How Work Orientation Impacts Objective Career Outcomes via Managerial (Mis)perceptions
研究发现，将工作视为使命的员工比视为谋生手段的员工获得更高收入和更多晋升机会，原因在于管理者会误认为这些员工表现更好、忠诚度更高，从而产生晕轮效应。
Views differ on whether individuals with a calling orientation toward work (i.e., seeing work as personally fulfilling and contributing to a better world) enjoy more favorable objective career outcomes, such as higher income and chance of promotion, versus those with a job orientation (i.e., seeing work as a means to a financial end). We suggest that the impasse is partially due to prior research’s exclusive focus on how work orientation affects one’s effort and subsequent job performance. Drawing on theories of signaling, cognitive biases, and reciprocity, we propose that calling-oriented employees enjoy better objective career outcomes than job-oriented employees via an external pathway: managers misperceive employees’ calling orientation as evidence of better performance and stronger organizational commitment. In Study 1—analyses of the Wisconsin Longitudinal Study—we find support for the main effect, and in Study 2—an online experiment—we constructively replicate this effect and find evidence for our predicted explanatory mechanisms. Furthermore, observing a calling-oriented employee prompts managers to perceive them more favorably in other domains, creating a halo effect. Our research sheds light on how individuals’ subjective view of the meaning of work influences their objective career success, highlighting workplace signals and managerial perceptions as important mechanisms.