The Relationship between Career Calling and Workaholism: The Mediating Role of Career Orientation
Round 1
Reviewer 1 Report
I appreciate your interest in studying career calling. I would have liked to see the survey instrument included. Orientation was not clearly operationalized and the relationship between orientation calling and workaholism was not clear. Additionally, the survey appears to have been distributed during the pandemic, but there is no mention of how this impacted work at the time. Finally, the literature review on calling is vast and I feel the paper would benefit from a deeper dive of it.
There are grammatical errors present throughout the paper. Perhaps a thorough proofreading or use of translation might help minimize these issues.
Author Response
Dear reviewer,
Thank you for the questions and suggestions and the opportunity to improve our work. We hope we have met your expectations. (Also see the attachment please.)
Reviewer 1:
R1. I would have liked to see the survey instrument included.
A: We have placed the work orientation questionnaire in the supplementary documents section. This is the only questionnaire used in data collection that has yet to be published in English, and there is a validation article in Portuguese. The attached document presents the latent variables, items, factor loadings, Cronbach's alpha, and Dillon-Goldstein's rho. The workaholism questionnaire (Workbat) is duly published and validated in English and other languages, as seen in the bibliography. The remaining instrument comprises sociodemographic variables presented and discussed in the body of the paper.
R1. Orientation was not clearly operationalized and the relationship between orientation calling and workaholism was not clear.
A: We worked on the paper to clarify all the constructs in the model under analysis. The information entered is highlighted in the new version of the document. The definitions of constructs and their relationship have become more precise. We hope we have met your objective with this appointment (page 3, line130-133 | page 3, line 138-149 |page 4, line 155-172 | page 5, line 229-235 |page 5, line 243-256 | page 6, line 272-280 | page 6, line 291-295 | page 7, line 320-325 | page 7, line 345-364).
R1. Additionally, the survey appears to have been distributed during the pandemic, but there is no mention of how this impacted work at the time.
R: The data was collected occasionally during the pandemic; that is, it was not planned to analyze the effect of the pandemic. This way, we ensured that all respondents were active in their professional lives, but we did not address issues such as teleworking. Demonstrating our concern, we pose this question within the limitations of our work (page 25, line 1020-1030).
Author Response File: 
Author Response.pdf
Reviewer 2 Report
Thanks for the possibility o reading the article.
I am really concerned about the methods/empirical part. It is really problematic and deters me from accepting the article.
First of all, do you talk about Crombach alpha's confidence interval? It is a score, which is used for each single construct analyzed. 0.7 is the lowest possible score. You have to be more transparent and display the scores for all constructs accessed.
You did not analyze convergent or discriminant validity, This is troublesome, especially when you claim that a factor loading score of at least 0.4 is ok!
You did not release who the workers are. The socio-economic data and the type of industry (high-tech, low-tech, artisanal, services or industrial activities, etc.) are very relevant!
It is important to disclose all the information you are presenting. You are comparing mean values of some variables and you are not being transparent. A table and a justification of your actions are mandatory.
You also analyze the mediation effects, but very simplistically. What are the direct and indirect effects? why did you not explore them (at least the way you did seems to be very simplistic)?
I do not understand why with so many respondents you are not using more robust techniques such as CB-SEM or PLS-SEM, which go direct to the point.
You did not control your results for gender, type of industry, or age.
For an academic journal, I was expecting much more robust methods.
You did not use a probabilistic sample (as you refer). It is a convenience sample.
Acceptable
Author Response
Dear reviewer,
Thank you for the questions and suggestions and the opportunity to improve our work. We hope we have met your expectations. (Also see the attachment please.)
Reviewer 2
R2.: First of all, do you talk about Cronbach alpha's confidence interval? It is a score, which is used for each single construct analyzed. 0.7 is the lowest possible score. You have to be more transparent and display the scores for all constructs accessed. You did not analyze convergent or discriminant validity, This is troublesome, especially when you claim that a factor loading score of at least 0.4 is ok!
A: Thank you for appointment. We accept scales with alpha values greater than .70. The reference to the confidence interval was a mistake in the writing of the document. The instruments subsection describes Cronbach's alpha values for each scale and subscale. In the new version of the document, we introduced not only Cronbach's alpha value for each scale but also the KMO, Bartlett test, Average Variance Extract (AVE), and Composite Reliability (CR) values. (page 9, line 423-431 | page 10, line 438-445)
R2.: You did not release who the workers are. The socio-economic data and the type of industry (high-tech, low-tech, artisanal, services or industrial activities, etc.) are very relevant!
A: We tried to represent the global active population in the study, not restricting it to specific functions or sectors of activity. We added information regarding the activity sectors to the sample description, checking the prevalence of the service area (page 10, line 472-475).
R2. It is important to disclose all the information you are presenting. You are comparing mean values of some variables and you are not being transparent. A table and a justification of your actions are mandatory.
- In the new version of the document, we performed comparison tests for sociodemographic variables and work orientation groups. We used non-parametric tests as the assumptions of normality and homogeneity were not guaranteed. Although non-parametric tests consider medians, we have placed tables with all means and standard deviations as we think them to be easier to read, but we can also include medians if necessary. Furthermore, we present all test values in the text. Thanks again for the note made. (table 2|3|4|5|6|7|8) (page 12, line537-573 |page 13, line576-592 | page 14-16, line 595-672)
R2. You did not use a probabilistic sample (as you refer). It is a convenience sample.
