Job crafting and work engagement among remote workers in Italy: Lessons for workplace innovation

Abstract

In this chapter, we adopt a psychological perspective to the study of workplace innovation (WPI) in Italy. Framing our contribution in the context of remote working and WPI before and during the COVID-19 emergency, we investigate how proactive behaviours (i.e., job crafting) transforming remote work resulted in different levels of work engagement during the pandemic. Three-wave longitudinal data were collected from 35 remote workers (N = 105 observations). Results from multilevel analyses with Bayesian estimator showed that, at the beginning of the pandemic, remote working prompted employees to actively distance themselves from their work roles, which resulted in lower work engagement. On the other side, employees who proactively optimised their work processes reported higher engagement. By showing that job crafting can hinder or enhance the motivational outcomes resulting from abrupt changes and innovations, this contribution highlights the value of complementing the study of WPI with a psychological perspective that accounts for how employees re-interpret changes and innovations in their work.