Called to Serve: A Moderated Mediation Model of Career Calling, Job Embeddedness, Ambition, and Organizational Citizenship Behaviors Among Hospitality Employees
Date
Authors
Zhu, Dan
Lin, Mao-Tang Brian
Gazzoli, Gabriel
Park, In-Jo
Kim, Peter B
Supervisor
Item type
Journal Article
Degree name
Journal Title
Journal ISSN
Volume Title
Publisher
Elsevier BV
Abstract
A sense of calling is seen as crucial for finding meaning and purpose in one’s work. This research examines how hospitality employees’ career calling affects their helping behaviors toward colleagues and the organization and explores the boundary conditions under which this impact can be strengthened, drawing on career construction and personality-job fit theories. Utilizing one-year, multi-wave data from a matched sample of 199 hospitality workers and their supervisors, this study found that job embeddedness mediates the effects of career calling on two types of helping behaviors. Moreover, a moderated mediation analysis revealed that ambition further moderates these indirect effects, with stronger mediation effects for those with greater ambition. Theoretical and managerial implications for researchers and practitioners are discussed.Description
Keywords
1504 Commercial Services, 1505 Marketing, 1506 Tourism, Sport, Leisure & Tourism, 3504 Commercial services, 3508 Tourism, Career calling, Ambition, Job embeddedness, Organizational citizenship behaviors, Moderated mediation
Source
International Journal of Hospitality Management, ISSN: 0278-4319 (Print), Elsevier BV, 139, 1-13. doi: 10.1016/j.ijhm.2026.104780
Publisher's version
Rights statement
© 2026 The Author(s). Published by Elsevier Ltd. This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons CC-BY license, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. You are not required to obtain permission to reuse this article.