Calling. Making the World a Better Place from Within Multinational Corporations

Abstract

Nobody seems to doubt that working toward a calling is much more rewarding than just working for financial rewards or promotions. Nevertheless, although it is acknowledged that people can experience callings in any activity, up to now, there are few studies on this construct in the context of commercial companies. In this paper we focus on studying calling orientation in employees of a multinational company. We test three hypotheses: 1) the different ways of relating to work (as a job, a career or a calling) is also reported among corporate employees; 2) there are differences in the levels of flow at work in accordance with the different ways that employees relate to their work; and 3) there are differences in the levels of perception that employees have of the social relevance of their work in accordance with the way in which they relate to their work. In order to verify these hypotheses we applied three instruments to a sample of employees of the Latin America brand (279 Argentinean and 193 Ecuadorian employees) of a multinational corporation: The University of Pennsylvania Work Life Questionnaire, the Work Related Flow Inventory and a scale of Social Work Relevance Perception. The results suggest that callings are identifiable among corporate enterprise employees and that employees with a calling orientation have higher levels of flow at work and a greater perception of the social relevance of their work than those employees who just relate to their work as jobs or careers.