Job Crafting as a Mediator between Work Engagement and Wellbeing Outcomes: A Time-Lagged Study.

Enrique Robledo,Gabriela Topa,Salvatore Zappalà

doi:10.3390/ijerph16081376

Abstract

This time-lagged study, using the framework of the JD-R model, tested the mediating role of job crafting measuring: at T1, work engagement, workaholism and emotional exhaustion; at T2, job crafting; and, at T3, flourishing, job performance and job satisfaction. Respondents were 443 Spanish employees working in different companies. Results show that job crafting mediates the relationship between work engagement and some of its outcomes (job performance and flourishing). In particular, the job crafting component ‘increasing structural job resources’ mediates the positive effect of work engagement on flourishing and job performance, and the job crafting component ‘increasing challenging demands’ mediates the positive effect of work engagement on job performance. No job crafting mediation is found between work engagement and job satisfaction.

Highlights

Organizations have recently been more and more aware of the importance of employees’ wellbeing, because this may have positive results for companies and for society, with a clear impact on public health
This study contributes to the body of job crafting research with a time-lagged analysis of the relationship between several variables of the Job Demand-Resources (JD-R) model, which is the theoretical framework used in this paper, and some individual outcomes
Following the main principles of the JD-R, we argue that certain aspects of engagement and burnout, measured at T1, will lead to outcomes at T3, flourishing, job satisfaction and job performance

Summary

Introduction

Organizations have recently been more and more aware of the importance of employees’ wellbeing, because this may have positive results for companies and for society, with a clear impact on public health. Several concepts have been studied by occupational psychology in this regard: work engagement, burnout, stress, job performance and so on. Job crafting is a concept that, still in its infancy [1], has been developed to better understand the virtuous cycle of employee wellbeing and positive organizational results. This study contributes to the body of job crafting research with a time-lagged analysis of the relationship between several variables of the Job Demand-Resources (JD-R) model, which is the theoretical framework used in this paper, and some individual outcomes. Following the main principles of the JD-R, we argue that certain aspects of engagement and burnout (such as work engagement, workaholism and exhaustion), measured at T1, will lead to outcomes at T3, flourishing, job satisfaction and job performance. Taking into account job crafting, and the four components of job crafting proposed by Tims, Bakker and Derks [2], at an intermediate time (T2), we will test the mediation processes between the variables at T1 and T3

Methods

Results

Discussion

Conclusion