The value of job crafting for work engagement,task performance,and career satisfaction: longitudinal and quasi-experimental evidence

We examine how job crafting (i.e. seeking resources, seeking challenges, decreasing demands) increases the person-job fit of employees. In Study 1, we studied job crafting’s effects over time. 111 employees filled out a questionnaire at two time points with 6 months in between. We found that seeking resources behavior at Time 1 positively affected work engagement, task performance, and career satisfaction at Time 2. Decreasing demands at Time 1 negatively affected work engagement, task performance, and career satisfaction at Time 2. In Study 2, we tested a job crafting intervention using a quasi-experimental design (i.e., intervention group, N = 60, and a control group, N = 59). The intervention was successful, as participants in the intervention group increased seeking resources and decreasing demands behaviors. Furthermore, seeking resources behavior was the main driver of increased participants’ work engagement, task performance, and career satisfaction.     

Can job crafting reduce job boredom and increase work engagement? A three-year cross-lagged panel study

Building upon the Conservation of Resources (COR) theory, this longitudinal study examined whether job crafting behaviors (i.e. increasing structural and social job resources and increasing challenges) predict less job boredom and more work engagement. We also tested the reverse causation effects of job boredom and work engagement on job crafting and the dynamics between the three job crafting behaviors over time. We employed a two-wave, three-year panel design and included 1630 highly educated Finnish employees from a broad spectrum of occupations in various organizations. Our results indicated that seeking challenges in particular negatively predicted job boredom and positively predicted work engagement. Seeking challenges fueled other job crafting behaviors, which, in their turn, predicted seeking more challenges over time, thus supporting the accumulation of resources. Job boredom negatively predicted increasing structural resources, whereas work engagement positively predicted increasing both structural and social resources. These findings suggest that seeking challenges at work enhances employee work engagement, prevents job boredom, and generates other job crafting behaviors. Conversely, job boredom seems to impede job crafting.     

The effects of a job crafting intervention on the success of an organizational change effort in a blue-collar work environment

The current study in a blue-collar context investigates whether a job crafting intervention may facilitate employee adaptation to organizational change, while decreasing exhaustion and increasing positive attitudes towards change and safety behaviour. It was hypothesized that the intervention would increase job crafting behaviours (i.e., seeking resources, seeking challenges, and optimizing demands) resulting in decreased employee exhaustion, and improved change attitudes and employee safety behaviour (i.e., adherence to organization’s standard operating procedures). The quasi-experimental study revealed that, after the intervention (consisting of a workshop, four weeks of job crafting implementation, and an evaluative session), employees reported an increase in two of the three trained job crafting strategies (i.e., seeking challenges, optimizing demands). Moreover, those who participated in the intervention reported lower levels of exhaustion, improved cognitive and behavioural attitudes towards change, and increased safety behaviour. The intervention was found to improve the affective, cognitive, and behavioural components of a change attitude due to increases in seeking challenges. Results were similar after controlling for quality information and leadership behaviour during the change. It is concluded that a job crafting intervention and resulting job crafting behaviour can be an effective way to achieve successful adaptation to organizational change.     

Interactive Effects of Approach and Avoidance Job Crafting in Explaining Weekly Variations in Work Performance and Employability

Meta-analyses on job crafting reveal that while approach-oriented job crafting (e.g., increasing job resources or challenging job demands) relates positively to employee performance, avoidance-oriented job crafting (e.g., decreasing hindering job demands) has either non-significant or negative implications for employee functioning. However, the joint effects of approach and avoidance job crafting remain an underdeveloped area of research. We administered a three-week diary survey among 87 employees to test interaction effects of approach and avoidance job crafting on employee (other-referenced and past-referenced) work performance and employability. Results revealed that decreasing hindering job demands related positively to other-referenced performance when increasing social job resources was higher than employees’ average, and to past-referenced performance when increasing structural job resources was higher than employees’ average. Also, decreasing hindering job demands related negatively with employability only at lower levels of increasing challenging job demands, while the relationship was non-significant at higher levels of increasing challenging demands. These results indicate that considering job crafting strategies in tandem adds to our understanding of their role for employee functioning.     

