CHAPTER 8
Emerging Perspectives: Calling, Meaning, and Volition

BRYAN J. DIK¹, MICHAEL F. STEGER¹, AND KELSEY L. AUTIN²

¹Colorado State University, Fort Collins, CO

²University of Wisconsin‐Milwaukee, Milwaukee, WI

Why do you do the work you do? Whether your answer involves meeting survival needs, finding a fit, implementing your vocational self‐concept, exercising personal agency, or some combination of these, you probably have a desired end in mind. Beyond a paycheck, does (or will) your work offer a sense of happiness, satisfaction, self‐esteem, contribution, success, personal growth, or meaning? At its best, work can produce outcomes like these. Vocational psychology has always acknowledged the diverse functions that work plays within the context of life, yet the field has traditionally emphasized a relatively limited range of outcomes, usually targeting job satisfaction and job performance (Fritzsche & Parrish, 2005; Russell, 2005).

In recent years, researchers have expanded their field of vision to target eudaimonic aspects of well‐being with the work domain as well, such as personal growth, meaningfulness, and altruism. These considerations serve as a foundation for human flourishing (Ryff & Singer, 1998) and offer a contrast to (although overlap with) hedonic or pleasure‐driven well‐being. Eudaimonic research has been especially vigorous on calling and meaningful work, both of which are more likely to emerge when people feel they are able to make career choices despite barriers and constraints, a construct known as work volition (Allan, Autin, & Duffy, 2016; Duffy, Autin, & Douglass, 2016). This chapter summarizes the emerging research, theory, and practice implications stemming from these three variables (i.e., calling, meaning, and volition).

Within the work domain, the term “calling” has been defined in diverse ways—more on that shortly—but usually refers to a sense of purpose that leads a person toward a personally fulfilling and socially significant engagement with work, sometimes with reference to a spiritual or religious perspective, sometimes to a sense of passion, and sometimes to altruistic values. This overlaps substantially with the notion of meaningful work, typically present when people understand what their work accomplishes and view it as significant (even of existential importance) and worthwhile. Calling and meaningful work research is often difficult to parse because some scholars define and measure calling in a way that is nearly synonymous with meaningful work. However, most recognize meaningful work as the broader construct, with calling representing a particular expression of meaningfulness. Work volition, by contrast, emerged from the psychology of working perspective (Blustein, 2006) and recognizes that many people experience severe constraints in their ability to make career choices. Work volition is usually considered a prerequisite to living a calling or experiencing meaningful work; that is, a sense of calling and meaningfulness are more likely when people feel they have the capacity to make choices (Allan et al., 2016; Duffy, Blustein, Diemer, & Autin, 2016).

Themes related to calling and meaningful work are indirectly and implicitly addressed by each of the major career development theories (Chen, 2001; Dik & Duffy, 2015). Person–environment fit theories, for example, encourage clients to satisfy interests and values and express strengths by choosing or modifying work environments to facilitate this (Hansen, 2013). Super's (1980) developmental theory focuses on the broader context in which career choices are made, and urges clients to successfully implement their occupational self‐concept, a process that naturally involves considering how work may contribute to a sense of purpose and meaning. Social cognitive career theory articulates how personal, behavioral, and environmental factors interact to influence well‐being broadly, including meaningfulness, though self‐efficacy, outcome expectations, and personal goals (Lent, 2013). Career construction theory proposes a meaning‐making strategy through which people can author their career stories “in ways that heed the call of the heart” (Hartung & Taber, 2013, p. 18). Finally, the psychology of working theory (PWT) proposes that “work fulfillment” is a distal outcome of decent work, which is itself predicated on work volition (Duffy, Blustein, et al., 2016). The theories offer helpful strategies for assisting clients in finding or creating satisfying work, and while work volition is a core PWT variable, none of the major career theories specifically address questions of work meaningfulness. As we explore next, new theory and counseling strategies are emerging from efforts to investigate these constructs.

WORK AS A CALLING

Work as a calling is one of the fastest‐growing areas of scholarly inquiry within vocational psychology and organizational behavior, rocketing from fewer than 10 published papers to more than 500 within the last 15 years. Although the idea that work can be pursued as a calling has a short past within the social sciences, it has a long cultural history, dating at least to the sixteenth century. That is when Martin Luther, the Protestant Reformer, established the view (controversial at the time) that any honest area of work can have spiritual significance, not only monastic life. As Weber (1904–1905/1958) and others (e.g., Hardy, 1990) noted, this perspective significantly shaped societal attitudes about work in Western thought during the intervening centuries. In recent decades, the notion of calling has surged in visibility, evidenced by an influx of popular books, websites, and consulting offerings. Furthermore, linguistic evidence suggests that use of the phrase “work as a calling” in English language printed material has risen tangibly since the 1950s and continues to rise; within the last decade, for example, its usage frequency is twice what it was between 1998 and 2008 (Thompson & Bunderson, 2019). Clearly, interest in the notion of work as a calling is building.

DEFINING AND MEASURING CALLING

Most research papers investigating calling now begin with acknowledgment that the term means different things to different people. In fact, no fewer than 14 distinct formal definitions are present in the literature (Thompson & Bunderson, 2019). Early studies of calling adopted the tripartite work orientation framework proposed by Bellah, Madsen, Sullivan, Swidler, and Tipton (1985) in their famous book Habits of the Heart. They suggested that people approach their work via one of three distinct orientations: job (i.e., a focus on financial rewards), career (i.e., a focus on achievement and advancement), or calling (i.e., a focus on meaningful, fulfilling work). Most research has since investigated calling on its own rather than as one of three orientations.

Bunderson and Thompson (2009) differentiated between “neoclassical” and “modern” definitions of calling. Neoclassical perspectives retain, but broaden, traditional understandings of the term derived from its historical, religious roots. For example, Dik and Duffy (2009) defined calling as a “transcendent summons” toward purposeful work that serves the greater good. This transcendent summons dimension is the most distinctive aspect of the calling construct (Brown & Lent, 2016). By contrast, modern conceptualizations frame calling as a secularized concept focused on self‐actualization and self‐fulfillment. For example, Dobrow and Tosti‐Kharas (2011) defined calling as “a consuming, meaningful passion people experience toward a domain” (p. 1005). Still other definitions fall somewhere between the poles of a continuum anchored by neoclassical and modern definitions. Nevertheless, the differences are often subtle and the overlap substantial.

In an effort to reorient the neoclassical/modern distinction, Thompson and Bunderson (2019) drew from an earlier characterization of calling by Abraham Maslow (1967) to suggest that the most powerful experiences of a calling reflect both the “inner requiredness” of self‐actualization emphasized by modern definitions and the “outer requiredness” of self‐transcendence emphasized by the neoclassical views. When both inner requiredness and outer requiredness are high, they argued, the result is a “transcendent calling.” Some authors have suggested that a common core (e.g., a sense of purpose) undergirds diverse calling definitions. This idea is consistent with evidence from cluster (Hirschi, 2011) and taxometric analyses (Shimizu, Dik, & Conner, 2019) indicating that people's sense of calling likely differs in degree rather than kind. Indeed, studies investigating correlates of calling have yielded remarkably consistent results despite the diverse ways calling is conceptualized (Dik & Shimizu, 2019).

