Antecedents of daily team job crafting

Overall team justice and psychological strain: A daily diary study

Drawing on the relational and uncertainty models of justice, this research investigates the consequences of daily overall team justice perceptions on employees' daily psychological strain. Specifically, we examine daily psychological safety as a mediator of the relationship between daily overall team justice evaluations and daily psychological strain. We also argue that daily overall supervisor justice moderates this mediated relationship. Using a daily diary study over 10 consecutive working days, our results confirm that daily team justice reduces employees' daily psychological strain. In addition, our findings provide evidence that daily psychological safety mediates the effects of daily justice perceptions on daily psychological strain. Results also show that the relationship between daily overall team justice and daily psychological safety is moderated by overall supervisor justice, thereby complementing the target similarity model.

A new perspective on balancing life domains: work-nonwork balance crafting

BACKGROUND

Self-initiated and proactive changes in working conditions through crafting are essential for shaping work and improving work-related well-being. Recently, the research stream of job crafting has been extended to other life domains. The present paper aims to study a novel crafting concept-work-nonwork balance crafting-investigating the role of its antecedents and identifying relevant outcomes. Work-nonwork balance crafting is defined as individuals' unofficial techniques and activities to shape their work-nonwork balance, here considering their life domain boundary preferences.

METHODS

In the study, 1,060 employees in three European countries (Austria, Germany and Switzerland) were surveyed in a longitudinal three-wave study with three-month intervals. We explored the influences of job/home demands and resources as antecedents of work-nonwork balance crafting. Important constructs for employee health and well-being (i.e., work engagement, work-related burnout, mental well-being and detachment from work) were investigated as outcomes.

RESULTS

The findings suggest that resources and demands in the context of work or home are key antecedents of work-nonwork balance crafting. Work-nonwork balance crafting was also predictive for important employee health and well-being outcomes over three months, mainly in a positive and health-promoting way.

CONCLUSION

This study provides insights into the antecedents of proactive efforts to balance the complex interplay of life domains. By studying work-nonwork balance crafting, we provide a new perspective on crafting beyond job crafting, which may help maintain or improve employees' mental health and well-being.

The association between team job crafting and work engagement among nurses: a prospective cohort study

BACKGROUND

Team-level job crafting has been put forward as a method to promote nurses' mental health. However, a longitudinal association is unclear. Therefore, the objective of this study was to investigate the association between team job crafting at baseline and work engagement, work performance, psychological distress, and intention to leave at three-month and six-month follow-ups among Japanese hospital nurses. Also, whether an increase in the team job crafting during 3 or 6 months was associated with an increase in the work engagement during 3 or 6 months of individual nurses was examined.

METHODS

A multilevel prospective cohort study was conducted. Data were collected from nurses of five hospitals in Japan at baseline (T1) and follow-ups at 3-months (T2) and 6-months (T3). A total of 2,478 nurses were included. The team job crafting scale for nurses and its three subscales were measured for the independent variables. Ward-means were used as ward-level variables. The dependent variables were work engagement, work performance, psychological distress, and intention to leave. Hierarchical Linear Modeling (HLM) was used to examine the multilevel association. The study protocol was registered at the UMIN Clinical Trials Registry (ID = UMIN000047810) (May 22, 2022).

RESULTS

A total of 460 nurses completed the T1 survey (response rate = 18.6%), and data from 391 nurses nested in 30 wards were included in the analyses. The intraclass correlation coefficients (ICCs) at T1 were 0.02 for work engagement and 0.07 for team job crafting. The HLM revealed that ward-level team job crafting at T1 was not significantly associated with work engagement, work performance, psychological distress, and intention to leave at T2 or T3. The ward-level change (T3-T1) of "crafting for the task considering the team's growth" (subscale for team job crafting) was significantly and positively associated with the change (T3-T1) in work engagement.

CONCLUSIONS

Ward-level team job crafting at baseline did not predict nurses' work engagement, work performance, psychological distress, or intention to leave at a three-month or six-month follow-up. The impact of ward-level team job crafting may attenuate over several months.

