Prior research has underscored the importance of empirically distinguishing between perceiving a calling and living a calling, highlighting the significance of calling congruence for maximizing the positive impacts on work-related outcomes. Despite this recognition, there remains a paucity of understanding regarding the mechanisms through which the congruence or incongruence between perceiving a calling and living a calling impacts work outcomes, particularly behavioral ones. Drawing on self-regulation theory, we examine the relationships between the (in)congruence of perceiving a calling and living a calling and employees’ behavioral outcomes at work such as task performance and withdrawal behavior. Moreover, we investigate whether career goal discrepancy serves as an underlying mechanism explaining these relationships. To test our hypotheses, we surveyed 262 employees and their supervisors by conducting a multi-wave and multisource investigation. The results of polynomial regression showed that the incongruence of perceiving a calling and living a calling (i.e., one is low/high and the other high/low) was positively related to career goal discrepancy, which in turn was negatively related to employees’ task performance and positively related to employees’ withdrawal behavior. These results hold significant implications for deepening our understanding of calling in relation to behavioral outcomes.
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