A: Thank you for your appointment. This is a mistake; we have fixed the error in this new version of the document. (page 25, line 1009)
Author Response File: Author Response.pdf
Reviewer 3 Report
I enjoyed reading your study, which focuses on analyzing the mediating role of career orientation in the relationship between work calling and workaholism. Overall, it is a well-written and interesting article addressing the major issues of modern work.
However, I would like to draw attention to three main points that should be taken into account in the further development of the manuscript. These relate to (1) theory; (2) disclosure of the novelty of the study; (3) content and structure of the method. In addition, I note a few comments.
I am confused by the derivation of the subsequent variables used in the study. At this stage of the manuscript, you have not convinced me as to the novelty of your study. In other words, e.g., what is the difference between work and career orientation and work calling; enthusiasm for work and workaholism; willingness to work and compulsion ?How exactly do you define the three dimensions of workaholism and the enthusiastic worker profile? Please be more precise/concrete when you refer to this in your article (e.g., when you talk about your contribution or in the discussion section).
How does the study fit into the recent literature?
What is the significance of the research problem? More clearly justify the need for the study by reviewing the literature in support of the research problem.
The selection of the sample is puzzling. You write that the sample consisted of 743 Portuguese workers, and that the inclusion criterion was simply age 18 or older and knowledge of Portuguese. It is not a convincing sample why such an unspecified group would give reliable results on such an interesting topic. I would advise verifying all the results at least for differences between men and women, length of service or employment in private and public companies. It would be worth using one of these variables to formally test as a moderating variable?
Were controls included when testing the hypotheses? If yes, report on this. If not, why not?
In the attachments, include a report on the quality of measurement (item averages, factor loadings, etc.) and also add an attachment with the tools used.
Strengthen the discussion section. Make sure you clearly explain the theoretical input and discuss how the results are relevant to particular groups of respondents (e.g., gender, seniority, type of organization). Thus, the discussion of the limitations of the study and future research should be more in-depth and in light of the study's findings.
Good luck in further developing the article!
Author Response
Dear reviewer,
Thank you for the questions and suggestions and the opportunity to improve our work. We hope we have met your expectations. (Also see the attachment please.)
Reviewer 3
R3: I am confused by the derivation of the subsequent variables used in the study. At this stage of the manuscript, you have not convinced me as to the novelty of your study. In other words, e.g., what is the difference between work and career orientation and work calling; enthusiasm for work and workaholism; willingness to work and compulsion? How exactly do you define the three dimensions of workaholism and the enthusiastic worker profile? Please be more precise/concrete when you refer to this in your article (e.g., when you talk about your contribution or in the discussion section).
A: We worked on the paper to clarify all the constructs in the model under analysis. The information entered is highlighted in the new version of the document. The definitions of constructs and their relationship have become more precise. (Page 3, line130-133 | page 3, line 138-149 |page 4, line 155-172 | page 5, line 229-235 |page 5, line 243-256 | page 6, line 272-280 | page 6, line 291-295 | page 7, line 320-325 | page 7, line 345-364).
Furthermore, we clarified our contribution in the study's introduction reinforcing its innovative side (page 2, line 84-94) and reinforcing contributions in more detail (page 20-21, line 779-819).
R3. The selection of the sample is puzzling. You write that the sample consisted of 743 Portuguese workers, and that the inclusion criterion was simply age 18 or older and knowledge of Portuguese. It is not a convincing sample why such an unspecified group would give reliable results on such an interesting topic. I would advise verifying all the results at least for differences between men and women, length of service or employment in private and public companies.
A:. According to existing literature, work orientation does not depend on the function or area of work. The data indicates that the existence of a calling can be transversal to all functions/ professional activities. For this reason and because it is an innovative analysis model, we chose to start with an unspecified group. We followed your suggestion and introduced comparison tests for the sociodemographic variables that we presented and discussed in the new version of the document. (page 12-15, line 537-622)
R3: In the attachments, include a report on the quality of measurement (item averages, factor loadings, etc.) and also add an attachment with the tools used.
A: We have placed the work orientation questionnaire in the supplementary documents section. This is the only questionnaire used in data collection that has yet to be published in English, and there is a validation article in Portuguese. The attached document presents the latent variables, items, factor loadings, Cronbach's alpha, and Dillon-Goldstein's rho. The workaholism questionnaire (Workbat) is duly published and validated in English and other languages, as seen in the bibliography. The remaining instrument comprises sociodemographic variables presented and discussed in the body of the paper.
Furthermore, in the new version of the document, we introduced not only Cronbach's alpha value for each scale but also the KMO, Bartlett test, Average Variance Extract (AVE), and Composite Reliability (CR) values. (page 9, line 423-431 | page 10, line 438-445)
R3.: Strengthen the discussion section. Make sure you clearly explain the theoretical input and discuss how the results are relevant to particular groups of respondents (e.g., gender, seniority, type of organization). Thus, the discussion of the limitations of the study and future research should be more in-depth and in light of the study's findings
A.: We seek to meet this expectation, and we have managed to improve our discussion through discussion of the new results and more profound and informed reflection. As you can see, the discussion has undergone significant changes that have improved its quality. We hope we met what you wanted and your expectations.
Author Response File: Author Response.pdf
Round 2
Reviewer 1 Report
I appreciate your extensive editing and additions made to your manuscript. The variables are now more clearly operationalized and the statistical results appear correct. There are still minor grammatical errors, but otherwise this has been significantly improved.
Some grammatical errors are still present, but can be improved through editing process.
Reviewer 3 Report
I reviewed the corrections made to the article, as well as the letter to reviewers and supplementary file. In general, I have to say that I am satisfied with the better, corrected version of the manuscript, and I do not see any further obstacles to proceed with the publication of the article in the current version.