Job Crafting in Nursing: Mediation between Work Engagement and Job Performance in a Multisample Study

Job crafting is considered a specific form of proactive behavior whereby workers actively change the actual or perceived characteristics of their jobs in order to better match the demands placed on them and the resources available. As nursing could be considered a stressful profession, job crafting is proposed as a mediator between nurses' work engagement and job performance. Hence, the main objective of this study was to provide empirical evidence on job crafting in nursing, including the three most prominent conceptualizations of the construct. The present research covers three independent empirical studies of registered or practical nurses of Spanish public and private hospitals: Study 1 (N = 699), Study 2 (N = 498), and Study 3 (N = 308). (3) Our results support the hypothesis that nurses' job engagement and job-crafting behaviors can affect their job performance. Our finding corroborates that engaged nurses can act to proactively change their jobs, but comparing different job-crafting conceptualizations and measures, the current findings support that effectiveness of diverse job crafting behaviors could vary. To sum up, as the JDR approach proposed, the present study supports the position that work engagement influences job performance, as well as the mediating role of job crafting in this relationship. The current study takes this knowledge one step further by revealing that not all types of job-crafting behaviors are equally efficient and not all types are adequate for specific working environments, such as nursing.

Attachment and Work Engagement in Virtual Teams: Promoting Collaborative Job Crafting

Researchers are increasingly interested in how employee relational processes affect virtual team outcomes. Applying attachment theory and the Job Demands–Resources model, we examined the relationship between employee attachment orientations and work engagement, and the mediating role of collaborative job crafting. In a three-wave longitudinal panel study of 1,178 employees in 225 virtual teams, autoregressive and multilevel structural equation modeling showed direct negative effects of (anxious and avoidant) attachment on work engagement. Indirectly, however, attachment positively influenced engagement, partially mediated by collaborative job crafting. Implications for attachment inclusive practices that support collaborative job crafting and work engagement are discussed.

Crafting Work Happiness: Balancing Client Agency & Empowerment With Critical Social Awareness

Job crafting is a method taught by career developers and coaches to workers to help them achieve greater happiness in their jobs. Given its agentic, bottom-up approach, job crafting has become closely aligned with positive psychology. While offering empowerment benefits, job crafting has limitations. Given its almost exclusive focus on individual freedom and control, there is little attention paid to the social context, including structural operations of power within an advanced capitalist economy. Three social science critiques of positive psychology and job crafting are examined, with reference to contemporary career development theory. Practical suggestions are made for how career developers might address these social science critiques to best meet diverse client needs. This involves upholding a commitment to client agency and empowerment, whilst developing and maintaining a critical social awareness. Implications for research on job crafting are also discussed.

The impact of engaging leadership on employee engagement and team effectiveness: A longitudinal, multi-level study on the mediating role of personal- and team resources

Most research on the effect of leadership behavior on employees' well-being and organizational outcomes is based on leadership frameworks that are not rooted in sound psychological theories of motivation and are limited to either an individual or organizational levels of analysis. The current paper investigates whether individual and team resources explain the impact of engaging leadership on work engagement and team effectiveness, respectively. Data were collected at two time points on N = 1,048 employees nested within 90 work teams. The Multilevel Structural Equation Modeling results revealed that personal resources (i.e., optimism, resiliency, self-efficacy, and flexibility) partially mediated the impact of T1 individual perceptions of engaging leadership on T2 work engagement. Furthermore, joint perceptions of engaging leadership among team members at T1 resulted in greater team effectiveness at T2. This association was fully mediated by team resources (i.e., performance feedback, trust in management, communication, and participation in decision-making). Moreover, team resources had a significant cross-level effect on individual levels of engagement. In practical terms, training and supporting leaders who inspire, strengthen, and connect their subordinates could significantly improve employees' motivation and involvement and enable teams to pursue their common goals successfully.

