Challenging Job Demands Research Articles

Linking flight attendants’ job crafting and OCB from a JD-R perspective: A daily analysis of the mediation of job resources and demands

This study aims to examine the mediating effect of increasing job resources and challenge job demands on the relationship between flight attendants’ daily job crafting and daily organizational citizenship behavior (OCB). Drawing on the job demands-resources model, we proposed that daily task, relational, and cognitive crafting would be positively associated with daily OCB by increasing job resources and challenge job demands. To test this proposition, we collected daily diaries from 50 Korean flight attendants for ten consecutive working days and conducted multilevel modeling and a bootstrapping analysis. Findings showed that daily task, relational, and cognitive crafting were positively related to daily OCB though the mediating process of increasing job resources and challenge job demands. Our post-hoc analysis revealed that the proposed mediating model was more viable than the alternative causal model. These findings offer novel insight for job crafting and OCB literature.

Psychological Safety, Job Crafting, and Employability: A Comparison Between Permanent and Temporary Workers.

Employability is one of the leading challenges of the contemporary organizational environment. While much is known about the positive effects of job crafting on employees’ employability in general, little is known about its effects when employment contacts are different. Differentiating between temporary and permanent workers, in this article we investigate how in the environment of psychological safety, these two types of employees engage in job crafting, and how job crafting is related to their perceived employability. Data were collected among two samples, consisting of temporary agency workers (N = 527), and permanent employees (N = 796). Structural equation modeling (SEM) analyses indicated a different pattern of results for the two groups: for permanent employees, increasing challenging job demands was positively, and decreasing hindering job demands was negatively related to perceived employability. Moreover, psychological safety was related to all job crafting dimensions. For agency workers, only increasing structural job resources was related to employability, while psychological safety was negatively associated with crafting hindrances. These findings suggest that a climate of psychological safety is particularly effective for permanent employees in fostering job crafting and employability.

Personal growth initiative as a predictor of psychological empowerment: The mediating role of job crafting

Previous research has investigated the effects of socio‐organizational factors on psychological empowerment (PE), whereas only a limited number of studies have examined the influence of individual characteristics on PE. Drawing on self‐determination theory and social capital theory, this study hypothesized that personal growth initiative (PGI), a set of skills that facilitate self‐change, has an indirect and positive influence on PE as mediated by three types of job crafting. The results of a two‐wave longitudinal survey of 320 employees in the US indicate that PGI had an indirect positive influence on PE that was mediated by the following: (a) increasing structural job resources; (b) increasing challenging job demands; and (c) increasing social job resources, which subsequently leads to increasing challenging job demands. These findings contribute to the existing literature by elucidating the importance of self‐initiated change processes at work.

Challenge job demands and job resources to university teacher well-being: the mediation of teacher efficacy

ABSTRACT This study investigated the associations between challenge job demands, job resources, emotional exhaustion and work engagement, and examined the mediation effect of teacher efficacy as a personal resource in the job demands-resources model. The results of a questionnaire survey of 2758 university teachers from 25 universities in mainland China indicated that challenge job demands were positively related to emotional exhaustion and negatively related to work engagement. Job resources were positively related to work engagement and negatively related to emotional exhaustion. Teacher efficacy mediated the effect of challenge job demands and job resources on work engagement. These results have implications for understanding different types of job demands and improving university teachers’ well-being, and these implications are identified in this paper.

Seeking Challenges, Individual Adaptability and Career Growth in the Relationship between Workload and Contextual Performance: A Two-Wave Study

Based on the theoretical approach of the psychology of sustainability and sustainable development and on the theoretical Job Demands-Resources model, this contribution aims to explore the mediating effect of seeking challenges on the relationship between workload and contextual performance and the moderating effects of individual adaptability and organizational career growth in this process. The study involved a convenience sample from different occupational sectors. Data from 178 employees were collected with a self-report questionnaire administered at times T1 and T2 (six months later) and then analyzed through conditional process analysis. Challenging job demands (T1) fully mediated the relationship between workload (T1) and contextual performance (T2); furthermore, individual adaptability (T1) moderated the relationship between workload (T1) and challenging job demands (T1), and organizational career growth (T2) moderated the relationship between challenging job demands (T1) and contextual performance (T2). The results imply that seeking challenges can represent an effective approach to promote sustainable development through improvement of performance at work, maintaining its sustainability over time. The present study is innovative because in the new framework of the psychology of sustainability and sustainable development is able to link workload, seeking challenges, career growth and performance in a two-wave study that not only has theoretical implications for organizations but also operative and practical spillovers.

