Calling: A Literature Review and Prospect

The word “calling” comes from the west culture, originated from religion— means “The call of God”, while with the development of the times, has experienced a changing process from the sacred to the secular, becomes a concept across subjects of religious studies, sociology & organizational behavior. Especially in Chinese culture, its connotation has many features of its own. With the rapid development of social economy, life and working environment has made an enormous change, people work are not limited to survive, for every individual, there are new meanings for occupation. There are such a part of the people, they feel it’s their destiny to engage in the profession now, this kind of idea has made them put more energy in the work, more motivated, and fell more happiness. Both individuals and organizations have benefits from this positive concept, so the study of “calling” is born at the right moment.

This paper first systematically sorted out the existing research on calling, examining its concept and definition, measurement methods, antecedent variables and outcome variables. Then it analyzed its current problems and indicated the direction for future research.

Although the existing theories have defined the connotation of calling according to their own research, there is lack a consensus definition of calling yet. In future research, as to understand the true meaning of calling and its impact on individuals and organizations more accurately, the study suggests that we should extract and verificate the connotation of calling according to different cultural characteristics and differences subjects. Meanwhile, consider the influence of occupation, gender, age and region on the effectiveness of the tool more fully, develop new appropriate tools for the specific subjects. What’s more, the existing research focuses on the influencing factors and the effects of calling, some scholars have also studied the influence mechanism, but overall, lack a more perfect and widely accepted theoretical model of calling. This is also a development direction of future research.

Article by Jinyang Wang, Liangtie Dai, from Jinan University, China.

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