Crafting a Calling: The Mediating Role of Calling Between Challenging Job Demands and Turnover Intention

an article by Tiago Esteves and Miguel Pereira Lopes (University of Lisbon, Portugal) published in Journal of Career Development Volume 44 Issue 1 (2017)

Abstract

Despite the emerging interest in the job crafting construct, researchers know little about its dimensions and their potential benefits for organizations.

In a quantitative investigation, using a self-report questionnaire among a group of 189 Portuguese nurses and nursing assistants, we analyze how job crafting can be strongly related to workers’ sense of calling and turnover intention.

The results indicate that sense of calling totally mediated the negative relation between the increase in challenging job demands and turnover intention. Although traditional assumption is that a sense of calling leads workers to craft their jobs, we theorize about the potential reverse path, given that our results support the possibility that sense of calling may be triggered when workers increase their own challenging job demands.

We recommend further research to provide additional insight into job crafting formation mechanism.

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