Evaluation of demands seen as either challenges or hindrances and its impact on the effectiveness and well-being of employees

The purpose of this article was to describe the concept of challenge and hindrance job demands. It discusses Cavanaugh et al.’s theory and reviews the literature on the impact of challenge and hindrance job demands on employees. In general, the review suggests that challenges are related positively and hindrances negatively with employees’ wellbeing, efficiency and job attitudes. However, the results are not unequivocal. It seems that individual perception - whether an employee perceives job demands as challenging or hindering - plays a crucial role in the relationship. The review also suggests that individual and psychosocial resources play an important role – as mediators and moderators – in the way that hindrances and challenges influence employees. This article also discusses directions of future research.

The work engagement–performance link: an episodic perspective

PurposeThe purpose of this paper is to integrate job demands–resources theory and the episodic process model to examine the relationships between episodic cognitive mechanisms (i.e. cognitive interference and attentional pull), work engagement and performance. It is hypothesized that an episode characterized by less cognitive interference and more attentional pull (i.e. attraction toward the work activity) is associated with the highest levels of work engagement and job performance. Additionally, it is hypothesized that episodic challenge/hindrance job demands boost/diminish the positive relationship between episodic job resources and work engagement.Design/methodology/approachUsing experience sampling methodology, 48 employees used their smartphones to complete surveys three times a day for one week, resulting in 266 observations.FindingsResults of multilevel analyses suggest that episodic hindrance job demands (but not challenge job demands) moderate the positive relation between job resources and work engagement.Originality/valueThis study is unique in that it captures fluctuating cognitive processes (i.e. attentional pull and cognitive interference) that take place during work activities.

A meta-analysis on promotion- and prevention-focused job crafting

ABSTRACTThe purpose of this study is to present a meta-analytical summary of the job crafting literature. We integrate resource- and role-based job crafting conceptualizations in one job crafting model, which can theoretically account for beneficial and detrimental job crafting effects. Applying reasoning from regulatory focus theory we differentiated promotion-focused (increasing job resources and challenging job demands; expansion-oriented task, relational, and cognitive crafting) from prevention-focused (decreasing hindering job demands; contraction-oriented task and relational crafting) job crafting. We hypothesized that promotion-focused job crafting relates positively and prevention-focused job crafting relates negatively with employee health, motivation, and performance. Results of cross-sectional meta-analytical structural equation modelling showed that promotion-focused job crafting was positively related with work engagement and negatively related with burnout, while prevention-focused job crafting was negatively related with work engagement and positively related with burnout. Moreover, promotion-focused job crafting was positively and prevention-focused job crafting was negatively related with performance through work engagement and burnout. Results of longitudinal meta-analytical structural equation modelling showed that there were reciprocal, positive relationships between promotion-focused job crafting and work engagement, and between prevention-focused job crafting and burnout. Implications for future research and practice are discussed.

Challenge and hindrance demands in relation to self‐reported job performance and the role of restoration, sleep quality, and affective rumination

Longitudinal research on the relationship between job demands and job performance and its underlying mechanisms is scarce. The aims of this longitudinal three‐wave study among 920 Finnish employees were to ascertain whether (1) challenge job demands (i.e., workload, cognitive demands) and self‐reported job performance are positively related over time, (2) job insecurity (i.e., a hindrance demand) and job performance are negatively related over time, (3) restorative experiences during off‐job time and sleep quality are underlying mechanisms in these relations, and (4) affective rumination mediates the proposed relations of job demands and job insecurity with restoration and sleep quality. Self‐report data were analysed with structural equation modelling. The results revealed a positive, temporal relationship between challenge job demands and job performance (task and contextual performance) across 1 year, but no temporal relationship between job insecurity and self‐reported job performance. Moreover, high challenge job demands were positively related to the restorative value of off‐job activities, and favourable restoration was positively related to subsequent task performance. Finally, affective rumination mediated the relationship of challenge job demands with both restoration and sleep quality. Job insecurity was not longitudinally related to restoration, sleep quality, or affective rumination. The implications of our findings for occupational health psychology are discussed.Practitioner points Provide employees with sufficient job resources (e.g., high autonomy and social support) to adequately deal with high job demands. Allow employees sufficient time to recover from high job demands during off‐job time and provide training sessions in recovery, relaxation, meditation, and goal setting. Employees may attempt to counteract perseverative thoughts by actively pursuing distracting restoration activities (e.g., exercise, meditation).

