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The concept of calling is deeply rooted in western culture, but research in other cultures is increasing. Yet, whether calling is conceptualized equivalently across cultures is an open and pressing question. In this paper, we draw on a unified multidimensional conceptualization of calling to investigate the cross-cultural generalizability of this construct across six nations (N = 2491): India, Turkey, China, Italy, the United States, and The Netherlands. 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, and that the overall level of calling is surprisingly higher in non-western countries. We also observed small cross-cultural differences 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. Overall, these results are compatible with the notion that calling is a universal human experience, and that culture differently influences the levels of calling’s dimensions but not their importance in defining the construct.

Although the topic of career regrets is of interest both to research and practice, the scholarly development of this field is still rather nascent. In particular, the knowledge about the occurrence and development of career regrets remains to be limited. Drawing on the qualitative data collected through individual reflections (N=50) and semi-structured interviews (N = 22), we explore the nature of an individual’s career regrets and how a career decision becomes a regret. Our findings suggest a broader understanding of career regrets that spreads beyond regrets that are tied to occupational choices. In line with this broad understanding of career regrets, we develop a framework of a career decision becoming a career regret. Our findings also show that when people reflect on career decisions in terms of how they should have behaved differently, there are some that they perceive as career regrets while others take a form of career mistakes or career realizations. We distinguish these different ways of viewing career decisions, suggesting that the latter two kinds of decisions are more influential in shaping an individual’s future career decisions than career decisions that are career regrets. Our research has important theoretical and practical implications concerning career regrets.

Why does becoming more aware of yourself and your wider work environment enable you to experience greater meaningful work? Drawing upon mindfulness-to-meaning and interpersonal sensemaking theories, we argue that in a state of awareness individuals are cognitively flexible and are able to interpret relevant interpersonal cues in ways that enable them to experience their work as meaningful. Study 1 is a quantitative diary study over a period of six weeks that tests the state-level relationships between awareness, cognitive flexibility, and meaningful work. We find that awareness is, directly and indirectly, related to three of four dimensions of meaningful work via cognitive flexibility. Study 2 qualitatively explores what individuals cognitively attend to in the social context when they reflect upon the most meaningful work events that occurred each week, over four weeks. Findings reveal that ambivalent work events are experienced as meaningful when individuals attend to interpersonal cues in their work context that convey a sense of worth, care, and/or safety. Overall, our article advances knowledge about meaningful work as a state-level experience that is facilitated by awareness, cognitive flexibility, and cues from the social context. It shows the importance of integrating meaningful work, mindfulness, and interpersonal sensemaking literatures.

The recent decade has seen a growing interest in the concept of career calling that can be broadly understood as purposeful, meaningful, and passion-driven engagement in a career that one feels dra...

© 2018 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd. Although career proactivity has positive consequences for an individual's career success, studies mostly examine objective measures of success within single countries. This raises important questions about whether proactivity is equally beneficial for different aspects of subjective career success, and the extent to which these benefits extend across cultures. Drawing on Social Information Processing theory, we examined the relationship between proactive career behaviors and two aspects of subjective career success—financial success and work-life balance—and the moderating role of national culture. We tested our hypotheses using multilevel analyses on a large-scale sample of 11,892 employees from 22 countries covering nine of GLOBE's 10 cultural clusters. Although we found that proactive career behaviors were positively related to subjective financial success, this relationship was not significant for work-life balance. Furthermore, career proactivity was relatively more important for subjective financial success in cultures with high in-group collectivism, high power distance, and low uncertainty avoidance. For work-life balance, career proactivity was relatively more important in cultures characterized by high in-group collectivism and humane orientation. Our findings underline the need to treat subjective career success as a multidimensional construct and highlight the complex role of national culture in shaping the outcomes of career proactivity. ispartof: JOURNAL OF ORGANIZATIONAL BEHAVIOR vol:40 issue:1 pages:105-122 status: published

The interest in meaningful work and its implications for the creation of positive work environments has considerably increased within the last decades. Against the backdrop of today’s ever-changing...