The diverse definitions of calling also form the basis of different measures of the construct. For example, the definition of Wrzesniewski, McCauley, Rozin, and Schwartz (1997) gave rise to their single‐item calling paragraph; the three‐dimensional definition of Dik and Duffy (2009) undergirds their 24‐item, multidimensional Calling and Vocation Questionnaire (CVQ; Dik, Eldridge, Steger, & Duffy, 2012); and the definition of Dobrow and Tosti‐Kharas (2011) led to their unidimensional Calling Scale (CS). Only one study (Duffy, Autin, Allan, & Douglass, 2015) has directly compared these scales, along with two others: the Brief Calling Scale (BCS; Dik, Duffy, & Steger, 2012) and the Multidimensional Calling Measure (MCM; Hagmaier & Abele, 2012). Results from a sample of working U.S. adults revealed that scores on all five measures appear reliable, relate to work‐related outcomes in hypothesized directions, and are highly intercorrelated, although evidence on whether they load onto a single factor was mixed. They also found scores on the BCS and CVQ to serve as the best predictors of people's endorsements of having a calling, while the CS and MCM were stronger predictors of work outcomes such as work meaning, career commitment, and job satisfaction.

Scores on other measures of having a calling—such as the Neoclassical Calling Scale (NCS; Bunderson & Thompson, 2009), the Career Calling Scale (CCS; Praskova, Creed, & Hood, 2015), and the expansive, seven‐factor Unified Multidimensional Calling Scale (UMCS; Vianello, Dalla Rosa, Anselmi, & Galliani, 2018)—also demonstrate support for reliability and validity but were not included in the comparative study of Duffy, Austin, Allan and Douglass (2015). All of these instruments measure a person's sense of having a calling; two (BCS and CVQ) also assess people's search for a calling. As research on calling has evolved, measures of other aspects of the construct have been introduced as well, such as individuals' motivation to pursue a calling (the Calling Motivation Scale; Duffy, Bott, Allan, & Autin, 2015) and the extent to which people feel they are living a calling (Living a Calling Scale; Duffy, Bott, Allan, Torrey, & Dik, 2012).

RESEARCH ON CALLING

Social science research on calling has followed a natural progression. Early studies employed mainly cross‐sectional designs to establish associations between calling and numerous career‐related and general well‐being variables (e.g., Davidson & Caddell, 1994; Wrzesniewski et al., 1997). Most of these studies have also approached calling as a unidimensional construct by examining total scores rather than subscale scores. These studies offer a useful starting point, but cross‐sectional studies cannot be used to make causal inferences, and examining only total scores prevents a more nuanced understanding that incorporating the dimensions of calling (e.g., transcendent summons, purposeful work, prosocial orientation) could provide. Their limitations aside, these studies have consistently (but not universally) established calling as a construct associated with numerous benefits, a foundation on which ongoing research can build.

Correlates of calling.  People who perceive a calling tend to report numerous benefits within their careers, both in terms of general work attitudes (e.g., career decision self‐efficacy, career commitment, job satisfaction) and performance. This general pattern of results has been demonstrated globally, as samples from more than 20 nations are now represented in the literature (e.g., Goldfarb, 2018; Hagmaier & Abele, 2012; Praskova, Hood, & Creed, 2014; Rothmann & Hamukang'andu, 2013; Shim & Yoo, 2012; Zhang, Dik, Wei, & Zhang, 2015). For example, among students, a sense of calling is moderately‐to‐strongly positively associated with academic satisfaction (Duffy, Allan, & Dik, 2011). Other research with students has found a sense of calling to relate positively with occupational self‐efficacy, or confidence in handling job‐related tasks (Domene, 2012; Hirschi & Herrmann, 2013), and career decision self‐efficacy, or confidence in successfully navigating the career decision process (Dik, Sargent, & Steger, 2008). Those with a calling also report greater career choice comfort, occupational importance, intrinsic work motivation, work meaning, and career adaptability (e.g., Dik, Duffy, & Steger, 2012; Douglass & Duffy, 2015; Duffy & Sedlacek, 2007). Such studies paint a picture in which students with a calling generally feel comfortable and confident in making career decisions, and have a strong readiness for coping with challenges. However, it bears repeating: causal directions cannot be inferred from cross‐sectional studies. A sense of calling may cause, and/or be caused by, these variables; all of them may also be influenced by third variables not assessed in these studies.

Among working adults, perceiving a calling is consistently positively associated with job satisfaction, with correlations using the CVQ typically in the .3–.5 range. Working adults with a stronger sense of calling also tend to express stronger attachments to their organizations (Duffy, Dik, & Steger, 2011) and occupations (Bunderson & Thompson, 2009). They also report lower burnout (Yoon, Daley, & Curlin, 2017) and lower turnover intentions (e.g., Cardador, Dane, & Pratt, 2011). There is far less research on job performance than on job attitudes, but initial evidence with a sample of salespersons suggests that living a calling is positively associated with total sales commissions (Park, Sohn, & Ha, 2016). Other studies, albeit using self‐report ratings, have found a sense of calling to correlate positively with task and contextual performance (Lee, Chen, & Chang, 2018), career success (Chen et al., 2016), employability (Lysova, Jansen, Khapova, Plomp, & Tims, 2018), and professional competence (Guo, Guan, Yang, Xu, Zhou, et al., 2014). Workers with a calling, compared to other workers, also miss fewer days (Wrzesniewski et al., 1997), put in more effort (Praskova et al., 2014), work more hours (Clinton, Conway, & Sturges 2017), are more willing to make sacrifices for their work (Schabram & Matlis, 2017), and engage in more supervisor‐reported organizational citizenship behaviors (Xie, Xia, Xin, & Zhou, 2016). The evidence suggests that workers with callings likely offer substantial benefit to organizations.

Approaching work as a calling is also linked to overall psychological well‐being. Numerous studies have found positive, moderate‐to‐strong correlations between perceiving a calling and meaning in life (e.g., Dik, Duffy, & Steger, 2012). A sense of calling is also linked with greater enthusiasm and zest (Peterson, Park, Hall, & Seligman, 2009), greater self‐rated health and health satisfaction (Wrzesniewski et al., 1997), lower emotional exhaustion (Rawat & Nadavulakere, 2015), greater psychological adjustment (Steger, Pickering, Shin, & Dik, 2010), and greater affective well‐being (Conway, Clinton, Sturges, & Budjanovcanin, 2015). This evidence suggests a possible spillover from pursuing a calling in work to experiencing well‐being in life generally. Indeed, one study found that people seeking meaning in life are more likely to experience meaning when they viewed their work as a calling (Steger & Dik, 2009).

