Counselors’ Meaning of Work and Living Calling: Job Satisfaction, Workaholism, and Psychological Burnout Moderated by Job Insecurity and Mindfulness

ABSTRACT

Calling can be both a generative resource and a risk factor for counselor well‐being, yet work as a calling theory (WCT) has been tested mostly outside counseling. Drawing on WCT and informed by psychology of working theory and career construction theory, this study examined whether living calling mediates associations between meaning of work and counselors’ job satisfaction, psychological burnout, and workaholism, and whether job insecurity and mindfulness moderate these indirect paths. Survey data from 419 South Korean counselors were analyzed using partial least squares structural equation modeling with 5000 bootstrap resamples. Living calling carried positive indirect effects on job satisfaction ( β  = 0.547, p  < 0.001) and workaholism ( β  = 0.145, p  < 0.05), and a negative indirect effect on burnout ( β  = −0.360, p  < 0.001). Neither moderator was significant. Results affirm calling as generative while complicating its protective assumption; implications for supervision, training, and agency policy are advanced.