Purpose: The purpose of this paper is to understand the relation between leadership perception and workers’ sense of calling. Design/methodology/approach: Workers’ sense of calling has been shown to relate to organizational outcomes such as job satisfaction, career development, personal growth, and well-being. Although recent studies point the sense of calling as a consequent of several organizational variables, the role of leadership in promoting workers’ sense of calling is yet to be analyzed. A self-report questionnaire was applied to a group of 325 Portuguese nurses to analyze this relation. Structural equation modeling was used to analyze the results. Findings: Results indicate a positive relation between a leader perceived as transformational or transactional and workers’ sense of calling. Directive and empowering leadership perception were found not to be related to calling. Unexpectedly, a significant positive relation with aversive leadership perception was identified. Research limitations/implications: A confounding relation between aversive leadership perception and sense of calling cannot be excluded. It is possible that an unknown third variable, such as resilience or positive affect, is serving as a mediating bridge between leadership perception and the sense of calling. Further studies are necessary in order to explore this alternative path. Originality/value: The sense of calling is known as a relevant organizational construct. Knowing what kinds of leadership promote workers’ sense of calling adds value for the literature and can help managers to learn how to improve their followers’ sense of calling.

Judges are the central actors in the organization and functioning of the judicial system. Concerns about work efficiency, driven by the European Commission for the Efficiency of Justice, led countries to adopt a set of reforms in line with private sector ideals applied to the public field to better manage their financial and human resources. In the last decades, the Portuguese judicial system has undergone a reform based on New Public Management principles by adopting the new Law on the Organization of the Judiciary System (LOSJ), significantly altering judges’ duties, who beyond their traditional role of applying the law, perform the additional role of court-of-law judge-manager. The objective of this study is to explore the influence of role conflict and role ambiguity in occupational burnout among judges and to analyze the influence of calling orientation as a moderating variable, so as to present a conceptual model of role-stress management among the judiciary. Theoretically, this work contributes to the literature on role-stress management through its introduction of calling moderation, as well as to the literature on the positive influence of calling on burnout. In terms of its practical implications, the work contributes to a reconsideration of the current organizational structure of judicial work.

Theoretical conceptions on happiness have generally considered two broad perspectives: hedonic enjoyment and eudaemonia. However, most research on how to improve people’s happiness has focused primarily on the enhancement of hedonic happiness. In this longitudinal experimental study we test the differential impact of two positive exercises—Best Possible Selves and the Lottery Question—on hedonic and eudaemonic happiness. The hypothesis that the practice of the Best Possible Selves exercise would increase hedonic happiness was confirmed. This effect was immediate and maintained a week after the exercise. Furthermore, this exercise also increased eudaemonic happiness. However, its effect decreased after a week. Contrary to what was expected the Lottery Question exercise decreased both eudaemonic happiness and hedonic happiness over time. We discuss implications of this study for the literature on positive psychological and behavioral interventions to increase happiness.

Esta investigação tem como principal objetivo estudar a dimensionalidade da orientação para o trabalho e propor um modelo interno. O presente estudo teve em consideração o modelo de orientação para o trabalho proposto por Bellah et al. (1985). Este modelo assume que existem três tipos de orientação para o trabalho: chamamento, carreira e emprego. Tratou-se de um estudo transversal com 959 adultos portugueses entre os 18 e os 71 anos. Recorreu-se à análise fatorial confirmatória para estudar a dimensionalidade da orientação para o trabalho e, para o estudo do modelo interno da orientação para o trabalho recorreu-se à modelagem de equações estruturais. Complementarmente, os resultados destas análises sugerem que a orientação para o trabalho é realmente tridimensional e, adicionalmente, sugerem que as dimensões da orientação para o trabalho têm um impacto direto umas nas outras. Este estudo fornece contribuições importantes para a teoria da orientação para o trabalho e introduz para discussão e pesquisa um conjunto ainda maior de questões.