Mechanisms linking perceptions of calling to criterion variables.  As consistent links were established between calling and career‐related and general well‐being, researchers began to investigate the mechanisms underlying those relations. As is summarized in recent reviews (e.g., Dik, Reed, Shimizu, Marsh, & Morse, 2019; Duffy, Dik, Douglass, England, & Velez, 2018; Thompson & Bunderson, 2019), several variables moderate the link between calling and positive criterion variables, including core self‐evaluations, motivation to pursue a calling, nationality, self‐transcendent goals, and self‐identified source of a calling (e.g., external summons, destiny, or perfect fit). An even wider range of variables has been found to mediate the relation between calling and criterion variables. These include academic satisfaction, emotional regulation, engagement orientation, intrinsic and identified motivation, self‐congruence, career goal self‐efficacy, self‐efficacy for handling job‐related tasks, strengths use, work effort, work hope, vocational identity achievement, and organizational instrumentality. Among the most consistently supported mediators are work meaningfulness and career commitment, which have been found to explain the links between calling and work engagement and job satisfaction in several studies (e.g., Duffy, Dik, & Steger, 2011; Hirschi, 2012; Steger et al., 2010). They reveal a pattern in which a sense of calling is linked to positive outcomes because those with a sense of calling experience meaning in, and feel more attached to, their work. These experiences of meaningfulness and commitment are also associated with engagement and satisfaction.

Perhaps the most important mediating variable to date is the construct of living a calling. Nearly half of college students and working adults in the United States resonate with the notion that their work is a calling (Duffy & Sedlacek, 2007; White, 2018), but fewer people feel they are living their calling in their current job. In part, this is because not everyone with a calling has access to educational and employment opportunities through which they can live it out. Indeed, income and education levels positively predict living a calling, but are unrelated to perceiving one (e.g., Duffy & Autin, 2013). Correlations between perceiving and living a calling range from .35 to .54 across studies, suggesting that the constructs overlap, yet are distinct. Evidence also suggests that living a calling is a stronger predictor of positive outcomes than is perceiving a calling, and fully mediates the link between perceiving a calling and outcomes (e.g., Duffy, Allan, Autin, & Bott, 2013). In sum, people with a sense of calling often experience positive outcomes, and a key reason is that many (but not all) find or create ways to live out their calling.

Over time, longitudinal designs have started to tease out the causal directions between calling and criterion variables. Several studies have found that calling predicts work‐related well‐being and behavioral outcomes over time (e.g., Dobrow & Tosti‐Kharas, 2011; Hirschi & Herrmann, 2012; Praskova et al., 2014). However, studies that have examined more than two time points have found that the causal arrows between calling and positive criterion variables often point in both directions. For example, one study of undergraduate students found that calling predicted an increase in career planning and self‐efficacy for handling job‐related tasks, which in turn predicted an increase in calling (Hirschi & Herrmann, 2013).

Still other studies suggest that calling may function better as an outcome than as a predictor. One examined the link between calling and authenticity and found authentic living led to increases in a sense of calling, but the reverse was not true; an increase in a sense of calling predicted a decrease in authentic living, perhaps because participants were students who were not yet working in their chosen field (Zhang, Hirschi, Dik, Wei, & You, 2018). Another study, this one with working adults, found that work meaningfulness and living a calling affected each other reciprocally over three time points, although work meaning functioned more effectively as a predictor than as an outcome of calling (Duffy et al., 2014). Finally, a recent study of students found that across three time points, calling was predicted by engaged learning, clarity of professional identity, and social support, but the reverse did not hold. This suggests that students who are engaged in their learning, have a clearer sense of their career path, and are well‐supported are more likely to develop a sense of calling over time (Dalla Rosa, Vianello, & Anselmi, 2019).

Qualitative studies.  A small proportion of studies on calling—roughly 10%—have used qualitative methods (Thompson & Bunderson, 2019). Most of these consist of interviews with participants representing a specific group of individuals who already perceive or are living out a calling, such as students (French & Domene, 2010), counseling psychologists (Duffy, Foley, et al., 2012), physicians (Bott et al., 2017), working mothers in academia (Sellers, Thomas, Batts, & Ostman, 2005), animal care workers (Schabram & Maitlis, 2017), zookeepers (Bunderson & Thompson, 2009), and career changers (Ahn, Dik, & Hornback, 2017). Qualitative research provides a thick description of the complex lived experience of individuals, offering nuanced insights that cannot test theories but are useful in generating them. Qualitative studies in the calling literature have generally aligned with results from quantitative research, highlighting the positive work and well‐being outcomes for individuals and describing their effort and dedication. However, new directions for research have also emerged from qualitative studies, such as the “double‐edged” nature of calling in which the positives are balanced by difficult sacrifices (Bunderson & Thompson, 2009; Schabram & Maitlis, 2017), and unfulfilled callings that cause regret and consternation (Berg, Grant, & Johnson, 2010). This “dark side” of calling has become a fruitful topic of subsequent quantitative research (e.g., Gazica & Spector, 2015).

WORK AS A CALLING THEORY (WCT)

In many areas of psychology, theories are articulated and then subsequently tested by programs of research. Scholarship on calling has followed the reverse path, with research rapidly accumulating without an overarching theory to guide it. Only recently has a formal theory emerged, one that pulls together consistent patterns of results in the calling literature into an integrative model while also proposing new research directions. This work as a calling theory (WCT; Duffy, Autin, England, Douglass, & Gensmer, 2018) frames perceiving a calling as a predictor of work outcomes, positive and negative, with living a calling positioned as the key mediating variable (see Figure 8.1).

More specifically, WCT summarizes research described earlier in this chapter by postulating that perceiving a calling is linked to job satisfaction and job performance through living a calling. The rest of the theory builds around this core mediating relationship. According to the theory, the association between perceiving a calling and living a calling is also mediated—by work meaningfulness and career commitment. Perceiving a calling also predicts work meaningfulness and career commitment directly, but also indirectly through person–environment fit. This link between perceiving a calling and P–E fit, in turn, is moderated by three variables: one's motivation to express a calling, one's expression of job crafting behaviors, and the level of organizational support a person receives. People's access to opportunity also is proposed to influence work meaning, career commitment, and living a calling.

FIGURE 8.1 Solid lines indicate proposed positive associations.

Source: From Duffy, R. D., Dik, B. J., Douglass, R. P., England, J. W., Velez, B. L. (2018). Work as a calling: A theoretical model. Journal of Counseling Psychology, 65, 423-439. © 2018 American Psychological Association. Reprinted with permission of American Psychological Association

The theory proposes that living a calling is directly linked to job satisfaction and job performance, but that in some circumstances negative outcomes can result as well. For example, some individuals who are living a calling may rationalize an overinvestment in their work, resulting in workaholism and, eventually, burnout. Others, because of their high levels of intrinsic motivation, may be subject to exploitation on the part of unscrupulous employers. (Identifying a possible “tipping point” where the positive outcomes give way to negatives is an important and fascinating topic for future research to address). These negative outcomes are postulated, naturally, to negatively influence job satisfaction and performance. Finally, the theory proposes that the strength of the relationship between living a calling and negative outcomes varies as a function of personality factors (e.g., Big Five traits, perfectionism, high need for achievement, low self‐esteem) and the psychological climate within the workplace.