The social psychology of work engagement: state of the field

Purpose

Research on work engagement is flourishing and shows important links between work engagement and career success. However, a systematic account of the social-psychological origins of engagement is largely lacking. In the paper, the author develops a theoretical model and discusses how employees actively influence and are influenced by employees' leader's, colleagues' and partner's work engagement.

Design/methodology/approach

The author integrates literatures on emotional contagion, team work engagement, leadership, proactive work behavior and work-to-family spillover. This results in a model of the social-psychological processes involved in work engagement.

Findings

Work engagement is the result of various social-psychological processes. First, work engagement is contagious – colleagues, leaders and the intimate partner can be important causes of engagement. Second, work engagement emerges at the team-level when team members collectively experience high levels of vigor, dedication and absorption. Team members of engaged teams synchronize their activities well and perform better. Third, leaders may influence employee work engagement through fast (unconscious) and slow (conscious) influence processes. Fourth, employees may use social forms of proactive behavior to stay engaged in their work, including job crafting and playful work design. Finally, work engagement may spill over and enrich the family domain. The social-psychological model of work engagement shows how leaders, followers and family members provide, craft and receive (i.e. exchange) resources and facilitate each other's work and family engagement.

Practical implications

Organizations may increase work engagement by using social-psychological interventions, including training sessions that foster fast and slow leadership, team-boosting behaviors and (team-level) job crafting and playful work design.

Originality/value

Whereas most previous studies have focused on job demands and resources as possible causes of work engagement, the present article outlines the state of the field regarding the social-psychological processes involved in engagement.

The Effect of Confucianism on Job Crafting Using Psychological Contract Fulfilment as the Mediating Variable and Distributive Justice as the Moderating Variable

Purpose

Job crafting can improve employees’ performance and competitive advantage. This study integrated the self-determination and equity theories to examine the relation between an individual’s Confucianism and job crafting by highlighting the mediating effect of psychological contract fulfilment and the moderating effect of distributive justice on this relation.

Participants and Methods

Data were collected in two waves from 372 employees in numerous private companies in Guangxi, China.

Results

The hypothesized model was supported in part. Specifically, as expected, psychological contract fulfilment mediated the positive relation between Confucianism and task crafting and cognitive crafting. Confucianism had a positive effect on psychological contract fulfilment and relational crafting, while psychological contract fulfilment had no mediating effect and its positive effect on relational crafting was not significant. Distributive justice moderated the relation between psychological contract fulfilment and cognitive crafting and task crafting positively.

Conclusion

This study reveals the mechanism of Confucianism’s effect on job crafting from a new perspective and confirms its differing effects on different types of job crafting. Business managers should give attention to Confucianism and maximize their organization’s psychological contract fulfilment to improve employees’ job crafting.

A state-of-the-art overview of job-crafting research: current trends and future research directions

Purpose

In celebration of the 25th anniversary of the founding of Career Development International, a state-of-the-art overview of recent trends in job-crafting research was conducted. Since job crafting was introduced twenty years ago as a type of proactive work behavior that employees engage in to adjust their jobs to their needs, skills, and preferences, research has evolved tremendously.

Design/methodology/approach

To take stock of recent developments and to unravel the latest trends in the field, this overview encompasses job-crafting research published in the years 2016–2021. The overview portrays that recent contributions have matured the theoretical and empirical advancement of job-crafting research from three perspectives (i.e. individual, team and social).

Findings

When looking at the job-crafting literature through these three perspectives, a total of six trends were uncovered that show that job-crafting research has moved to a more in-depth theory-testing approach; broadened its scope; examined team-level job crafting and social relationships; and focused on the impact of job crafting on others in the work environment and their evaluations and reactions to it.

Originality/value

The overview of recent trends within the job-crafting literature ends with a set of recommendations for how future research on job crafting could progress and create scientific impact for the coming years.

Do Organizational Health Climates and Leader Health Mindsets Enhance Employees' Work Engagement and Job Crafting Amid the Pandemic?

