Amabile’s (1983) componential model of creativity identifies domain-relevant skills, creativity-relevant processes, and intrinsic task motivation as three essential components for creativity across domains. Domain-relevant skills represent expertise in a specific field, creativity-relevant processes encompass cognitive styles conducive to novel thinking, and intrinsic task motivation refers to individuals’ inherent drive toward their work.

Employees with a strong occupational calling, driven by an internal summons toward meaningful work, often have clearer career choices. They view work as a source of life purpose and meaning, leading to higher occupational passion, work engagement, and career self-efficacy (Dobrow and Tosti-Kharas, 2011; Zhang and Guo, 2023). Since they regard professional achievements as an integral part of their identity, employees with a strong occupational calling continuously explore and deliberately learn in their field, striving for excellence to attain greater professional accomplishments (Bloom et al., 2021; Pratt et al., 2006). As a result, they acquire more domain-relevant skills and become more willing to adopt new perspectives in problem-solving. Furthermore, employees high in occupational calling recognize their work’s importance to the society, exhibiting more altruistic behavior and strengthening intrinsic motivation (Dobrow et al., 2023). The positive relationship between occupational calling and employees’ creativity has also been corroborated by previous research (Duan et al., 2020; Liu and Xu, 2022).

In summary, employees with a strong occupational calling have clearer purpose and more enjoyable work experiences, which in turn enhance creativity. Therefore, we hypothesize:

Mindfulness refers to the conscious awareness of present experience without judgment (Brown and Ryan, 2003). Mindfulness theory posits that mindfulness is an active cognitive operation characterized by the creation of new categories, the assimilation of new information, and the seeking of multiple perspectives (Langer, 1989). Employees with a strong sense of occupational calling derive fulfillment through engagement with the work, they do not view their work merely as a means of livelihood nor are they solely driven by upward mobility within the occupational hierarchy (Wrzesniewski et al., 1997). Instead, they focus less on immediate gains and more on long-term development, actively attending to new information and feedback from the work itself, thereby enhancing their present-moment awareness (Lysova et al., 2019).

On the other side, mindfulness is associated with an enhanced ability to shift perspectives (Reb et al., 2020). It focuses awareness on the present, freeing it from discriminatory, absolute, and habitual mindset, leading to clearer and fresher awareness that allows for more flexible and objective understanding of mental and behavioral responses (Brown et al., 2007; London et al., 2023). Mindful individuals avoid falling into unconscious, automatic processing traps that lead to rigid behavioral patterns (Langer, 1989). Furthermore, mindfulness creates rather than depletes energy. By maintaining mindfulness and attending to surroundings instead of living mindlessly, individuals can reduce stress (Vonderlin et al., 2020) and unleash creativity (Langer, 2014; Khoury et al., 2015). Therefore, to generate new ideas and solutions, break cognitive fixedness, and gain genuine insight, employees need to avoid premature cognitive commitments, drawing instead on novel perceptual inputs from the present to construct new knowledge. As employees become more mindful, they continuously discover new aspects of their work, keeping the mind open and active, and are more willing to try new methods and accept challenges. Previous research on mindfulness and creativity indicates that mindfulness improves concentration (Sedlmeier et al., 2012), enhances open-mindedness, and reduces fear and self-criticism (Brown et al., 2007).

In summary, employees high in occupational calling exhibit greater mindfulness. Unleashing intuition and transcending context open up new possibilities, thereby stimulating employees’ creativity. Therefore, we hypothesize:

Ability to focus describes the psychological safety employees feel in a specific work environment, enabling them to direct more attention to work activities beneficial to the organization (George and Brief, 1996). This concept derives from research on trust and performance, suggesting that individuals operate within specific social contexts where their cognitions and actions are influenced by environmental factors such as rules and climate, that can constrain the scope for autonomous will (Mayer and Gavin, 2005). From a cognitive resource allocation perspective, individuals have limited cognitive resources. When employees have concerns, they must allocate more attentional resources to identify non-productive information for self-protection (Shoss et al., 2023), resulting in low ability to focus. Conversely, fewer work-irrelevant distractions allow more cognitive resources to be invested in work-related processes, leading to high ability to focus.