Much of WCT was informed by existing evidence, but the theory also presents numerous new testable hypotheses to drive further research. In an initial test of the predictor side of the model, examining the proposed mediator and moderator relationships that link perceiving and living a calling, full (17) and partial (1) support was found for 18 of 20 WCT propositions, providing overall strong support for this part of the model (Duffy, Douglass, Gensmer, England, & Kim, 2019). Additional research is obviously needed to replicate this study and test the remaining portions of the model. Notably, WCT targets only the pathways between perceiving a calling and outcomes; it does not address the processes people may go through to perceive a calling, another important question for research to address. Also, as currently proposed, WCT suggests that living a calling leads to satisfaction and performance, but research should also test the reverse path, and the possibility of mutual causation. Furthermore, contextual factors are only indirectly addressed in the theory. Exploring the role of cultural influences is another need for future research, one likely to be addressed as international scholarship on calling continues to grow. Finally, the theory is focused on traditional work‐related outcomes experienced within the career domain. Expanding these outcomes, examining general well‐being, and developing theory for how callings are experienced and expressed within other life domains (e.g., parenting, retirement, leisure, voluntarism) represent other promising future directions.

MEANINGFUL WORK

Contemporary social science scholarship on meaningful work begins with the assumption that work is an important pillar of a fulfilling life. Despite generally agreeing with this premise, researchers have advanced diverse definitions of meaningful work. Most seem to have emerged from efforts to measure the construct, rather than directly from theory. Perhaps the most satisfying theoretical definition argues that to be meaningful, work must create a subjective sense of meaningfulness in a worker and also be judged, morally or ethically, to have significance beyond the individual worker (Yeoman, Bailey, Madden & Thompson, 2019). Adopting this perspective, the study of meaningful work not only needs to account for whether careers offer normatively desirable psychological (e.g., autonomy, respect) and structural (e.g., freedom, safety) goods, but also whether the nature of the work creates ethical or moral benefits.

Earlier conceptualizations of meaningful work contrasted with this view, focusing instead on whether people experienced their specific work activities as important or useful. For example, Heim (2010) noted the important contributions of Swiss psychiatrist Auguste Forel, who incorporated meaningful work into treatment for individuals suffering from psychiatric disorders in the 1910s–1920s. Meaningful work in this case was framed simply as spending time performing tasks that were reasonably enjoyable and that resulted in some identifiable product or outcome. In other words, meaningful work was more or less the opposite of pointless busywork.

Most recent scholarship on meaningful work conceptualizes the concept broadly, as people's pursuit of personally meaningful career and occupational lives, and not just simple job tasks. This approach emphasizes the importance of grounding meaningful work in one's own values, strengths, motivations, and interests, yet increasingly scholars also acknowledge the importance of context. While a basic psychological definition of meaningful work puts individual perceptions in the driver's seat—e.g., “work that that is personally significant and worthwhile” (Lysova, Dik, Allan, Duffy, & Steger, 2019, p. 2)—a more comprehensive conceptual treatment of meaningful work also considers contextual factors such as social justice, access to decent work, the ethical and moral outcomes of completed work or organizational activity, and factors such as class, race, and sex. Despite such acknowledgments of context, contemporary meaningful work research continues to heavily prioritize the individual's own subjective judgment of whether one's work is meaningful.

MEANINGFUL WORK SCHOLARSHIP

Perhaps the strong psychological emphasis on the subjective experience of meaningful work in research is not surprising given that its earliest history derives from psychiatry (e.g., Forel, described in the preceding section). While this psychological emphasis has remained constant, the scope of meaningful work research has expanded substantially. Meaningful work first began to receive serious scrutiny when it was brought into business and management scholarship as a positive psychological state mediating between fairly objective job characteristics and both performance and job satisfaction (i.e., job characteristics model; Hackman & Oldham, 1976). The influential model of Hackman and Oldham borrowed the early twentieth‐century view of meaningful work arising from fairly simplistic “task characteristics,” which could be tweaked. This model dominated meaningful work research until the late 1990s when Wrzesniewski et al. (1997) drew on the related concept of calling to present an idea of meaningful work that placed meaningful work in relationship to people's whole life.

Despite referring to “calling,” Wrzesniewski's ideas did not include classical hallmarks of the calling construct, specifically a transcendent summons. Instead, Wrzesniewski described a state of finding work to be pleasing, feeling good about work, loving work, feeling it is a vital part of who one is, believing one's work makes the world a better place, bringing one's work home, finding social needs to pivot around work, and even feeling upset if one was forced to stop working even through retirement. Although this sweeping characterization entangles meaningful work with other similar constructs, its main contributions were to clarify that the inputs to meaningful work are much bigger than simple task characteristics and the potential outcomes of meaningful work are much more encompassing than job satisfaction and performance. Indeed, this kind of meaningful work could be a foundation for well‐being and social contribution.

There is substantial continuity between Wrzesniewski's characterization of meaningful work (vis‐à‐vis calling) and current meaningful work scholarship, with new approaches generally offering refinements rather than refutations. Chalofsky (2003) synthesized the existing literature to identify three core components of meaningful work: (a) sense of one's whole self, purpose, and potential brought to work; (b) sense of balance among multiple aspects of self with work; and (c) the work itself as an act of autonomous challenge and execution of one's purpose. Lips‐Wiersma and Morris (2009) as well as Rosso, Dekas, and Wrzesniewski (2010) carried forward Chalofsky's themes of developing and using one's self in work and balancing one's own needs with those of others. Lips‐Wiersma and Morris (2009) conducted action research investigating four dimensions of meaningful work that had emerged in previous qualitative work. They gathered comments regarding expressing the self, developing and becoming the self, unity with others, and expressing full potential. Rosso and colleagues added a distinction between whether one's work activities are directed at one's self, or at others, which might include the idea that one's work makes the world a better place. Steger, Dik, and Duffy (2012) bridged older and newer theories to incorporate the degree to which people find sense and purpose in their work activities, as well as how they achieve fit between their overall life and work, and how they see their work contributing to the greater good.

At present, there is no single theory of meaningful work that guides the field, but there are strong family resemblances for how meaningful work is characterized. We suggest that current scholarship makes three primary claims about meaningful work. First, meaningful work retains the early functional emphasis on job tasks that have an ample degree of utility and purpose. Second, meaningful work includes strong emphasis on the psychological experience of meaningfulness, such that work comes to be viewed as a key way for someone to express their true selves, sustain intrinsic motivation, and strive toward their full potential. Third, meaningful work includes moral and ethical claims on the importance of joining with others and the ability of work to enact benefits beyond the self, to make the world a better place.

