Calling and Work-Family Balance: is Passion Enriching or Depleting?

Although recent scholarship has devoted increasing attention to the concept of work as a calling, it has done so without examining the way in which a calling orientation impacts employees’ non-work life. We examine the relationship between calling and two dimensions of the work-family interface: work-family conflict and work-family enrichment. Employing the rationale of Job Demands- Resources theory, we argue that calling may have both salutary and deleterious influences on work-family balance. On the one hand, employees with a deep sense of calling might devote so much effort and time at work that there is little left for family contributions. On the other hand, employees with a calling orientation might feel that work enriches family life because work provides an intense sense of meaningfulness and added energy. We studied these relationships, along with two potential mediators and one potential moderator, using triadic data from business school alumni. These triads comprised 108 sets of employees, supervisors and spouses/partners. The pattern of our findings suggests that calling is directly related to work-family enrichment, but only indirectly to work-family conflict, and in a negative, rather than position, way. We also find that job satisfaction mediates these relationships, and that perceived organizational support moderates them. Lastly, although supervisor-rated job performance does not mediate the relationships as we expected, we do find strong evidence that calling is positively associated with job performance.