The concept of calling is deeply rooted in western culture, but research in other cultures is increasing. In the last 25 years, the concept has been applied to work, giving rise to a large and increasing corpus of studies on why and how individuals approach work as a calling. Researchers from many non-Western nations began to study the construct of career calling, which seemed to be relevant in their societies. Yet, the equivalence of the concept of calling has not been adequately investigated, construct and measurement equivalence of existing measures has been assumed rather than tested, and the influence of culture on calling has been overlooked. Also, some authors suggested that the concept of calling does not exist outside Christianity (Cahalan & Shuurman, 2016).
Yet, many non-western traditions prescribe, suggest, or at least implicitly include a reflection on the importance of approaching work as a way to find a purpose in life, to build a personal identity, to help others or the society, even indirectly, and to answer a transcendent summons, either coming from within or from a greater entity. Calling might change in meaning across cultures or be a universal human experience, and researchers might have overstated the generalizability of previous empirical evidence or the importance of its Western origins.
Using a recent conceptualization of calling (Vianello et al., 2018) that unifies the different theoretical approaches that emerged in the literature we investigated the cross-cultural generalizability of calling across six nations (N = 2491): India, Turkey, China, Italy, the United States, and The Netherlands. Calling was measured with the Unified Multidimensional Calling Scale (UMCS; Vianello et al., 2018) that defines calling as composed by seven facets: Passion, Sacrifice, Transcendent Summons, Prosociality, Pervasiveness, Purposeful Work, and Identity. Participants were active business college students; Countries were selected to maximize cultural differences according to Hofstede’s six cultural dimensions (Hofstede, 2011; van de Vijver & Tanzer, 2004).
Using multi-group structural equations model, we ascertained invariance and estimated unbiased factor scores. We observed that the multidimensional structure of calling and the relative importance of the different dimensions of calling in defining the construct are the same across cultures. This result contributes to the theoretical debate on the conceptualization of calling and its generalizability. Drawing on an integrated model of calling, we show that a conceptualization that combines both neoclassical and modern components is valid in countries that were deeply influenced by such varying philosophical and religious traditions as Christianity, Confucianism, Islam, Buddhism, and Hinduism. Pursuing work as a calling is an important factor of people’s work experiences, regardless of their heritage (Steger et al., 2010).
We also surprisingly observed that the overall level of calling is higher in non-western countries, putting into question the western origin of the concept and opening important research questions. Small cross-cultural differences were observed in the intensity with which people from different countries approach their calling domain. Comparisons conducted at the level of facets indicated that Italian and Dutch participants scored lower in Transcendent Summons and Pervasiveness, while Chinese participants scored the highest. Callings in India are especially high in the Purpose and Identity components. These results are based on convenience samples of business students; hence, results cannot be generalized to the whole nation, nor to nations that were not included in our sample.
The main contribution of this research is the empirical evidence that approaching work as a pervasive and transcendent source of purpose, passion, prosociality, self-sacrifice, and personal identity is an experience that is shared across very different cultures. This is in line with the surprisingly high agreement across religious traditions about the way individuals should approach their work.
Calling may be universal in its structure and meaning, and this result validates the many studies that investigated calling and its nomological network in cultures that are different from those in which the construct or its measurement were originally conceived. Also, the different profiles of calling that we identified and that characterize different nations are useful to practitioners and counselors who work in the increasing number of multicultural work environments because they inform on the extent to which people, who have been influenced by different traditions, approach their work as a source of meaning and passion. Furthermore, perceiving work as a calling is a resource that leads to greater well-being and resilience. Hence, this study is also relevant to the 3rd and 8th Sustainable Development Goals, which tackle well-being, decent work, and economic growth
