When Living a Calling Leads to Burnout: a Latent Profile Analysis of Living a Calling and Excessive Working in The Context of Gig Work

One understudied area in research about work as a calling is the so-called dark side of living out a calling. While the work as a calling theory (WCT) suggests that living a calling can lead to burnout for certain individuals, the few existing empirical studies so far contradict this hypothesis as no positive relationship between living a calling and burnout have been found. We therefore argue that a person-centered research approach is needed that aims to work out different sub-groups of individuals based on their sense of living a calling and excessive working. Furthermore, scholars have noted that to understand the dark side of living a calling, research should focus more strongly on alternative work arrangements. One type of such work arrangements are gig work platforms (GWPs) that mediate between self-employed individuals and customers without a formal employment contract. In this study, we analyzed a large sample of 723 independent workers on GWPs. We used Latent Profile Analysis (LPA) to capture different styles of living out a calling to understand how these relate to job stress, emotional exhaustion and job satisfaction. We constructed profiles based on individuals’ sense of living a calling and on their levels of excessive working. Furthermore, we analyzed how the different profiles relate to different individual characteristics in the context of GWPs.