Abstract

The availability and development of social and personal resources are substantial components of a positive work experience. This study aims to inquire the reciprocal relations between the personal resource of psychological capital (PsyCap; hope, self-efficacy, resilience, and optimism) and the social job resource of social support, as proposed in the job demands-resources theory. There, job crafting is defined as a catalysator to the interplay of social support and PsyCap and is therefore added to this study. Moreover, we test the enabling hypothesis of social support in the context of work. We contribute to the field, as this research (a) examines propositions of a core theory, (b) adds and extends relevant hypotheses from health psychology into occupational psychology, and (c) aims to replicate findings. To capture the dynamic nature of the selected, relevant relationships of the job demands-resources theory, we used a three-wave, 3-month panel design to study 995 employees who were working in a broad range of economic sectors and occupations. Structural equation modeling was used to test hypotheses. Results showed, that social support at work positively influenced the development of PsyCap, supporting and extending the enabling hypothesis of self-efficacy. Counterintuitively, PsyCap and crafting for social job resources were negatively related, indicating (a) that the reliance on personal resources might reduce the necessity to generate social resources, and (b) that crafting is a strategy that consumes personal resources. Previously observed gain cycles were not replicable.

Highlights

  • Today, the so-called digital, or fourth industrial revolution, is ever-present

  • In this study, we focus on personal resources that are operationalized by the well-established concept of psychological capital (PsyCap), which is conceptualized as a state-like, higher-order factor that contains four subdimensions: hope, self-efficacy, resilience, and optimism (Luthans and Youssef, 2004)

  • A fully mediated causality model M2 was compared to the stability model M1

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Summary

Introduction

The so-called digital, or fourth industrial revolution, is ever-present. This development is noticeably changing the face of work in a significant haste, offering new options for employees and organizations, and at the same time poses challenges to both (Neufeind et al, 2018). Such a development implies a considerable demand for social and personal resources, to adapt to and to actively craft changing work situations. This is the first study that combines crafting with individual and social resources in the field of occupational health psychology, adding hypotheses regarding self-efficacy to the study framework

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