Although the COVID-19 pandemic has resulted in many health- and stress-related symptoms among employees, surprisingly few studies have assessed the effect of a health-promoting organizational climate or leadership on employee work outcomes. To fill this gap, our research proposed and tested a moderated mediation model involving perceived organizational health climate (POHC), leader health mindset (LHM), work engagement, and job crafting. Our propositions were tested using two-wave data collected from 301 South Korean employees. As predicted, POHC was positively related to employees' job crafting, and this relationship was mediated by work engagement. Moreover, the positive relationship between POHC and work engagement and the indirect effect of POHC on job crafting through work engagement were more pronounced when LHM was high than when it was low. These findings support the job demands-resources model and social exchange theory and have implications for helping employees maintain their work attitudes and behavior in times of crisis.

Engaging Leadership: How to Promote Work Engagement?

This paper introduces the notion of engaging leadership and reviews the empirical work done so far. Engaging leadership is defined as leadership behavior that facilitates, strengthens, connects and inspires employees in order to increase their work engagement. It can be measured with a reliable and valid self-report scale. As predicted by Self-Determination Theory, on which the concept of engaging leadership is based, basic need satisfaction mediates the relationship between engaging leadership and work engagement. This is true both for individual employees as well as the team level. In addition, job characteristics (job demands and job resources) seem to play a similar mediating role, just as personal resources. Furthermore, research shows that engaging leadership has a beneficial effect on individual and team performance which illustrates its relevance for organizations. Future research should focus, amongst others, on the opposite of engaging leadership (i.e., disengaging leadership) and interventions to foster engaging leadership. Moreover, alternative affective, cognitive and behavioral pathways should be explored that might play a role in addition to the motivational (through need fulfillment) and material (through job characteristics) pathways that have been investigated so far.

Contextual antecedents of job crafting: review and future research agenda

Purpose

The purpose of this study is to critically review current studies on job crafting to identify contextual factors related to employees’ job crafting and to integrate the findings to help organizations improve employees’ job crafting.

Design/methodology/approach

Based on the guidelines provided by Torraco (2016), the authors reviewed 44 quantitative studies on job crafting published between 2001and 2020.

Findings

The authors identified 35 contextual antecedents of job crafting at the job (11), group (6), leadership (12) and organizational (6) levels. The findings reveal that a significant number of studies have focused on contextual aspects related to employees’ job crafting. In particular, multiple studies discussed the important role of empowering leadership, servant leadership, transformational leadership, leader-member exchange in job crafting.

Originality/value

The authors emphasize contextual factors influencing job crafting including job, group, leadership and organizational levels. Based on the review, the authors suggest a future research agenda on job crafting in terms of job, group, leadership and organizational antecedents.

Leadership and Job Demands-Resources Theory: A Systematic Review

The purpose of this article is to provide a systematic review of leadership and Job Demands-Resources (JD-R) theory. We have analyzed 139 studies that study the relationship between leadership and Job Demands-Resources (JD-R) theory. Based on our analysis, we highlight ways forward. First, research designs can be improved by eliminating endogeneity problems. Regarding leadership concepts, proper measurements should be used. Furthermore, we point toward new theory building by highlighting three main ways in which leadership may affect employees, namely by: (1) directly influencing job demands and resources, (2) influencing the impact of job demands and resources on well-being; and (3) influencing job crafting and self-undermining. We hope this review helps researchers and practitioners analyze how leadership and JD-R theory can be connected, ultimately leading to improved employee well-being and organizational performance.

Psychological and relational conditions for job crafting to occur

This study aimed to provide a wider understanding of the determinants of job crafting by jointly considering employee well- and ill-being (work engagement and exhaustion) and socio-environmental factors (supervisor and colleague support) as possible levers to promote job crafting. A secondary goal of this research was to simultaneously explore the multidimensionality of work engagement and the potentially differentiated associations between the different facets of work engagement and job crafting behaviours. Questionnaire surveys were collected among 533 workers from various organizations located in France. Results from preliminary analyses showed the superiority of a Bifactor Exploratory Structural Equation Modeling (B-ESEM) representation of work engagement when compared to alternative representations of ratings of this multidimensional construct. Specifically, employees' ratings of work engagement simultaneously reflected a global work engagement construct, which co-existed with specific vigor, dedication and absorption components. Results from a predictive model indicated that the different facets of work engagement held differentiated relations with job crafting behaviours, while exhaustion did not significantly relate to any job crafting behaviours. Colleague and supervisor support also held differentiated relations with the demands-related job crafting behaviours, while both forms of support were associated with employees' seeking more job resources. Theoretical and practical implications are discussed.

