The Relationship between Living a Calling and Job Crafting: The Moderating Role of Job Passion

Document Type : Articles

Author

• Elham Ebrahimi

Assistant Professor in Human Resource Management, Institute for Humanities and Cultural Studies

https://doi.org/10.22067/pmt.v12i2.84944

Abstract

1- INTRODUCTION
As a proactive orientation and transpersonal approach to the job, living a calling is a concept that has recently entered the literature on human resource management and organizational behavior. This orientation has specific behavioral and perceptual instances for the job and is defined as an important structure in the mental perception of professional success. Job crafting is one of the variables of being associated with living a calling. At the same time, one of the most important motivations for job crafting by employees is work passion.
2- THEORETICAL FRAMEWORK
The purpose of this study is to investigate the effect of living a calling on job crafting moderated by job passion. Faculty members of five top Iranian universities in 2019 were considered as the statistical population of this study. They were selected to be studied because although their knowledge jobs are so important they have been less studied in association with job crafting and living a calling. The different nature of these knowledge jobs indicates the need for in-depth analysis of the under-study issue in these jobs. Academic careers have a greater capacity for being shaped proactively and academicians are likely to have more power, inclination, and opportunities to exert this conscious behavior. In addition, living a calling is expected to be a significant affecting factor in such jobs.
3- METHODOLOGY
The present study investigated the causal effect of living a calling and job crafting in the form of task, relational, and cognitive crafting. In addition, it was to test the moderating effects of job passion on these relationships. Structural equation modeling in SmartPLS software was used to test the research hypotheses. The six-item scale of Li and Yang (2018) was used to measure living a calling. The three-dimensional variable of job crafting (including the task, relational, and cognitive crafting) was measured using the Slemp and Vella-Brodrick’s (2013) 15-item scale, each of which with five items. The Trepanier et al.’s (2014) scale of having three items for each component of harmonious passion and obsessive passion was used to measure job passion.
4- RESULTS & DISCUSSION
The results showed that living a calling had a significant effect on all dimensions of job crafting (i.e. task, relational, and cognitive crafting). Thus, when faculty members perceive their jobs as living a calling, they are more likely to change and manage the task, relationship, and cognitive boundaries of their jobs. In addition, the moderation of job passion for the effects of living a calling on relational and cognitive crafting was confirmed, but not confirmed for its effect on task crafting. In other words, job passion facilitates the association of living a calling with relational and cognitive crafting. since living a calling and relational and cognitive dimensions of job crafting are psychological factors in nature, the presence of another psychological factor is likely to reinforce their relationship. The first reason for the association of living a calling with task crafting not moderated by job passion may be the objective nature of task crafting. The second is probably the obsessive nature of job passion which leads to internal and external pressures.
5- CONCLUSIONS & SUGGESTIONS
It is recommended for knowledge organizations such as universities, research institutes, and hospitals with the majority of professional staff to internalize the living a calling as one of the important aspects of organizational culture. On the other hand, knowledgeable employees have the ability and desire to create new ways of improving their work as a living a calling, to develop relationships with others, to communicate and network outside the organization, and to perceive constantly the importance of their job for the organizational success. Given the fact that harmonious passion is based on employee's free willingness, it causes them to successfully live a calling and crafting the job. Therefore, the organizations are expected to create such a passion in their professional employees. As a research implication, future researchers are recommended to examine the components of job passion separately for living a calling to affect the components of job crafting; because the different nature of these two dimensions could have different possible effects on employees’ behavior and perception. In addition, these relationships can be investigated in another context with possibly different results.

Keywords

• Living a calling
• Task crafting
• Relational crafting
• Cognitive crafting
• Job passion

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