla, 2011), whereas work–family enrichment (hereafter

WFE) contributes to higher levels of satisfaction and psychological

well-being (Carlson, Kacmar, Wayne, & Grzywacz, 2006; McNall, Nick-

lin, & Masuda, 2010). Notably, the few articles that link the calling and

work–family literatures suggest that a calling may alter the extent to

which employees experience these effects. Bunderson and Thomp-

son (2009), Kreiner et al., (2009), and Oelberger (2018) each suggest

that people in calling-prototypic occupations (i.e., zookeepers, priests,

and aid workers) exhibit a relatively unrestrained positive focus on the

work domain. This suggests that a sense of calling may lead people to

maintain high levels of satisfaction even when work seems to conflict

with and/or not enrich the family domain. Because callings occur

across many types of work (Wrzesniewski et al., 1997), it is possible

that people who have a strong sense of calling in more conventional

jobs may also experience a relatively positive focus on the work

domain. If so, it is important to broadly examine how callings shape

the effects of work–family perceptions on satisfaction.

In this article, we build on extant calling research by drawing from

identity theory as an organizing perspective. This perspective leads us

to argue that calling is a form of work identity that causes employees

to maintain a robustly positive view of work. That positive view, we

argue, diminishes the impact of work–family processes on employee

attitudes such that work-to-family conflict and work-to-family enrich-

ment are weaker predictors of job and life satisfaction when a sense

of calling is present. To test these ideas, we conducted two studies.

First, we surveyed an alumni sample of 598 mostly married employees

from a variety of occupations and industries. Then, in a constructive

replication, we used a time-lagged design to survey 327 employees

in committed romantic relationships who also work in a variety

of contexts.

Overall, our investigation makes two significant contributions.

First, this research responds to calls from the literature for improved

understanding of the relationship between family life and the meaning

of work (Rosso et al., 2010). We demonstrate that a sense of calling

decreases the risk that nonideal work–family perceptions (i.e., high

WFC and low WFE) pose to employee satisfaction. This represents

one of the first efforts to position calling as a cognitive lens that inter-

acts with other predictors to inform employee attitudes (cf., Duffy,

Douglass, Autin, England, & Dik, 2016). By examining how calling

interacts with work–family conflict and enrichment, this study begins

to address the concern that the current literature has examined calling

in relative isolation to other predictors of employee attitudes

(Thompson & Bunderson, 2019). In addition, whereas extant calling

literature loosely implicates the work-family interface via rich qualita-

tive investigations of prototypically meaningful occupations (Kreiner

et al., 2009; Oelberger, 2018), the present study quantitatively exam-

ines calling and the work–family interface across many occupations,

lending a higher level of generalizability to our findings.

Second, this research contributes to the work–family literature by

expanding knowledge of how meaningful work influences the mainte-

nance of positive attitudes in the face of challenging aspects of work–

family intersection. Although many moderating factors relative to the

work–family interface have been identified, the overwhelming major-

ity of work–family research has focused on contextual supports pro-

vided by employers or coworkers (Bhave, Kramer, & Glomb, 2010;

Wang, Liu, Zhan, & Shi, 2010) or on demographic factors such as gen-

der (Frone, 2000; Livingston & Judge, 2008; Martins, Eddleston, &

Veiga, 2002). We add to this literature by demonstrating that personal

orientations toward the meaning of work also play an important role.

2|THEORETICAL BACKGROUND

A calling is a belief that one was destined to participate in a particular

area of work because of unique endowments—passions, gifts, and tal-

ents (Bunderson & Thompson, 2009). Typically, individuals with a

strong sense of calling explain it through a self-consistent narrative of

personal experiences through which they discovered their unique

endowments and were drawn to work that aligns with these talents

(Schabram & Maitlis, 2017). In this way, it provides a rich definition of

one's work identity—who one is, and for what one strives (i.e., one's

purpose in life). Put another way, it allows for clarity of identity and

expression of core values (Berg et al., 2010; Hirschi, ).

Interest in the intersection of calling and family life has grown

over the past decade, yet few studies empirically examine how mean-

ingful work relates to models within the work–family literature. Publi-

shed studies that have either alluded to work–family processes

(Bunderson & Thompson, 2009) or actively tried to integrate the two

areas (Kreiner et al., 2009; Oelberger, 2018) have relied upon qualita-

tive observation to examine the experience of calling in prototypically

meaningful occupations (i.e., care-giving; humanitarian workers, zoo-

keepers, and priests). Because this research has focused on contexts

where a sense of calling is institutionally embedded in the occupation,

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