South Korean Salespersons’ Calling, Job Performance, and Organizational Citizenship Behavior: The Mediating Role of Occupational Self-Efficacy

This study examined the association between salespersons’ sense of calling and their job performance and organizational citizenship behavior (OCB) and investigated the mediating role of occupational self-efficacy and the moderating role of living one’s calling on the relationships. The results indicated that salespersons’ level of calling was moderately associated with their OCB but not related to their job performance. Occupational self-efficacy fully mediated the relationship between salespersons’ sense of calling and their job performance and partially mediated the relationship between their sense of calling and OCB. Additionally, we found positive interactions between endorsing a calling and living a calling as predictors of occupational self-efficacy and OCB. The results suggest that occupational self-efficacy plays a critical role in linking callings and job performance and that the ability to live one’s calling strengthens the benefits of endorsing a calling in a sales context. The implications of these findings are discussed.