Abstract
The present study provides evidence for the important role of job crafting and self-undermining behaviors at work, two new concepts that were recently integrated into the well-known job demands-resources (JD-R) theory (Bakker and Demerouti, 2017). We investigate how these behaviors are associated with work engagement, emotional exhaustion, and work ability as a long-term indicator of employee’s well-being. Furthermore, we examine the moderating role of personal resources in the stress-strain process by comparing groups of employees representing the five types of job satisfaction defined by Bruggemann (1974). Data was collected in a cross-sectional study within a German DAX company’s manufacturing plant from 1145 blue- and white-collar workers. Results of structural equation modeling provided, as expected, support for an indirect effect of job demands and job resources on emotional exhaustion and work engagement through job crafting and self-undermining. Work ability, on the other hand, was mainly affected by emotional exhaustion, but not by work engagement. Most important, we found significant differences between path coefficients across the five types of job satisfaction indicating that these types represent important constellations of personal resources and job demands that should be considered both for analyzing stress at work and for offering tailored stress interventions in organizations.
Highlights
Work-related stress and strain are a major cost and risk factor for organizations (Hassard et al, 2018) and, as a consequence, efforts to increase safety, staff retention and employee’s health through improvement in job design are an integral part of modern HRM systems (e.g. Kröll et al, 2017)
We found significant differences between path coefficients across the five types of job satisfaction indicating that these types represent important constellations of personal resources and job demands that should be considered both for analyzing stress at work and for offering tailored stress interventions in organizations
Model fit indices resulted in an acceptable fit taking into account the model complexity (χ2 (824) = 2752.165, p < 0.001, χ2/df = 3.340, Root Mean Square Error of Approximation (RMSEA) = 0.048, Normed Fit Index (NFI) = 0.892, Non-Normed Fit Index (NNFI) = 0.909, Comparative Fit Index (CFI) = 0.921, Incremental Fit Index (IFI) = 0.922)
Summary
Work-related stress and strain are a major cost and risk factor for organizations (Hassard et al, 2018) and, as a consequence, efforts to increase safety, staff retention and employee’s health through improvement in job design are an integral part of modern HRM systems (e.g. Kröll et al, 2017). Bakker and Demerouti (2017) recently published an extended version of their theory that offers a more dynamic view on the interplay between job demands and job resources at work by integrating employees as active agents of their work environment. The extended JD-R theory proposes two types of proactive employee behaviors, namely job crafting and self-undermining (Bakker and Demerouti, 2017). In addition to these concepts, personal resources are considered to broaden the perspective on individual characteristics interfering with job demands and job resources. Even though the literature provides evidence for parts of the extended JD-R theory (e.g. Knecht et al, 2017; Rudolph et al, 2017), an extensive investigation of the propositions regarding the role of employees’ behaviors at work and personal resources is still lacking
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