Ma Guangya, Wang Longmei, Sun Siwei, Lu Lei
School of Foreign Studies, Yiwu Industrial and Commercial College, Jinhua, China.
School of Economics and Management, Zhongshan Polytechnic, Zhongshan, China.
Front Psychol. 2025 Mar 20;16:1415426. doi: 10.3389/fpsyg.2025.1415426. eCollection 2025.
While the concept of career calling has garnered attention for its role in inspiring employees' sense of purpose and engagement, the literature on its developmental aspects, especially the influence of leadership styles, has not been fully paid attention to. Furthermore, the association between leadership styles and career calling still needs further exploration. Therefore, this study narrows this gap through testing the mediating role of belongingness in the relationship between inclusive leadership and career calling and its variation across different levels of organization-based self-esteem. Drawing upon the Need-to-Belong Theory, we propose a moderated mediation framework to elucidate the relationship and its variations between inclusive leadership and career calling among employees.
Data was collected from 337 employees across various industries in Guangdong, Zhejiang, and Beijing, China, using a two-wave lagged questionnaire. We used Inclusive Leadership-9, Belongingness-12, Organization-Based Self-Esteem-10 and Career Calling-12 measurement variables. Later, we used SPSS and PROCESS to verify five hypotheses.
Statistical testing revealed that (1) there is a positive relationship between inclusive leadership and career calling. (2) Belongingness plays a mediating role in the relationship between inclusive leadership and career calling. (3) Organization-based self-esteem moderates the association between inclusive leadership and career calling, both directly and indirectly through belongingness.
This study provides insights into the conversation about inclusive leadership and career calling, revealing a deeper understanding of the associations between leadership styles and employees' vocational fulfillment, and suggesting practical implications for encouraging an inclusive work environment that supports career development.
尽管职业使命感这一概念因其在激发员工使命感和敬业度方面的作用而受到关注，但其发展方面的文献，尤其是领导风格的影响，尚未得到充分关注。此外，领导风格与职业使命感之间的关联仍需进一步探索。因此，本研究通过检验归属感在包容性领导与职业使命感关系中的中介作用及其在不同组织自尊水平上的差异，缩小了这一差距。基于归属需求理论，我们提出了一个有调节的中介框架，以阐明员工中包容性领导与职业使命感之间的关系及其差异。
使用两阶段滞后问卷从中国广东、浙江和北京不同行业的337名员工中收集数据。我们使用了包容性领导-9、归属感-12、基于组织的自尊-10和职业使命感-12测量变量。随后，我们使用SPSS和PROCESS来验证五个假设。
统计检验表明：（1）包容性领导与职业使命感之间存在正相关关系。（2）归属感在包容性领导与职业使命感的关系中起中介作用。（3）基于组织的自尊直接或通过归属感间接调节包容性领导与职业使命感之间的关联。
本研究为关于包容性领导和职业使命感的讨论提供了见解，揭示了对领导风格与员工职业成就感之间关联的更深入理解，并为营造支持职业发展的包容性工作环境提出了实际建议。