Experiencing an occupational calling unifies self and career narratives, and gives personal meaning to work (Bloom et al., 2021), thus making it easier to generate mindfulness toward work. However, previous research suggests that while occupational calling can foster open-mindedness, it may also render individuals more sensitive to negative information (Andel et al., 2021). According to mindfulness theory, the non-judgmental awareness in a mindful state might further increase the allocation of attentional resources to non-work contents (Langer, 1989). This makes the linkage between occupational calling and mindfulness susceptible to interference from work-irrelevant information. Once employees are better able to concentrate on productive activities, they will notice new things, thereby gaining insight into previously unnoticed aspects of the subject matter (Langer, 1997).

In summary, if high calling employees are free from non-productive activities, they can devote all their cognitive resources to extend information and explore new possibilities. Therefore, we hypothesize:

Employees’ creativity requires supportive organizational work environments (Volery and Tarabashkina, 2021). Previous research has established leadership as a key component of the work environment and a critical factor in organizational change. Supportive, non-controlling leadership styles help create environments conducive to employees’ creativity (Ye et al., 2025). Tan et al. (2021) found that positive leader-member exchange enhances employees’ creativity. When leaders demonstrate support for new ideas, employees perceive it as organizational encouragement for innovation (Musenze and Mayende, 2023; Ye et al., 2022).

Inclusive leadership is regarded as a typical supportive leadership style because leaders value employees’ contributions (Nembhard and Edmondson, 2006). According to mindfulness theory, the most effective leadership practices for interacting with mindful individuals are: emphasizing deep listening to understand others, integrating multiple perspectives to build consensus, while striving to eliminate fear and defensive behaviors that arise during intellectual stimulation processes (Langer, 2014). Inclusive leaders involve employees in discussions and decision-making processes, enabling them to openly discuss, promote, and implement new ideas (Haq et al., 2024). Furthermore, inclusive leadership emphasizes collaboration, demonstrating availability (Shore and Chung, 2022), and encouraging employees to generate and use new ideas (Carmeli et al., 2010). Additionally, inclusive leaders support bold innovation and assume responsibility for failures, allowing employees to pursue innovative endeavors without fear.

In summary, inclusive leaders create a supportive, innovation-encouraging atmosphere in which employees with greater mindfulness can better embrace the new methods and accept challenges. Therefore, we hypothesize:

Combining Hypothesis 2, 3, and 4, we argue that the indirect effect of occupational calling on employees’ creativity via mindfulness is moderated by ability to focus and inclusive leadership, such that this indirect effect will be more pronounced at higher levels of ability to focus and inclusive leadership. Therefore, we hypothesize:

The hypothesized model is presented in Figure 1.

We collected data via questionnaire surveys from different types of organizations all over China, operating in a wide range of professions including but not limited to doctors, nurses, teachers, and lawyers which are generally considered to have a strong sense of occupational calling.

Surveys were conducted in three waves and a matched employee-leader questionnaire was used. We randomly emailed HR executives from eligible organizations to inquire about their willingness to serve as our liaisons. We then contacted those who responded positively to invite employees and their direct leaders participating in our study, and all participants received an announcement including the research purpose and procedures. A total of 364 employee-leader dyads agreed to take part in. At Time 1 (T1), we measured occupational calling, ability to focus, and control variables, self-reported by employees. Three weeks later at Time 2 (T2), we measured mindfulness and inclusive leadership, also self-reported by employees. Then another three weeks later at Time 3 (T3), we measured employees’ creativity, reported by their direct leaders. No participating employees shared the same direct leader to avoid cross-level nesting issues.

The final sample consisted of 297 employee-leader dyads, yielding a response rate of 81.6%. For the employees, 43.1% were male, 89.2% had a university degree or above, and the mean age was 29.8 years.

We translated the measures from original English version to Chinese using the translation/back-translation procedure (Brislin, 1980). Participants responded to all items on a 5-point Likert scale (from 1 = strongly disagree to 5 = strongly agree).

Occupational calling was measured using the Calling and Vocation Questionnaire (CVQ) by Dik et al. (2012). CVQ has 12 items across three dimensions: transcendent summons, purposeful work, and prosocial orientation. A sample item of transcendent summons is: “I was drawn by something beyond myself to pursue my current line of work.”; A sample item of purposeful work is: “My career is an important part of my life’s meaning.”; A sample item of prosocial orientation is: “Making a difference for others is the primary motivation in my career” (α = 0.88).