When a calling is living

PurposeThe argument that work engagement enhances job performance has gained wide acceptance among practitioners and human resources management literature. There is consensus in management literature that job crafting can affect work engagement. The concept of callings from theology has been resurrected in job behavior and continues to garner growing attention from practitioners in recent years. However, few studies examine how and why living a calling influence job crafting and work engagement. The purpose of this paper is to examine the relationships between living a calling, job crafting and work engagement for knowledgeable employees through questionnaires.Design/methodology/approachThe part-time MBA students were asked to reflect on present jobs. In total, 390 effective questionnaires were collected from part-time MBA students of four universities in Chongqing, China for finance, administration, manufacturing, service, technology, medication, education and others. Results were analyzed using SPSS and Amos. The measurement scale is given in Appendix.FindingsFirst, the author explicitly proposes and validates the direct relationship between living a calling and job crafting. Second, this study confirms that crafting challenging job demands are significant to vigor subdimension and dedication subdimension of work engagement, whereas crafting challenging job demands not significant to absorption subdimension of work engagement. Third, this study indicates that crafting hindering job demands are nonsignificant to vigor, dedication and absorption about three subdimensions of work engagement. Fourth, this study showed living a calling can enhance work engagement for employees. Fifth, this study finds three groups (eight items) of mediation effect between living a calling, job crafting and work engagement.Practical implicationsThese insights may help managers to focus on living a calling and encourage beneficial job crafting behaviors in China. The sample is original and has the potential to contribute to debate on work life balance and particularly the meaning of work/careers in China.Social implicationsThis study is an interesting revisit to the old workplace sociology and organizational psychology which has become somewhat neglected these days.Originality/valueThis study has provided insight in the relationships between living a calling, job crafting and work engagement.

Daily job demands and employee work engagement: The role of daily transformational leadership behavior.

Using job demands-resources (JD-R) theory, the present study integrates the challenge stressor-hindrance stressor framework and leadership theory to investigate the relationship between daily transformational leadership behavior and employee work engagement. We hypothesized that daily transformational leadership behavior (a) sustains employee work engagement on days characterized by high challenge job demands, and (b) protects work engagement on days characterized by high hindrance job demands. Teachers filled out a short online questionnaire at the end of each workday during a 2-week period (N = 271 × 5.68 days = 1539). Results of latent moderated structural equation modeling showed that teachers' daily challenge demands (workload and cognitive demands) had a positive relationship with work engagement on the days transformational leadership was high (vs. low). In addition, teachers' daily hindrance demands (role-conflict, but not family to work conflict) had a negative relationship with work engagement on the days transformational leadership was low (vs. high). These findings show that the function of transformational leadership behavior changes from day to day, and depends on the type of job demand. We discuss the practical and theoretical implications of these findings. (PsycINFO Database Record

Empowering leadership and job crafting: The role of employee optimism.

The objective of this study was to test the relationship between empowering leadership and job crafting and to examine the moderating role of optimism as a personal resource. We hypothesized that the association between empowering leadership and job crafting would be stronger for employees with high (vs. low) levels of optimism. A total of 331 Norwegian workers from a variety of occupations participated in our study. Results of structural equation modelling analysis generally supported our hypotheses. Empowering leadership was positively related to 3 of the 4 job crafting strategies investigated (increasing structural job resources, increasing social job resources, and increasing challenging job demands; but not reducing hindrance job demands). Moreover, as hypothesized, optimism strengthened the empowering leadership-job crafting relationship for increasing structural resources and increasing challenging demands. The results suggest that empowering leadership is an important antecedent of job crafting strategies, except for reducing hindrance demands. The implications of these findings are discussed.

