Career calling and employee creativity: The mediating role of grit

Despite the importance of employee creativity in driving organizational innovation, the complex interplay between the influencing mechanisms remains unclear. To address this gap, we developed a theoretical model to examine the antecedents of employee creativity, incorporating career calling as the independent variable and grit as a mediating variable. Participants comprised 406 employees of a large enterprise in China, who completed surveys at a single time point. Using bootstrapping analysis and structural equation modeling, we found that career calling was positively associated with grit, while grit played a mediating role in the relationship between career calling and employee creativity. These findings indicate that prioritizing the cultivation of employees’ career calling and the development of their grit will effectively promote creativity among employees.