The Joint Effects of Leader–Member Exchange and Team-Member Exchange in Predicting Job Crafting

Kihyun Lee

doi:10.3390/su12083283

Abstract

In order to better understand the social aspects of job crafting, this study explores the direct and interactive effects of leader–member exchange (LMX) and team-member exchange (TMX) on three types of job crafting (i.e., task, relational, and cognitive crafting). Drawing on both social exchange theory and the job demands–resources model, this study examines the social antecedents of job crafting in a sample of 336 members of three shipbuilding companies. The results indicate that individuals who have high-quality relationships with their leaders engage in more job crafting and that TMX is positively related to job crafting, after controlling for LMX. In addition, the results show that TMX moderates the positive relationship between LMX and job crafting, such that a higher TMX strengthens the LMX–job crafting link. The implications of these findings for job crafting and social antecedents are discussed, and suggestions for future research are presented.

Highlights

Since Wrzesniewski and Dutton [1] introduced the concept of job crafting, more and more attention has been paid to the study of employee job redesign
Because job crafting is related to voluntary job modification, the processes involved in changing job boundaries derive from employees’ perspectives, which are associated with intrinsic motivation and the resulting positive outcomes
I conducted confirmatory factor analysis (CFA) to check the dimensional structure of the variables included in this study

Summary

Introduction

Since Wrzesniewski and Dutton [1] introduced the concept of job crafting, more and more attention has been paid to the study of employee job redesign. Some scholars and practitioners have argued that the use of job redesign cannot induce intrinsic motivation because of its top-down control [1,4]. This is the reason why the employee side of job redesign, such as job crafting, is considered as a crucial motivation strategy in relation to changing job processes. Job crafting refers to the physical, social, and cognitive changes that employees initiate in the tasks or relational scopes associated with their work [1,5]. Because job crafting is related to voluntary job modification, the processes involved in changing job boundaries derive from employees’ perspectives, which are associated with intrinsic motivation and the resulting positive outcomes. Job crafting has a positive relationship with outcomes, such as team work engagement, team efficacy, team interdependence, and team performance [8,9]

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Results

Conclusion