Job crafting and psychological capital: a multi-level study of their effects on innovative work behaviour

Purpose

This study aims to test the cross-level effects of team job crafting on individual innovative work behaviour (IWB) and the mediating role of team psychological capital (PsyCap).

Design/methodology/approach

This longitudinal study tested a multilevel design in a sample of 163 employees, clustered into 45 teams. Job crafting and PsyCap were aggregated to the team level to examine the effects of team job crafting Time 1 on individual IWB Time 2. In addition, mediation analysis was tested to determine whether team-level job crafting Time 1 can affect individual IWB Time 2 through team PsyCap Time 2.

Findings

Results found that team job crafting was positively related to individual IWB, and the relationship was mediated by team PsyCap.

Practical implications

This study includes implications for adopting job crafting behaviour at the team level to improve individual IWB.

Originality/value

This cross-level study is the first to verify the effects of team job crafting on individual IWB and team PsyCap as a mediator. This study extends the literature on job crafting by using a multilevel design in the analysis.

Reclaiming cognitive crafting: an integrative model of behavioral and cognitive practices in job crafting

Purpose

This paper aims to present a model of how cognitive and behavioral crafting practices relate, reconciling the two dominant and conflicting job crafting theoretical perspectives.

Design/methodology/approach

Starting by examining the role of cognition and cognitive practices in job crafting, this paper reconstitutes the theorizing path that led to the exclusion of cognitive crafting from job crafting theory, explores existing theorizing efforts to (re)integrate cognitive crafting back into job crafting and proposes a new job crafting model (re)integrating behavioral and cognitive practices.

Findings

By conceiving cognitive crafting practices as a sensemaking layer that spans across and reciprocates with all behavioral crafting practices, the proposed model specifies the role of behavior and cognition (and the mutual relations between them) in job crafting, while resuming its meaning-making orientation.

Originality/value

This paper offers novel insights on underspecified aspects of the job crafting theory, improving its heuristic value. It clarifies how meaning is assembled and enacted by people in work environments, allowing for more integrated and comprehensive explanations about how people relate to work.

Developing and piloting a well-being program for hospital-based physicians

BACKGROUND

Demanding working conditions in medical practice pressurise the well-being of physicians across all career stages, likely harming patients and healthcare systems. Structural solutions to harmful working conditions are necessary as well as interventions to support physicians in contemporary practice. We report on developing and piloting a team-based program for physicians to improve their working conditions and well-being.

APPROACH

Program development steps involved: a preparatory phase, needs assessment, and program design. The program consisted of (1) a feedback tool addressing working conditions and well-being, and an intervention including (2a) a facilitated team dialogue and (2b) a team training on communication and collaborative job crafting. In the program's pilot, 377 physicians from 48 teams in 14 Dutch hospitals used the feedback tool. Four teams participated in the team dialogue. Two teams performed the team training.

EVALUATION

Physicians indicated that the program was a useful format to gain insight into their working conditions and well-being, and possibly to improve their well-being collaboratively.

REFLECTION

We provide seven critical reflections on developing and piloting our program, accompanied by recommendations for developing well-being interventions. Our development approach, program components, and recommendations may support physicians and other healthcare professionals in demanding work environments.

Work Outcomes of Job Crafting Among the Different Ranks of Project Teams

This study examined the effects of job crafting on the work meaningfulness and work engagement of project participants of different ranks. Although previous research has shown that job crafting affects employees’ work outcomes, this topic is under-researched in project management settings. Our findings indicate that work meaningfulness partially mediates the relationship between job crafting and work engagement in the case of project team members and fully mediates it in the case of project managers. They suggest the necessity to apply different means to influence productive project behaviors of the two groups studied. These may include, in particular, changing the approach to job design of project team members and focusing on team job crafting work to build more opportunities to job craft.