Eyes on the road,hands upon the wheel? Reciprocal dynamics between smartphone use while driving and job crafting

Smartphones are essential tools for communications and information management in organizational settings. However, smartphone use is a risky behavior when used while driving to and from work. As work experiences have been found to influence risky commuting behaviors, we hypothesized that job crafting, i.e., a set of proactive work behaviors through which employees change their job demands and resources, influences and is influenced by risky commuting behaviors. We argued that employees' smartphone use during driving commutes is related to how employees proactively choose to transform their demands and resources at work. A quantitative diary study was designed to investigate the process linking smartphone use during driving commutes to and from work and job crafting. A sample of 128 office employees completed two short daily questionnaires for five consecutive workdays (N = 627 observations). Results from multilevel analyses showed that daily talking on the phone while driving to work was positively associated with the proactive optimization of job demands, while daily proactive pursuing of challenging stimuli at work (i.e., seeking challenges) was positively related to looking at the phone when employees drove back from work. Furthermore, on days when employees reduced their hindering job demands, they reported less frequent talking on the phone while driving back from work. Results provide practical implications for the prevention of distracted driving and other risky driving behaviors.     

Who Seeks Job Resources,and Who Avoids Job Demands? The Link Between Dark Personality Traits and Job Crafting

Although job crafting has been linked repeatedly to positive employee and organizational outcomes, its detrimental side has not been well explored. To understand the way dark personality traits affect the type of crafting in which employees engage, this research focuses on two frameworks: the PEN (psychopathy, extraversion, and neuroticism) framework and the Dark Triad (narcissism, psychopathy, and Machiavellianism). In Study 1, we collected data on the PEN traits and job crafting from 155 individuals in various occupations. We found that neuroticism was negatively related to seeking structural job resources, whereas psychoticism was negatively related to seeking social job resources. We also found that extraversion was positively related to seeking structural and social job resources and to seeking challenging job demands. In Study 2, we examined how the Dark Triad traits predicted job crafting among police officers (N = 135). The results showed that narcissism was positively related to seeking social job resources and challenges, whereas psychopathy was negatively related to seeking social resources. Age and narcissism were positive predictors of reducing job demands. We conclude that personality plays an important role when choosing how to craft one's job. We discuss the practical implications of these findings.     

Job crafting and its relationships with person–job fit and meaningfulness: A three-wave study

Although scholars imply that job crafting contributes to person–job fit and meaningful work, to date, no study examined the relationships between these variables. The present three-wave weekbook study was designed to gain more knowledge about the influence of job crafting on person–job fit and meaningfulness. We collected data among a heterogeneous group of employees (N = 114) during three consecutive weeks (N = 430 occasions). At the end of their working week, employees reported their job crafting behaviors, their person–job fit (demands–abilities fit and needs–supplies fit), and the meaningfulness of their work that week. Results indicated that individuals who crafted their job by increasing their job resources (e.g., support, autonomy) and challenging job demands (e.g., participate in new projects), and by decreasing their hindering job demands (e.g., less emotional job demands) reported higher levels of person–job fit the next week. In turn, demands–abilities fit related to more meaningfulness in the final week. No support was found for alternative causal models. These findings suggest that by crafting their job demands and job resources, individuals can proactively optimize their person–job fit and as a consequence experience their work as meaningful.     