RESEARCH ON MEANINGFUL WORK

Measures of meaningful work.  Measures of meaningful work can be categorized as unidimensional or multidimensional. The oldest and most prominent unidimensional measure of meaningful work was developed to support the job characteristics model. Hackman and Oldham introduced a measure to assess meaningful work, which they described as how meaningful, valuable, and worthwhile employees perceived their job to be (Job Diagnostic Survey (JDS), Hackman & Oldham, 1975). This four‐item measure asks about both respondent perceptions and perceived coworker perceptions on two items (i.e., job tasks are trivial or useless, and work is meaningful). These items formed the foundation for two other measures: Spreitzer's (1995) meaning subscale, and the meaningful work scale of May, Gilson, and Harter (2004). The scores on the latter measure have good internal consistency (α = .90), and its items gauge perceptions of work as important and meaningful, and work tasks as significant, worthwhile, valuable, and meaningful. Unfortunately, there has been very little psychometric evaluation of this measure, and most job characteristics model research has not included it, or has used proxies for meaningful work. Two other unidimensional measures have been published by Arnold, Turner, Barling, Kelloway, and McKee (2007) and Treadgold (1999). Both have acceptable internal consistency, but as with other unidimensional measures, no systematic psychometric evaluations have been conducted, so it is unknown whether they are indeed unidimensional or how they perform across cultures.

Multidimensional measures have generally been developed using more rigorous methods, including superior reporting of psychometric properties. Lips‐Wiersma, building on earlier qualitative research, developed a seven‐dimensional Comprehensive Meaningful Work Scale (CMWS; Lips‐Wiersma & Wright, 2012). The factor structure of the CMWS was demonstrated through a process of exploratory and confirmatory factor analyses and winnowing of items, resulting in 28. Its seven dimensions are unity with others, serving others, expressing one's full potential, developing and becoming one's self, reality, inspiration, and balancing tensions among competing motivations. The CMWS has the advantage of reflecting interesting qualitative research on how workers view meaning, but the reported fit indices for the final model are poor, indicating that the subscales may not reflect a stable number or configuration of dimensions. Further refinement of this promising measure would be ideal. Steger et al. (2012) developed the Work and Meaning Inventory (WAMI), a 10‐item measure assessing three dimensions: positive meaning at work; meaning‐making through work, and greater good motivations. Its three dimensions were established through a literature review and exploratory and confirmatory factor analysis. The WAMI appears to be psychometrically sound (Both‐Nwabuwe, Dijkstra, & Beersma, 2017), has been translated and used in multiple languages and countries, and is the most widely used of the multidimensional meaningful work measures (Bailey, Yeoman, Madden, Thompson, & Kerridge, 2019).

In sum, those interested in studying meaningful work have numerous choices to measure the construct, each of which shares a core focus on people's experiences of meaningfulness in their work. Some unidimensional scales include additional content on the importance of work (e.g., May et al., 2004) or work in the service of a higher good (e.g., Arnold et al., 2007), and multidimensional scales include a range of additional content thought to be conceptually fundamental to meaningful work. Of all existing measures, only the multidimensional WAMI (Steger et al., 2012) shows evidence of robust psychometric properties.

Basic research.  Along with a new generation of measurement tools, public attention to meaningful work has seemed to bloom, inspiring new research around the world. Following an influential white paper published by Kelly Services in 2009, consulting companies began releasing other white papers describing the performance and motivation benefits of meaningful work (sometimes referred to as purpose at work). Following the lead of global management and human resource consultants, the pace of published research increased. According to Web of Science, citations on meaningful work have risen from 183 in 1997, when Wrzesniewski's seminal paper appeared, to 698 in 2009, when the Kelly Services white paper appeared, to 2185 in 2018. Several detailed reviews of this research are available (e.g., Bailey et al., 2019; Lysova et al., 2018; Steger, 2017, 2019), as is a handbook (Madden, Yeoman, Bailey, & Thompson, 2019) and a more practitioner‐oriented academic book (Dik, Byrne, & Steger, 2013). The purpose of the present review is to provide a sense of the breadth of this research, along with the most common results.

Research has linked meaningful work to a host of desirable individual and organizational variables. At the most obvious level, people report positive attitudes toward work they judge to be meaningful. For example, people who view their work to be meaningful are more satisfied with their work (Kamdron, 2005; Sparks & Schenk, 2001), see work as more valuable and central (e.g., Harpaz & Fu, 2002; Nord, Brief, Atieh, & Doherty, 1990), are more engaged (e.g., Johnson & Jiang, 2017; Steger, Littman‐Ovadia, Miller, Menger, & Rothmann, 2013), feel more creative (Cohen‐Meitar, Carmeli, & Waldman, 2009), involved, and committed (Leiter & Harvie, 1997; Montani, Boudrias, & Pigeon, 2017), and are more intrinsically motivated in their work (Johns, Xie, & Fang, 1992; Steger et al., 2012). Meaningful work also is associated with lower absenteeism (Soane et al., 2013; Steger et al., 2012) and intentions to leave one's job (Fairlie, 2011; Steger et al., 2012). More research is needed to evaluate whether perceptions of meaningful work cause or are caused by each of these variables, or whether mutual causation or third variables are at work.

Research also suggests that people who experience meaningful work contribute to the overall climate of workplaces, via organizational citizenship behaviors (e.g., Chen & Li, 2013; Steger et al., 2012) and greater commitment to their employers and their professions (Steger et al., 2012). Such positive climates often result from effective leadership. Several specific leadership styles have been linked to meaningful work, too. For example, meaningful work is higher among people who perceive their leaders to use transformational leadership (e.g., Judge & Piccolo, 2004), spiritual leadership (Duchon & Plowman, 2005), or participative and constructive management approaches (e.g., McCrae, Boreham, & Ferguson, 2011). The measures used in these leadership studies shared a core emphasis on work being experienced as meaningful, although the study on spiritual leadership used a measure of meaningful work that included additional emphasis on joy and contributing to the greater good.

Finally, a significant proportion of research on meaningful work has examined its association with overall well‐being. Several studies have reported correlations between meaningful work and greater meaning in life (e.g., Steger et al., 2010), life satisfaction (Douglass, Duffy, & Autin, 2016), well‐being (Arnold et al., 2007), positive emotions (e.g., Steger et al., 2013), and resilience (Van Windgerden & Poell, 2019), and lower levels of stress and depression (Daniel, 2015). Furthermore, several studies have linked meaningful work to healthier work–life balance (e.g., McCrae et al., 2011; Tummers & Knies, 2013). Most of this research used the WAMI to measure meaningful work.