Work–Family Conflict on Sustainable Creative Performance: Job Crafting as a Mediator

The psychology of sustainability in terms of sustainable development for work–family conflict (WFC) in organizations has become increasingly relevant in sustainable human resource management research, and the pursuit of sustainable creative performance is an important aspect of corporate sustainable development. Taking a regulatory focus perspective, this study integrates a moderated-mediation model to examine the relationship between work–family conflict and sustainable creative performance. Data were collected from 203 supervisor–subordinate dyads from two branches of a high-end manufacturing enterprise in Shanghai, China. The results reveal that work–family conflict has a positive effect on sustainable creative performance through job crafting, and the effect is stronger when individuals show higher promotion regulatory focus. We discuss the theoretical and practical implications of the study, along with potential future research directions.

Engaging Leadership and Its Implication for Work Engagement and Job Outcomes at the Individual and Team Level: A Multi-Level Longitudinal Study

The current study investigates how supervisors’ engaging leadership, as perceived by their employees, increases employees’ job outcomes at the individual and team level, as mediated by (team) work engagement. Job outcome indicators at the team level are team performance, team learning, and team innovation; and at the individual level, job performance, employee learning, and innovative work behavior. The novel concept of engaging leadership is presented as the specific type of leadership to foster (team) work engagement. A multi-level longitudinal study is conducted among 224 blue collar employees nested in 54 teams in an Indonesian state-owned holding company in the agricultural industry using a one-year time lag. The findings show, as expected, that at the team level, engaging leadership at time 1 predicted team learning and team innovation (but not team performance) at time 2, via team work engagement at time 2. Additionally, an expected cross-level effect was observed from engaging leadership at the team level at time 1 predicting individual job performance (but not employee learning and innovative work behavior) at time 2, via team work engagement at time 2. Finally, an expected second cross-level effect was observed for engaging leadership at the team level at time 1, which predicted individual job performance, employee learning, and innovative work behavior at time 2, via work engagement at time 2.

How coworkers attribute, react to, and shape job crafting

Job crafting, or proactive changes that individuals make in their job design, can influence and be influenced by coworkers. Although considerable research has emerged on this topic, overall, the way job crafting is responded to by coworkers has received little theoretical attention. The goal of this article is to develop a model that allows for a better understanding of job crafting in interdependent contexts. Drawing on attribution and social information theories, we propose that when job crafting has a negative or positive impact on coworkers, coworkers will make an attribution about the crafter’s prosocial motive. This attribution in turn influences whether coworkers respond in an antagonistic or a supportive way toward job crafters. Ultimately, coworkers’ reactions shape the experienced affective work outcomes of job crafters. We also theorize the factors that moderate coworkers’ reactions to job crafting behaviors and the job crafter’s susceptibility to coworker influence.

Resource Crafting: Is It Really 'Resource' Crafting-Or Just Crafting?

This study aims to provide an integrated perspective on job crafting and its antecedents through the exploration of the joint effects of individual-level and team-level job crafting on employee work engagement. Drawing on conservation of resources (COR) theory, we propose that engaging in job crafting behaviors is promoted by the presence of job-related resources. In turn, job crafting is expected to result in higher levels of work engagement. We expect this reasoning to hold for the individual as well as the team/collective levels. The hypotheses were tested using data from 287 medical professionals from 21 hospital units of a Chinese public hospital. Findings from two-level Bayesian structural equation modeling supported the idea that at the individual level, individual job crafting behaviors partially mediated the relationship from individual resources to individual work engagement. Further, collective crafting mediated the relationship from team resources to individual work engagement. In addition, a positive cross-level relation between collective crafting and individual crafting was found. We conclude that stimulated by resources, both job crafting processes at the individual-level and team-level can promote individual work engagement in Chinese employees.