Does job crafting assist dealing with organizational changes due to austerity measures? Two studies among Greek employees

In this paper, we focussed on Greek employees that are heavily affected by austerity-led organizational changes, and studied whether job crafting (defined as seeking resources, seeking challenges, reducing demands) helps them deal with these changes. In the first, cross-sectional study we examined whether job crafting relates to adaptive performance, and whether individuals’ assessment of changes moderates this relationship. The results showed that the relationship between reducing demands and adaptive performance was positive for those assessing the changes more positively, and negative for those assessing them more negatively. This interaction was replicated in the second, quasi-experimental field study, where we examined the effects of an intervention designed to help employees deal with organizational changes and increase their well-being, adaptive performance and openness to such changes by stimulating job crafting behaviours. Participants received training and worked for 3 weeks on self-set job crafting goals. The intervention was effective in increasing reducing demands, positive affect and openness to change. Moreover, it had a positive effect on openness to change and adaptive performance through positive effect, but a negative effect on adaptive performance through reducing demands. Thus, the intervention facilitated to some extent employee functioning under unfavourable working conditions that result from austerity measures.     

Development and validation of the job crafting scale

We developed and validated a scale to measure job crafting behavior in three separate studies conducted in The Netherlands (total N = 1181). Job crafting is defined as the self-initiated changes that employees make in their own job demands and job resources to attain and/or optimize their personal (work) goals. In Study 1 and 2 the Dutch job crafting scale (JCS) was developed and tested for its factor structure, reliability, and convergent validity. The criterion validity of the JCS was examined in Study 3. The results indicated that there are four independent job crafting dimensions, namely increasing social job resources, increasing structural job resources, increasing challenging job demands, and decreasing hindering job demands. These dimensions could be reliably measured with 21 items. The JCS shows convergent validity when correlated with the active constructs proactive personality (+), personal initiative (+), and the inactive construct cynicism (?). In addition, results indicated that self-reports of job crafting correlated positively with colleague-ratings of work engagement, employability, and performance — thus supporting the criterion validity of the JCS. Finally, self-rated job crafting behaviors correlated positively with peer-rated job crafting behaviors.     

专念对工作重塑的影响：工作投入的中介作用

基于工作要求-资源理论,检验工作投入在专念与工作重塑之间的中介作用。以238名医务人员为研究对象,开展两阶段的追踪问卷调查。专念对工作重塑有积极的直接预测作用。另外,在横断数据中,工作投入在专念与工作重塑之间的中介作用显著。在纵向数据中,专念(T1)能正向预测工作投入(T2),进而影响工作重塑(T2),中介效应显著。专念(T1)能正向预测工作投入(T1),但工作投入(T1)不能显著正向预测两个月后的工作重塑(T2)。在一定的时间范围内,专念可以通过激发工作投入,进而促进工作重塑行为。     

Job crafting and extra-role behavior: The role of work engagement and flourishing

This study investigates whether crafting of job demands and resources relates positively to extra-role behavior (i.e. contextual performance and creativity) through work engagement and flourishing. We collected data from 294 employees and their supervisors regarding employees' contextual performance and creativity. Results show that seeking resources had a positive indirect relationship with contextual performance through work engagement, and with creativity through work engagement and flourishing. Reducing demands had negative indirect relationships with both contextual performance and creativity through work engagement. We conclude that particularly seeking resources has important implications for extra-role behavior and discuss the practical implications of these findings.     

The crossover of job crafting between coworkers and its relationship with adaptivity

This daily diary study among 55 dyads of co-workers working within the same unit examined the crossover of expansive job crafting which, framed within the Job-Demands Resources Model, consists of two distinct behaviours: seeking challenges and seeking resources. We hypothesized that seeking resources and seeking challenges are transferred from one employee (actor) to the other (partner) on a daily basis and that there is more crossover of job crafting from actor to partner when the partner is high in empathy. Moreover, job crafting was expected to relate positively to daily adaptation to changes as measured both by self-reports and peer-reports. Multilevel analyses confirmed the crossover of seeking challenges and partly confirmed the crossover of seeking resources. Empathy of the partner acts as a moderator in this latter crossover process: there is more crossover of seeking resources from actor to partner when the partner is high in empathy. Moreover, day-level seeking resources and seeking challenges were both positively related to self-rated day-level adaptivity. Day-level seeking resources was also positively related to other-rated day-level adaptivity. These results imply that stimulating job crafting within organizations is valuable because it spreads around and can help in the adaptivity to changes.     