Whether researchers have used the WAMI or other measures, they have consistently found positive correlations between meaningful work and well‐being, work satisfaction, and work commitment. The mechanisms by which meaningful work is linked to these variables are less well‐known. According to theory, meaningful work benefits individuals and supports greater commitment and performance at work for at least three reasons: (a) meaningful work is centrally linked to one's identity; (b) meaningful work is a means through which people pursue their life purpose and make a difference in the world; and (c) people are intrinsically motivated when engaged in meaningful work, helping to sustain effort over the long term and rewarding progress with greater well‐being (e.g., Steger, 2017). However, little research has tested such assumptions, aside from estimating indirect effects within cross‐sectional studies. In an exception to the cross‐sectional approach, one longitudinal study demonstrated that practices intended to increase the meaningfulness of work can be successful. Specifically, workers who used their strengths, and those who engaged in job crafting to better meet the demands of their work, reported higher levels of meaningful work (Tims, Derks, & Bakker, 2016).

WORK VOLITION

When considering issues of living a calling or experiencing meaningful work, a pivotal question is the extent to which people possess the volition to pursue such work. That is, although some may feel called to meaningful work, many lack resources and power that would allow them the freedom to choose that path (Blustein, 2006). Scholars define work volition as one's perceived freedom of work choice despite barriers (Duffy, Diemer, Perry, Lorenzi, & Torrey, 2012). The construct has garnered focus in vocational psychology, as the field has increasingly emphasized the role of privilege in making career choices. Historically dominant career development theories (e.g., person–environment fit theories, social cognitive career theory, career construction theory) emphasize agentic action on the part of the individual (Blustein, 2006). These theories acknowledge and identify contextual factors as important to the career development process to varying extents, but in more recent theory development (e.g., PWT; Duffy, Blustein, et al., 2016), scholars have positioned these factors as central driving forces in explaining in career outcomes. Accordingly, scholars have integrated work volition and related constructs more explicitly to augment traditional research paradigms focused on matching one's interests, skills, goals, and values to a complementary occupation.

The construct of work volition is embedded in questions of power and privilege (Blustein, 2006; Duffy, Bott, Allan, et al., 2012). Although highly privileged people might certainly feel constrained in their career choices (e.g., a highly paid White male bound by “golden handcuffs” to an unsatisfying job), the systemic oppression of those with marginalized identities (e.g., women, people of color, LGBQ and trans populations) was the driving force in work volition's theoretical development (Blustein, 2006). Although these populations have been of interest to work volition scholars because of the structural and economic barriers they often face, work volition is not synonymous with barriers. Specifically, structural barriers are theorized as predictors, whereas work volition is the perception of work choice despite barriers, and is hypothesized to be influenced by within‐person inputs as well (e.g., global personality traits, occupational self‐efficacy, core self‐evaluations; Duffy, Bott, Allan et al., 2012).

WORK VOLITION AND THEORY

Inclusion of work volition in career development models gained traction when volition was presented as a key variable in the psychology of working framework (PWF; Blustein, 2006; Blustein, 2013). The PWF is a comprehensive framework of career development largely grounded in the critique that extant vocational theories are biased toward the privileged (e.g., college‐educated middle and upper classes). The PWF forms the basis of PWT (Duffy, Blustein, et al., 2016), which proposes both predictors (e.g., marginalization, economic constraints) and outcomes (e.g., fulfillment of basic needs, subjective well‐being) of decent work. Within PWT, work volition is placed as a direct predictor of decent work and a key mediator in the relation of contextual barriers with decent work (see Blustein & Duffy, Chapter 7, this volume, for a detailed review of PWT). Specifically, work volition is theorized to mediate the relation from both economic constraints and experiences of marginalization to decent work. In other words, from PWT's perspective, one reason why contextual factors predict decent work is because they impact people's perceptions about their freedom to choose their work (Duffy, Blustein, et al., 2016).

Although research is only beginning to study them, the underlying mechanisms within this chain of variables are likely complex and multidimensional. For example, a Black woman from a low socioeconomic status (SES) background might face structural and economic barriers (e.g., lack of financial resources for higher education), environmental barriers (e.g., few Black women in her field of interest), interpersonal barriers (e.g., others underestimating her academic ability due to racial stereotypes), and intrapersonal barriers (e.g., internalized racist beliefs), all of which are mechanisms of marginalization. However, she might also draw strength from a highly supportive family (social support), possess a critical understanding of her social context and how best to advocate for herself and others like her (critical consciousness), have a tendency toward personal initiative (proactive personality), and live in a region with a robust economy (economic conditions). Clearly, complex predictive pathways at individual, interpersonal, and institutional levels must be considered when studying how contextual variables and work volition are linked.

RESEARCH ON WORK VOLITION

Measures of work volition.  Measures of work volition are available for both working adult and college student populations, given the differences in the developmental tasks faced by each. Specifically, the Work Volition Scale (Duffy, Diemer, Perry, et al., 2012) uses present‐oriented items and the Work Volition Scale (student version) (Duffy, Diemer, & Jadidian, 2012) uses future‐oriented items. Both scales measure both volition and constraints to volition.

The Work Volition Scale consists of three subscales: volition (i.e., one's perceived general capacity to make career choices), financial constraints (i.e., one's perceived capacity to make career choices in the face of financial barriers), and structural constraints (i.e., one's perceived capacity to make career choices in the face of structural barriers). The student version contains two subscales: a volition subscale (e.g., “Once I enter the work world, I will easily find a new job if I want to”) and a constraints subscale (e.g., “I feel that my family situation limits the types of jobs I might pursue”). In the initial validation studies, scores on both instruments demonstrated evidence of reliability (e.g., Cronbach's alphas ranging from .70 to .89 for subscale scores and .86–.92 for total scores) and validity (e.g., construct validity, incremental validity). For example, scores on the Work Volition Scale correlated in expected directions with work locus of control, core self‐evaluations, adaptive personality traits, career barriers, and career compromise. Scale scores also explained variance in job satisfaction above and beyond established predictors (e.g., core self‐evaluations, work locus of control, and personality traits; Duffy, Diemer, Perry, et al., 2012). Scores on the student version correlated in expected directions with career decision self‐efficacy, core self‐evaluations, career locus of control, career barriers, and the Big Five personality traits (Duffy, Diemer, & Jadidian, 2012).

Basic research.  Along with the recent theoretical development of the work volition construct, dozens of studies have been conducted. This empirical work has focused on three primary areas: predictors of work volition, work volition as a mediator of privilege, and work volition as a predictor of work fulfillment (e.g., job satisfaction, meaningful work).