Mindfulness was measured using the 9-item scale by Haigh et al. (2011), adapted from Bodner and Langer’s (2001) Mindfulness/Mindlessness Scale (MMS). A sample item is: “I like to investigate things” (α = 0.84).

Ability to focus was measured using the 6-item scale by Mayer and Gavin (2005). A sample item is: “The work climate here allows me to focus on doing my job” (α = 0.83).

Inclusive leadership was measured using the Inclusive Leadership Scale (ILS) by Hollander (2012). ILS has 16 items across three dimensions: support-recognition, communication-action-fairness, and self-interest-disrespect. A sample item of support-recognition is: “My leader asks for my ideas about my work.”; A sample item of communication-action-fairness is: “My leader provides clear goals to be achieved.”; A sample item of self-interest-disrespect is: “My leader makes comments to put me down (reverse-coded)” (α = 0.93).

Employees’ creativity was measured using the 4-item scale by Farmer et al. (2003). A sample item is: “This employee generates ground-breaking ideas related to the field” (α = 0.78).

We controlled for employees’ gender, age, and educational level—demographic variables considered to affect employees’ creativity (Baer et al., 2021).

Mediation, moderation, and moderated mediation analyses were conducted using the PROCESS macro for SPSS to generate the 95% bias-corrected bootstrapped confidence intervals (CI) for the indirect and conditional indirect effects (Hayes, 2013). PROCESS Model 4 was adopted for mediation, and PROCESS Model 21 was adopted for moderation and moderated mediation.

Our study has several important practical implications for managers who want to improve employees’ creativity. First, managers may recruit employees with a strong occupational calling for positions requiring creativity. Simultaneously, they should provide meaning-based training for existing employees to help them discover their calling. Managers also need to encourage and assist employees in setting meaningful work goals aligned with organizational objectives, giving them autonomy to find effective ways to achieve them.

Second, as the results show that employees’ mindfulness serves as a pivotal role in evoking creativity, managers should keep track of their employees’ mindfulness at work by encouraging them to broaden their perspectives, mindfully notice new things, and avoid falling into the trap of old thinking patterns. More important, managers need to create a psychologically safe atmosphere for employees, shielding them from non-productive distractions so they can focus solely on the work itself, consciously developing mindful thinking in pursuit of excellence.

Finally, organizations can provide leadership-based training for managers to help them develop an inclusive leadership style and foster a supportive organizational atmosphere. Managers should act as supporters, putting employees first, granting employees sufficient autonomy, and collaborating with them around mutually agreed-upon goals. Throughout this process, managers need to set clear goals and continuously provide feedback and guidance on challenges employees encounter, encouraging them to take initiative in experimentation and fully leverage their creativity.

Our study has inevitably some limitations. First, we explored the impact of occupational calling on employees’ creativity, primarily based on the mindful state generated by employees in the workplace. However, the emergence of employees’ creativity is an extremely complex process in which emotions also play a significant role. While our study focuses on the cognitive patterns that stimulate creativity, specific emotional experiences of employees (e.g., flow) may also be important mechanisms that link occupational calling and employees’ creativity. Furthermore, previous research has identified motivational factors like intrinsic motivation, creative self-efficacy, and prosocial motivation, as the significant antecedents of employees’ creativity (Liu et al., 2016). Motivational mechanisms, along with cognitive and emotional mechanisms, independently and interactively play critical roles between the effect of occupational calling on employees’ creativity.

Second, we only considered ability to focus and inclusive leadership as boundary conditions affecting the relationship between occupational calling and employees’ creativity. In fact, other factors may also influence this relationship. For instance, different institutional designs, organizational climates, or employee relationships could potentially enhance or diminish employees’ focus at work, thereby impacting their creativity.

Third, regarding the conception and measurement of occupational calling, which originates from Western religious cultural contexts, it is not yet clear whether it aligns with the deep identification of work among Chinese employees.

Finally, an extension to our study can be conducted in several ways. First, future research should examine other boundary conditions under which occupational calling influences employees’ creativity, particularly the inhibitory factors. Exploring these negative factors can help organizations eliminate potential risks in advance. Second, it will be worthwhile for future research to investigate whether there is a one-to-one correspondence between the three dimensions of occupational calling, the three characteristics of mindfulness, and the three components of creativity. Third, team-level phenomena deserve more attention. An important theoretical question for future research is how the overall level and diversity of employees’ occupational calling within a team affect collective mindfulness and team creativity.