The influence of future time perspective on work engagement and job performance: the role of job crafting

This two-wave study aimed to examine future time perspective (FTP) as an antecedent of job crafting, and in turn job crafting as a mediator in associations between FTP and work outcomes. Based on the lifespan socio-emotional selectivity theory, we expected that open-ended and limited FTP would evoke different forms of job crafting, which in turn would be associated with changes in work engagement and job performance. In line with our expectations, we found that employees whose open-ended FTP increased over a 1-year time period also crafted more job resources and challenging job demands such that their job provided them with more opportunities for knowledge acquisition, which in turn resulted in increased levels of work engagement and job performance. However, contrary to our expectations, employees whose limited FTP increased over the 1-year time period did not proactively reduce their hindering job demands. Hence, although crafting fewer hindering job demands was directly related to decreased levels of work outcomes as expected, we found no indirect effect of changes in limited FTP on changes in work engagement and performance via changes in this job crafting behaviour. These findings have important implications for the literature on job crafting and FTP.     

A meta-analysis on promotion- and prevention-focused job crafting

The purpose of this study is to present a meta-analytical summary of the job crafting literature. We integrate resource- and role-based job crafting conceptualizations in one job crafting model, which can theoretically account for beneficial and detrimental job crafting effects. Applying reasoning from regulatory focus theory we differentiated promotion-focused (increasing job resources and challenging job demands; expansion-oriented task, relational, and cognitive crafting) from prevention-focused (decreasing hindering job demands; contraction-oriented task and relational crafting) job crafting. We hypothesized that promotion-focused job crafting relates positively and prevention-focused job crafting relates negatively with employee health, motivation, and performance. Results of cross-sectional meta-analytical structural equation modelling showed that promotion-focused job crafting was positively related with work engagement and negatively related with burnout, while prevention-focused job crafting was negatively related with work engagement and positively related with burnout. Moreover, promotion-focused job crafting was positively and prevention-focused job crafting was negatively related with performance through work engagement and burnout. Results of longitudinal meta-analytical structural equation modelling showed that there were reciprocal, positive relationships between promotion-focused job crafting and work engagement, and between prevention-focused job crafting and burnout. Implications for future research and practice are discussed.     

工作重塑：获得意义性工作与个人成长的新途径

工作重塑是组织行为学中新近出现的一个热点话题,是指员工通过自己对工作进行重新建构来形塑自己的工作认同以及工作角色,其核心目的就是员工对他们的工作进行再设计以获得较高的工作意义感、工作投入以及工作满意度等,进而快乐地工作。在系统梳理有关工作重塑的理论与实证研究文献的基础上,从工作重塑概念的解读、工作重塑的方式与方法、工作重塑的预测因素、工作重塑对个体与组织的影响以及工作重塑的培养策略等方面进行了综述,以便人们更深入地体会其丰富的理论内涵和实践价值;最后,该文指出未来工作重塑的研究应继续注重理论建构的丰富与完善、关注工作重塑的个体与群体差异性以及深化工作重塑与组织之间的关系研究。     

Antecedents of daily team job crafting

This study investigated potential antecedents of team job crafting defined as the extent to which team members engage together in increasing (social and structural) job resources and challenges, and decreasing hindering job demands. Mindful of the teamwork literature, we hypothesized that individual employee factors (self-efficacy for teamwork, daily affect), team features (team cohesion, climate) and the organizational context of teams (engaging leadership and organizational resources for teamwork) relate positively to daily team job crafting behaviour. Data were collected among 46 multi-professional rehabilitation teams whose members completed two daily surveys after their weekly meetings. Multilevel regression analyses showed that self-efficacy for teamwork and team members’ positive affect were positively associated with team job crafting behaviour at the individual (within-team) level. In addition, a team climate characterized by a clear vision of the teams’ targets, supportiveness and innovation and connecting leadership were positively related to daily team job crafting at both the within- and between-team levels of the data. Overall, the study offers novel insights into the antecedents of teams’ daily job crafting behaviours. For practice, the results suggest that actions and interventions conducive to positive team processes offer the most promising route to enhancing team job crafting behaviour.     

