Reference no: EM133205109
Case: Our theoretical explanation for how a calling is maintained has some practical implications. Theater actors who frame their work as a calling are subjected to forms of organizational exploitation; often, they work for a minimal salary, and sometimes even for free. The ambiguities of a calling with dimensions of sacrifice, responsibility and self-care place them at high risk for exploitation, which has practical implications for understanding the consequences of prominent managerial discourses that frame work as an act of self-fulfillment and self-interest (Rose, 1999). Beyond the fine arts (e.g., opera, music, dance), this type of exploitation might be prevalent in other economically marginal, but symbolically significant settings (Bellah et al., 2007), such as non-profit and volunteer organizations, the public sector, education, and religious institutions. The outcomes of this study open up avenues for future research. One would be to explore work as a calling in other precarious settings, given the idolized nature of work in the 'gig economy' (Petriglieri et al., 2017). Individuals who pursue callings need to be mindful of organizations' rhetorical strategies, which can legitimize and normalize precarious and ambiguous job practices. With this warning in mind, studies can be done to investigate how callings stratify societies (Berkelaar and Buzzanell, 2015), both in terms of (a) how the construction of a calling is used to exploit employees, and (b) how framing work as a calling becomes a means for sustaining societal inequalities. Finally, while the literature on callings has highlighted the hardships of discipleship (Bunderson and Thompson, 2009), the difference between hardships and costs seems conceptually and empirically blurred. We encourage researchers to investigate this relationship with particular attention to how hardships and costs emerge in different narrative or discursive structures.
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