Once a job crafter, always a job crafter? Investigating job crafting in organizations as a reciprocal self-concordant process across time

TY - JOUR

T1 - Once a job crafter, always a job crafter? Investigating job crafting in organizations as a reciprocal self-concordant process across time

AU - Clinton, Michael

AU - Bindl, Uta

AU - Frasca, Keely

AU - Martinescu, Elena

N1 - Publisher Copyright: © The Author(s) 2024.

PY - 2024/1/2

Y1 - 2024/1/2

N2 - Research depicts job crafting as a desirable, ongoing employee behavior rather than aone-off event. However, insights are lacking into how employees’ active engagementin job crafting may be sustained across time. In this study, we advance a dynamicframework of how changes that follow employees’ periods of job crafting may, inturn, motivate versus impede continued crafting of one’s job role over time. Drawingfrom self-concordance theorizing, we propose and test a framework on how jobcrafting and employees’ attainment of self-concordant and organizational work goalsare reciprocally related over time. Longitudinal data from a large, three-wave studycollected over four years among church ministers support a positive reciprocalrelationship between job crafting and self-concordant goal attainment, as well as anindirect positive relationship between job crafting and organizational goal attainment via self-concordant goal attainment. However, in line with our theorizing,organizational goal attainment did not predict subsequent job crafting. Instead, highorganizational goal attainment weakened the extent to which job crafting at one timepoint positively related to job crafting at the next time point. We discuss thetheoretical and practical implications of our findings for employees’ continuedengagement in job crafting in organizations.

AB - Research depicts job crafting as a desirable, ongoing employee behavior rather than aone-off event. However, insights are lacking into how employees’ active engagementin job crafting may be sustained across time. In this study, we advance a dynamicframework of how changes that follow employees’ periods of job crafting may, inturn, motivate versus impede continued crafting of one’s job role over time. Drawingfrom self-concordance theorizing, we propose and test a framework on how jobcrafting and employees’ attainment of self-concordant and organizational work goalsare reciprocally related over time. Longitudinal data from a large, three-wave studycollected over four years among church ministers support a positive reciprocalrelationship between job crafting and self-concordant goal attainment, as well as anindirect positive relationship between job crafting and organizational goal attainment via self-concordant goal attainment. However, in line with our theorizing,organizational goal attainment did not predict subsequent job crafting. Instead, highorganizational goal attainment weakened the extent to which job crafting at one timepoint positively related to job crafting at the next time point. We discuss thetheoretical and practical implications of our findings for employees’ continuedengagement in job crafting in organizations.

UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=85186422117&partnerID=8YFLogxK

U2 - https://doi.org/10.1177/00187267241228997

DO - https://doi.org/10.1177/00187267241228997

M3 - Article

SN - 0018-7267

JO - HUMAN RELATIONS

JF - HUMAN RELATIONS

ER -