Given the theorized correlation in both external and within‐person inputs to work volition, empirical studies have tested predictors that tap into both of these categories. As a whole, findings have supported the idea that work volition is a product of complex relations between individuals and their environments. For example, studies examining work volition in college students have found nuanced relations between within‐person and environmental variables. Duffy, Douglass, Autin, and Allan (2016) examined demographic characteristics, positive affect, sense of control, and career barriers as predictors. Of these, social class, career barriers, and sense of control demonstrated the most predictive power. Furthermore, the authors found that, whereas work volition acted as a unidimensional predictor of sense of control over time, it had reciprocal relations with career barriers and was predicted by, but not predictive of, social class. In other words, results provided temporal evidence that having a lower social class background and greater likelihood of future career barriers resulted in lower levels of work volition and, in turn, a decreased sense of control over time. Career barriers also predicted work volition in a reciprocal fashion, suggesting that these variables predict each other over time. A study examining work volition among university students in the United States and Hong Kong found similar results, with psychological resources and career‐related resources acting as both predictors and moderators of work volition. Finally, a study of university students in Turkey revealed that proactive personality predicted both work volition and constraints (Büyükgöze, 2018), highlighting the role that personality may play in the perception of work choice.

Studies in non‐student adult populations offer additional support for the dynamic interplay of within‐person and external variables in predicting work volition (Cheung, Wu, & Yeung, 2016; Duffy, Jadidian, Douglass, & Allan, 2015). For example, one study found that U.S. military veterans reported greater levels of work volition if they had higher levels of education, higher incomes, were married, and were employed (Duffy, Autin, & Bott, 2015). Beyond these contextual variables, within‐person inputs that were associated with work volition included fewer posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) symptoms, lower levels of neuroticism, higher levels of conscientiousness, and higher internal locus of control. Although much more research is needed to have a complete picture of what might lead to high levels of work volition, it is likely that predictors of this variable are diverse, multidimensional, and vary by population.

Another area that has received a great deal of attention is work volition as a mediating variable between socioeconomic privilege and work outcomes. PWT hypothesizes work volition as a mediator in the link from economic constraints and marginalization to decent work (Duffy, Blustein, et al., 2016). How marginalization is operationalized has varied across studies based on the particular population of interest. However, these studies have consistently shown that indicators of economic constraints and marginalization are reliable predictors of work volition and that work volition is, in turn, highly predictive of decent work. These results provide evidence that work volition is a key mechanism in explaining why people from socially and economically marginalized backgrounds are less likely to access decent work. This same pattern of results has been demonstrated in ethnic (Duffy, Velez, England, Autin, Douglass, et al., 2018), sexual (Allan, Tebbe, Bouchard, & Duffy, 2019) and gender minority populations (Tebbe, Allan, & Bell, 2019), as well as in a sample of people with Chiari malformation (Tokar & Kaut, 2018). The model positioning work volition as a mediator between indicators of socioeconomic privilege and decent work also has been demonstrated cross‐culturally in the United States (e.g., Tebbe et al., 2019), China (Wang et al., in press), Switzerland (Masdonati, Schreiber, Marcionetti, & Rossier, 2019), and Korea (Kim, Duffy, Lee, Lee, & Lee, 2019).

In addition to evidence supporting work volition as a predictor of decent work, there is a modest body of research documenting its role in predicting meaningful work and living a calling. Similar to the positioning of work volition as an antecedent of decent work, scholars studying eudaimonic aspects of working have argued that to pursue fulfilling work, one must have sufficient volition to do so. This notion has been supported by research testing the relations between work volition, calling, and meaningful work. For example, Duffy and Autin (2013) found that, although people across education and income backgrounds were equally likely to discern a calling, those who were more highly educated and with higher incomes were more likely to endorse living their calling. These results were replicated and extended with longitudinal data showing that work volition is an important mediator explaining why those with higher social class backgrounds are more likely to agree they are living a calling (Duffy, Autin, et al., 2018). Evidence also shows that one reason why work volition is a strong predictor of meaningful work is because more work volition allows people to feel a greater sense of internal motivation toward their work (Allan et al., 2016). Researchers have also shown work volition to be a direct predictor, moderator, and mediator of job satisfaction (Duffy, Autin, & Bott, 2015; Duffy, Bott, Torrey, & Webster, 2013) and academic satisfaction (Jadidian & Duffy, 2012). These significant predictive relations to meaningful work, calling, and satisfaction suggest that work volition may be an underlying mechanism for general well‐being in the workplace as well as a pathway to specific aspects of fulfilling work.

CALLING, MEANING, VOLITION, AND CAREER COUNSELING

A sense of calling and meaningful work have been linked repeatedly with a wide range of highly consequential individual and organizational variables of interest. As multidimensional variables that may integrate diverse aspects of human flourishing beyond the workplace (e.g., sense of self, well‐being, organizational identification, altruism, generativity, meaning in life), calling and meaningful work warrant close attention in career counseling. Calling and meaningful work are both tied to existential concerns, focus on eudaimonic more so than hedonic well‐being, and value making contributions to the common good or societal well‐being.

These distinctions inform three overarching goals for career intervention intended to foster a sense of calling and increase meaningful work (Dik & Duffy, 2015). A first goal is to explore the relationship between clients' career development and matters of existential importance. For example, given the ties of calling to religious traditions (Cahalan & Schuurman, 2016), for clients who operate from a religious or spiritual worldview, the concept of calling may offer a mechanism for integrating faith and work in a way that promotes coherence and wholeness (Hardy, 1990). Similarly, for nonreligious clients who are oriented to existential questions, discerning and living a calling—or examining the meaning of work within the context of life—can link one's global meaning framework to the day‐to‐day experience of meaning within one's work. A second goal is to target eudaimonic well‐being primarily and hedonic well‐being secondarily. Eudaimonic well‐being can be powerful; meaningfulness buffers against depression and anxiety and promotes numerous indicators of healthy psychological functioning (Steger, Frazier, Oishi, & Kaler, 2006). Third, career counseling that targets calling and meaning actively promotes prosocial values in career development. This involves encouraging clients to explore how their work activity might have a positive impact on the world around them. Some readers may wonder if this approach is ethical, tantamount to imposing counselor values on clients. There was a time when value neutrality was considered a goal in counseling, but it is now widely recognized that the counseling process is inherently value‐laden (e.g., Patterson, 1989). The ethical principle of beneficence (i.e., to do good and help others) requires that counselors and clients clarify what constitutes a good outcome (Tjeltveit, 2006), which is rooted in beliefs about the good life and good society, all matters that should be addressed in the counseling context (Blustein, McWhirter, & Perry, 2005). We assume (in part due to research evidence; Dik, Duffy, & Steger, 2012) that promoting the well‐being of others is a universal good, and we assume that a good outcome from career counseling occurs when clients find or create work they experience as meaningful through which they can express their abilities for direct or indirect benefit to the common good.

Intervention strategies that build on these goals can address both career choice and work adjustment concerns. Minimally, there is a viable rationale for including measures of calling and meaningful work in career counseling to enable clients to reflect on the extent to which their present career paths and work experiences provide fulfillment, opportunities for self‐expression, a sense of contribution, or a suitable venue for devoting one's efforts and time. For clients with career choice concerns, counselors can (a) encourage active engagement in a career decision‐making process rather than passively waiting for answers to be revealed in an aha moment; (b) explore the overlap of client strengths with opportunities in the world of work; (c) explore “social fit,” or the fit between an individual's patterns of interests, values, personality, and abilities not only with opportunities (i.e., job titles) but with salient social needs in their communities and beyond; and (d) align career goals with life goals (see Dik & Duffy, 2015, for a more detailed discussion of these points).

