PurposeIn 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/approachTo 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).FindingsWhen 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/valueThe 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.
In recent years, there has been heightened interest in the active role of employees in shaping activities and experiences in their pursuit of optimal functioning (i.e., feeling and performing well), ...referred to as job-, leisure-, home-, and work-life balance crafting. Various perspectives have emphasized distinct dimensions within the crafting process (i.e., motives, behaviors, life domains, and outcomes), yielding a rich but fragmented theoretical account. With psychological needs satisfaction as the underlying process, we propose an integrative model to account for past conceptualizations of crafting motives and efforts across a person's various role identities. This integration highlights the importance of recognizing unfulfilled needs, matching needs and crafting efforts, within- and between-level temporal dynamics of the crafting process, and possibilities for spillover and compensation processes across identity domains. Accordingly, the Integrative Needs Model of Crafting explains (1) why and how people craft, (2) when and why crafting efforts may (not) be effective in achieving optimal functioning, (3) the sequential process of crafting over time, and (4) how crafting processes unfold across different identity domains.
Pursuing meaningful life experiences is vital for wellbeing and health. Crafting strategies, such as job crafting and work-life balance crafting, have been developed to create meaning in specific ...life domains. However, these strategies share common underlying behaviors that transcend specific contexts. Building on this understanding, we propose a comprehensive "holistic life-crafting" approach that integrates overlapping behaviors from various crafting strategies. This study aims to clarify the theoretical conceptualization of life-crafting by identifying common strategies and behaviors underlying different meaning-making crafting approaches. Through a systematic literature search of six databases between January and April 2022, we identified 16,479 published records. Using predefined inclusion-exclusion criteria, 51 records (reflecting five crafting approaches, resulting in 223 different crafting behaviors) remained. Through content analysis, we grouped these behaviors into seven broader crafting strategies, forming the "holistic life-crafting" approach. Findings suggest that life-crafting is a holistic, continuous process of proactive meaning-making by intentionally balancing life demands with available resources and altering life's cognitive, environmental, interest, relational, skill, and task-related aspects to promote personal growth and wellbeing. The holistic approach encompasses cognitive, environmental, interest, relational, resources-demands, skill, and task crafting strategies. This framework provides a comprehensive understanding of how individuals can actively shape their lives to promote more meaningful life experiences across different domains.
PROSPERO, identifier CRD42022333930.
Crafting research has often focused solely on the work domain or examined work and non‐work life domains separately, using a variable‐centered approach. Little is known about the interactions of ...crafting processes in the work and non‐work domain. In this time‐lagged study, we examined (1) the relationship between job and off‐job crafting behaviours using a person‐centered approach to identify crafting profiles, (2) whether job, home and personal resources differentially predicted these profiles and (3) whether these profiles differed in relation to outcomes, that is work engagement and mental well‐being. We conducted a three‐wave, time‐lagged survey with 3‐month intervals among 2125 employees. The results revealed three profiles of active (18.0%), average (48.2%) and least active (33.9%) crafters. Analyses of predictors showed that active crafters had higher levels of home developmental possibilities and self‐efficacy than average and least active crafters, likewise for average crafters compared with least active crafters. Furthermore, active crafters had higher levels of social support at home than least active crafters. Regarding well‐being outcomes, active crafters experienced significantly higher mental well‐being than average and least active crafters and higher work engagement than least active crafters. Interventions to enhance employee's resources could stimulate crafting behaviours, ultimately improving well‐being.
Purpose
This study aims to investigate the conditions required for encouraging employees to engage in job crafting and examine the consequences of job crafting behavior. Job crafting is employees’ ...proactive behaviors at work associated with modifying tasks, managing social relations and changing job cognition.
Design/methodology/approach
A paper-and-pencil onsite survey was conducted by targeting frontline employees working in five-star hotels located in Seoul, South Korea. Descriptive statistics, confirmatory factor analysis and structural equation modeling were used.
Findings
Perceived organizational support triggers employees’ job crafting. Task crafting leads to relational and cognitive crafting. Relational and cognitive crafting increases employees’ fit with the organization, whereas task crafting does not. Employees’ fit with the organization is positively associated with job satisfaction.
Research limitations/implications
Employees’ job crafting has positive consequences for a company by enhancing employees’ fit with the organization, resulting in increased job satisfaction. Thus, organizations need to show how much the organization cares about employees’ values, so that employees can initiate job crafting by utilizing organizational support. However, generalizing the results should be done cautiously.
Originality/value
This study focuses on the effect of an organizational-level predictor, whereas previous job crafting literature has focused mainly on an individual level or on task-related factors. It also empirically tests the causal relationships among the three facets of job crafting and provides their distinctive influences on person-organization fit that ultimately leads to job satisfaction.
