Sense of calling, job crafting, spiritual leadership and work meaningfulness: a moderated mediation model

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to examine the relationship between sense of calling and work meaningfulness with job crafting as a mediator and spiritual leadership as a moderator. Design/methodology/approach Adopting a three-wave procedure, data were collected from 333 participants across industries from Guangdong province, China. Findings Results indicate that job crafting partially mediates the relationship between employee sense of calling and work meaningfulness. Moreover, the positive relationship between job crafting and work meaningfulness is more significant when spiritual leadership is high than when it is low. Additionally, spiritual leadership moderates the indirect relationship of sense of calling and work meaningfulness through job crafting such that the indirect effect of sense of calling is stronger when spiritual leadership is high than when it is low. Originality/value Based on self-determination theory, this study adds to current literatures examining the importance of sense of calling on a person's career and explores the boundary conditions, which bring desirable outcomes.