Job crafting and job performance: A longitudinal study

In this three-wave study (N = 288), we examined whether job crafting intentions and work engagement led to actual job crafting behaviours and, in turn, to higher levels of prospective work engagement and job performance. We used the Job Demands-Resources model as a theoretical framework and defined job crafting as the self-initiated changes that employees make in their job demands and resources. One month after reporting their job crafting intentions, respondents rated their actual job crafting behaviours. Again one month later, they rated their levels of work engagement, in-role performance, and organizational citizenship behaviour towards individuals (OCBI). Results of structural equation modelling showed that job crafting intentions and work engagement significantly related to actual job crafting, which, in turn, related to higher levels of work engagement, while controlling for job characteristics. Results further showed that engaged employees performed better on their in-role tasks but did not perform more OCBIs. The findings suggest that employees can increase their own work engagement and job performance through job crafting.     

The Ambivalent Effects of Participation on Performance and Job Stressors: The Role of Job Crafting and Autonomy

ABSTRACT

Literature provides mixed results on the effect of participatory practices on outcomes such as individual performance and job stressors. By examining these relationships via the mediation of job crafting behaviors, while considering the moderating effect of autonomy, we help clarifying the reasons behind the apparently ambiguous effects of participation. We surveyed 318 employees in an Italian mass retail company. On the one hand, we found a positive effect of participation on performance and a reduction of both role conflict and role overload thanks to increased job crafting behaviors aimed at seeking job resources. On the other hand, we also found that participation and autonomy may augment job stressors because of an associated increase of job crafting behaviors aimed at seeking challenging demands.     

The longitudinal impact of a job crafting intervention

This study examined the impact of a job crafting intervention based on job demands-resources (JD-R) theory. We hypothesized that the intervention would influence participants’ job crafting behaviours, as well as their job demands, job resources, and personal resources. In addition, we hypothesized a positive impact of the intervention on work engagement and self-rated job performance. The study used a quasi-experimental design with a control group. Teachers (N = 75) participated in the job crafting intervention on three occasions with 9 weeks in-between the first and second measurement, and 1 year in-between the second and third measurement. Results showed that the intervention had a significant impact on participants’ job crafting behaviours, both at time 2 and time 3. In addition, the results showed a significant increase of performance feedback, opportunities for professional development, self-efficacy, and job performance 1 year after the job crafting intervention. Participants’ levels of job demands, resilience, and work engagement did not change. We discuss the implications of these findings for JD-R theory and practice.     

Examining Job Crafting from an Interpersonal Perspective: Is Employee Job Crafting Related to the Well‐Being of Colleagues?

Individuals engage in job crafting to create a better fit between their job and their preferences, skills, and abilities. However, the individual focus may overlook the impact of job crafting on the job context or well‐being of colleagues. Therefore, an important question that is addressed in this study is whether the crafting of one person is related to the job characteristics and well‐being of a colleague. This study explores the potential negative effects of a seemingly positive strategy for the individual on a colleague. Namely, we predict that when employees decrease their hindering job demands, their colleagues will be more likely to report a higher workload and more conflict. In turn, we hypothesise that colleague reports of workload and conflict are related to colleague burnout. Data were collected among 103 dyads and analyzed with the Actor–Partner Interdependence Model. The results largely supported the hypothesised relationships: Decreasing hindering job demands was positively related to colleague workload and conflict, which, in turn, related positively to colleague burnout. These findings suggest that proactively decreasing hindering job demands not only relates to personal job experiences, but also to colleague job characteristics and well‐being.