For clients with work adjustment concerns, job crafting may serve as a useful tool for kindling greater meaning in their current work (Berg, Dutton, & Wrzesniewski, 2013). Similar to how Dawis and Lofquist (1984) describe work adjustment behavior, job crafting involves the active shaping of a work environment and/or the self to foster greater meaningfulness. This can occur by altering tasks, or the way one's tasks are completed; altering one's relationships at work so they more fully align with the client's relational values; and reframing or recalibrating the meaning and potential impact of one's work. Engaging in these crafting strategies can help clients proactively elicit greater meaningfulness from their work. Finally, for clients with very little latitude to craft their jobs, a more fruitful strategy may be cultivating a sense of calling or greater meaningfulness from life roles outside of paid work (e.g., Berg et al., 2010).

Given the empirical evidence for work volition as a key variable in predicting access to decent, satisfying, and meaningful work, it is also important that career counselors assess for work volition in clients and, if appropriate, work with clients to increase levels of work volition by helping them navigate barriers using effective self‐advocacy. Practitioners may find it helpful to assess work volition with a validated instrument such as the two described earlier (Duffy, Diemer, Perry, et al., 2012; Duffy, Diemer, & Jadidian, 2012) to tap into constraints that clients may have difficulty verbalizing. Although these instruments can be helpful in getting a snapshot of clients' volition, it is important to spend ample time discussing their qualitative experience.

Once the counselor has an understanding of the client's level of work volition, it is important to understand what barriers—both internal and external—may be impeding the client from freedom of work choice. Often, these barriers will include factors that cannot be surmounted on an individual level. For instance, institutional racism is a systemic issue that must be addressed at the community and policy levels. However, counselors may help clients to cultivate a sense of critical consciousness regarding how systemic problems may create obstacles in their work lives and explore how they might express adaptability and build resilience in navigating them. Clients may draw from critical consciousness as an internal resource for coping with external barriers by increasing their awareness of, and sense of agency to act upon, sociopolitical forces (e.g., via activism and sociopolitical development; Diemer, 2009; Diemer & Blustein, 2006; Diemer, Rapa, Voight, & McWhirter, 2016). Furthermore, it is important that career counseling professionals engage in advocacy outside of the counseling setting to promote equity for the clients they serve.

Unfortunately, applied research testing interventions designed to promote calling, meaningful work, and work volition is (provided “research” is the subject) sparse. Of the research that has been undertaken, most has examined strategies designed to increase a sense of calling. For example, randomized controlled trials have examined a two‐session workshop (Dik & Steger, 2008) as well as a religiously tailored five‐session structured group intervention designed for Christian clients (Dik, Scholljegerdes, Ahn, & Shim, 2015). Both studies found the calling‐infused intervention to increase positive outcomes compared to a control group, but not compared to a “standard” career development intervention. Another experiment found that participants instructed to use their highest character strengths more frequently at work over 4 weeks reported an increased sense of calling and life satisfaction (Harzer & Ruch, 2016). However, outside of one pilot study with middle school students (Dik, Steger, Gibson, & Peisner, 2012), we are unaware of any intervention studies targeting meaningful work. Similarly, although extant empirical findings may be helpful in guiding discussions about volition in career counseling practice, there is a major gap in the literature regarding interventions to facilitate the development of work volition as well as how interventions targeting work volition may impact other counseling outcomes.

In response to the paucity of intervention research, we suggest that future research begin to more thoroughly test key assumptions of the dominant theories of meaningful work. A reasonable starting place would be the job characteristics model (Hackman & Oldham, 1976), which predicts that skill variety, task significance, and task identity should increase meaningful work. These proposed antecedents of meaningful work help people avoid monotony and bridge the gap between the discrete actions of their job tasks and the final output of the organization. Researchers also might examine more closely the assumptions that working in the interests of a greater good increases meaningful work. An organization might develop a sensible corporate social responsibility program, which would create a natural experiment enabling a test of whether employees respond with a greater sense of meaning. Another organizational change that creates a natural experiment would include rollouts of flexible work hours and remote working, which would increase the potential for people to balance work and other life domains. In an integrated view of multiple theorized causal factors, Steger (2017) has suggested two frameworks for anticipating the factors that may help individual workers find meaningful work. This also may enable leaders and organizations to create conditions that increase the likelihood that workers experience their work as meaningful.

With respect to work volition, we offer the following recommendations for future research. First, research should focus on identifying moderators of work volition's association with criterion variables. When moderating factors are identified, they may serve as target variables in interventions to buffer negative predictors and bolster positive predictors of work volition. Second, scholars should investigate the developmental trajectory of work volition. Research shows that perceptions about work choice begin at an early age (Porfeli & Lee, 2012; Rojewski & Yang, 1997). However, most of the research on work volition has focused on college students and working adults without adopting a developmental framework. Designing developmentally appropriate work volition interventions requires better understanding how the construct unfolds over the lifespan. Finally, it is imperative that as researchers develop work volition interventions, they place cultural responsiveness at the forefront. Given the intersecting contexts in which one's work volition is embedded, understanding culturally specific ways the construct develops and is manifested across diverse groups is essential.

SUMMARY AND CONCLUSION

Research and theory on work as a calling, meaningful work, and work volition have much in common. All three are relatively new, emerging areas within vocational psychology that have demonstrated a rapidly increasing research trajectory and very recent theoretical development. All three are rooted in what makes people uniquely human as they endeavor to do work that matters to them—that is, the desire for purpose and significance, and the ability to influence one's own life trajectory in positive ways. And all three show immense promise for constructively informing career counseling interventions, despite a great need for additional research. Practitioners are encouraged to do the following in their work with clients:

• Explore the relationship between clients' career development and matters of existential importance.
• Target eudaimonic well‐being primarily and hedonic well‐being secondarily.
• Engage clients in discussion of how their work may contribute to the greater good.
• Assess calling, meaningful work, and work volition to inform client reflection.
• Encourage job crafting to foster meaningfulness.
• Support efforts to balance callings within multiple life domains, not only work.
• Assist clients in navigating barriers using effective self‐advocacy.
• Help clients cultivate critical consciousness as an internal resource for coping, while striving to address systemic barriers via advocacy at the community and policy levels.

We urge readers to not only establish a stronger and more rigorous empirical base to support ongoing theory and application related to those constructs, but also to engage in continued creative development of intervention strategies and applications. Doing so offers encouragement for vocational psychologists eager to help clients more effectively leverage what matters most to them in ways that cultivate satisfying, meaningful, and agentic careers.

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