The Approach‐Avoidance Job Crafting Scale (AAJCS) builds on our adjusted version of a hierarchical structure of job crafting by Zhang and Parker from 2019. In developing and validating the new AAJCS, ...we, first, developed the German items in a stepwise procedure (pilot study). Second, we tested the factor structure and reliability (Study 1). Third, we replicated previous results and tested the construct validity (Study 2). Fourth, we ensured the criterion validity of the AAJCS (Study 3). The results suggested the existence of two independent factors, namely, approach and avoidance crafting, rather than a global job crafting factor. Furthermore, approach and avoidance crafting each consist of four job crafting dimensions, thus reflecting the hierarchical structure of job crafting. Within these dimensions, aspects of previous job crafting concepts are integrated. The distinction between approach and avoidance crafting became apparent in the comparison of their criterion validities as follows: Approach crafting was positively related to work‐related outcomes, while avoidance crafting was negatively associated with work engagement and performance. Furthermore, approach and avoidance crafting exhibited incremental validity with regard to predict work engagement and performance beyond previous job crafting concepts. Approach crafting was positively associated while avoidance crafting was negatively associated with work engagement and performance.
Shaping off-job life is becoming increasingly important for workers to increase and maintain their optimal functioning (i.e., feeling and performing well). Proactively shaping the job domain ...(referred to as job crafting) has been extensively studied, but crafting in the off-job domain has received markedly less research attention. Based on the
Integrative Needs Model of Crafting
, needs-based off-job crafting is defined as workers’ proactive and self-initiated changes in their off-job lives, which target psychological needs satisfaction. Off-job crafting is posited as a possible means for workers to fulfill their needs and enhance well-being and performance over time. We developed a new scale to measure off-job crafting and examined its relationships to optimal functioning in different work contexts in different regions around the world (the United States, Germany, Austria, Switzerland, Finland, Japan, and the United Kingdom). Furthermore, we examined the criterion, convergent, incremental, discriminant, and structural validity evidence of the Needs-based Off-job Crafting Scale using multiple methods (longitudinal and cross-sectional survey studies, an “example generation”-task). The results showed that off-job crafting was related to optimal functioning over time, especially in the off-job domain but also in the job domain. Moreover, the novel off-job crafting scale had good convergent and discriminant validity, internal consistency, and test–retest reliability. To conclude, our series of studies in various countries show that off-job crafting can enhance optimal functioning in different life domains and support people in performing their duties sustainably. Therefore, shaping off-job life may be beneficial in an intensified and continually changing and challenging working life.
Having a purpose in life is one of the most fundamental human needs. However, for most people, finding their purpose in life is not obvious. Modern life has a way of distracting people from their ...true goals and many people find it hard to define their purpose in life. Especially at younger ages, people are searching for meaning in life, but this has been found to be unrelated to actually finding meaning. Oftentimes, people experience pressure to have a "perfect" life and show the world how well they are doing, instead of following up on their deep-felt values and passions. Consequently, people may need a more structured way of finding meaning, e.g.,
an intervention. In this paper, we discuss evidence-based ways of finding purpose,
a process that we call "life crafting." This process fits within positive psychology and the salutogenesis framework - an approach focusing on factors that support human health and well-being, instead of factors that cause disease. This process ideally starts with an intervention that entails a combination of reflecting on one's values, passions and goals, best possible self, goal attainment plans, and other positive psychology intervention techniques. Important elements of such an intervention are: (1) discovering values and passion, (2) reflecting on current and desired competencies and habits, (3) reflecting on present and future social life, (4) reflecting on a possible future career, (5) writing about the ideal future, (6) writing down specific goal attainment and "if-then" plans, and (7) making public commitments to the goals set. Prior research has shown that personal goal setting and goal attainment plans help people gain a direction or a sense of purpose in life. Research findings from the field of positive psychology, such as salutogenesis, implementation intentions, value congruence, broaden-and-build, and goal-setting literature, can help in building a comprehensive evidence-based life-crafting intervention. This intervention can aid individuals to find a purpose in life, while at the same time ensuring that they make concrete plans to work toward this purpose. The idea is that life crafting enables individuals to take control of their life in order to optimize performance and happiness.
Scholars made clear that daily job and home crafting can optimize employees' well-being, also when teleworking. Since telework is largely characterized by a constant juggle between work and home ...roles, we need knowledge on how teleworkers can combine job and home crafting during the day. While previous studies have almost exclusively applied an enrichment-based perspective, which assumes that daily job and home crafting can be combined unlimitedly, the current study proposes an effort-based perspective, which assumes that crafting requires effort and, therefore, can only be done within certain limits. Using a daily diary study (N = 839 days nested within 202 full-time teleworkers), we investigate whether daily approach job and home crafting can prevent daily energy depletion. Moreover, we predict that equally allocating efforts across daily approach job and home crafting is related to the lowest levels of energy depletion. Multilevel polynomial regression analyses showed that daily approach job and home crafting were negatively related to daily energy depletion. As an important exception to this general finding, the combination of high approach job and home crafting was related to higher energy depletion and should be avoided. Finally, our results indicated that, in general, allocating efforts to approach job crafting is more useful than allocating efforts to approach home crafting.
•We introduce the idea that daily approach job and home crafting are effortful and, therefore, cannot be done unlimitedly.•Teleworkers can allocate efforts across approach job and home crafting to tackle energy depletion during the day.•In allocating crafting efforts, the utility of daily approach job crafting is higher than of daily approach home crafting.•Combining high levels of daily approach job and home crafting should be avoided because it increases energy depletion.
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