# Convergent to be divergent: the impact of occupational calling on employees’ creativity

## TL;DR

This study explores how a sense of purpose at work boosts employee creativity through mindfulness, with support from focus and inclusive leadership.

## Contribution

It introduces a dual-stage model showing how occupational calling enhances creativity via mindfulness, moderated by focus and leadership.

## Key findings

- Occupational calling positively influences mindfulness, which enhances creativity.
- Ability to focus strengthens the calling-mindfulness link, while inclusive leadership boosts the mindfulness-creativity link.
- The model provides practical insights for fostering creativity in the workplace.

## Abstract

Enhancing employees’ creativity is of great significance for organizations. However, whether, how and when occupational calling enhances employees’ creativity has largely been ignored. To fill this gap, our study draws on mindfulness theory and proposes a dual-stage moderated mediation model by introducing a mediating mechanism of mindfulness and boundary conditions of ability to focus and inclusive leadership. Survey data were collected from 297 respondents using a multi-source time-lagged design. Our research findings revealed a significant positive influence of occupational calling on mindfulness, which in turn positively affects employees’ creativity. Furthermore, ability to focus (as a synergistic enhancer) in the first stage and inclusive leadership (as an effective facilitator) in the second stage were found to amplify these positive effects. All in all, our study provides significant theoretical and practical implications for scholars and practitioners who seek to promote employees’ creativity.