Calling Development: A Systematic Review of Longitudinal Evidence

Although career calling is linked to many beneficial outcomes for both individuals and organizations, knowledge on how a sense of calling develops is limited and, in some ways, controversial. To clarify this issue, we conducted a systematic review of longitudinal studies that analyzed the temporal relation between calling and other variables in its nomological network. Across 14 studies, the strongest longitudinal evidence suggests that calling is more often an outcome of career development processes rather than an initiating cause. Specifically, vocational self-definition, agency, and career feedback and appraisal appear to precede calling, whereas personal resources more often follow calling, and life meaning and values appears reciprocally linked with calling. On this basis, we propose a preliminary integrative developmental framework of calling in which calling emerges through recursive cycles of career clarification, agentic engagement, contextual feedback and appraisal, and life meaning- and value-based integration.