How employees’ pro-activity translates high-commitment HRM systems into work engagement: the mediating role of job crafting

In this study, we examine whether the relationship between employees’ perceptions of human resource management (HRM) and work engagement is mediated by job crafting. Using conservation of resources (COR) theory, we propose that HR practices offer job resources which employees reinvest by displaying job crafting behaviours. Since job crafting involves the pro-active redesign of job characteristics by employees, this study advances the idea that employees are pro-active in their response to HRM and translate perceived HRM practice into attitudinal outcomes through displaying pro-active behaviour. In support of this idea, our results show that the relationship between perceived HRM and work engagement is fully mediated by the job crafting type ‘increasing job resources and challenging job demands’. The job crafting type ‘decreasing hindering job demands’ turned out to be insignificantly related to both employee perceptions of HRM and work engagement.

The Motivational Potential of Human Resource Development: Relationships Between Perceived Opportunities for Professional Development, Job Crafting and Work Engagement

The importance of work engagement for organizational success in a rapidly changing economy has been emphasized in literature for several decades. A possible strategy for organizations to strengthen employees’ work engagement may be related to their professional development. Based on the job crafting and job demands-resources literatures, we hypothesize that perceived opportunities for professional development have a positive relationship with work engagement and that this relationship is partially mediated by employees’ job crafting behavior. To test the hypothesized relationships, we conducted a bootstrapping analysis using a sample of 859 employees working in various sectors and organizations in The Netherlands. The outcomes revealed that job crafting partially mediated the relationship between perceived opportunities for professional development and employees’ work engagement. More specifically, two job crafting strategies were the strongest mediators in the relationship between perceived opportunities for professional development and work engagement, namely increasing structural job resources and increasing challenging job demands. Theoretical contributions, limitations, suggestions for future research and practical implications are discussed.

Job crafting and work-family enrichment: the role of positive intrinsic work engagement

PurposeThe purpose of this paper is to examine the role of job crafting behaviors in predicting work-family enrichment. It is hypothesized that employees who are able to adjust their work environment proactively by increasing structural and social job resources, increasing challenging job demands and decreasing hindering job demands would be more engaged and experience work-family enrichment.Design/methodology/approachThe sample for the study consisted of 496 employees working in diverse nature of organizations in India. Structural equation modeling with the help of SPSS AMOS 20 was used for testing the study hypotheses.FindingsThe results reveal a strong relationship between job crafting and work-family enrichment experiences among employees. The study also established the role of work engagement as a mediator of the relationship between job crafting and work-family enrichment.Research limitations/implicationsThe study significantly advances the underdeveloped literature on work-family enrichment by establishing job crafting as a predictor and illuminating the underlying psychological processes in a non-western collectivist culture. The study also contributes to theory building around the construct of job crafting which is still in its infancy.Practical implicationsThe practitioners are encouraged to provide opportunities, support and freedom for job crafting to their employees for better work and home outcomes.Originality/valueThe present study is one of the pioneer attempts to examine how employees themselves can influence work-family enrichment by enhancing their work engagement using job crafting.

Job crafting profiles and work engagement: A person-centered approach

Research on job crafting has thus far focused on how distinct behaviors (i.e., seeking increase in (structural and social) job resources and challenging job demands, and decrease in hindering job demands) relate to employee well-being. However, job crafting behaviors are not necessarily mutually exclusive and can be deployed simultaneously, creating unique associations with job-related well-being, a phenomenon that has remained unexamined in job crafting research. This study extends the job crafting research by examining whether discernable profiles can be identified based on scores on four job crafting behaviors, and if so, whether such profiles differ in relation to work engagement. Study participants were Finnish rehabilitation workers (n=131) who completed day-level measures of job crafting and work engagement twice. At both measurement times, latent profile analysis yielded two job crafting profiles: 1) ‘Active job crafters’ (94%) and 2) ‘Passive job crafters’ (6%). Latent transition analysis revealed that employees maintained their profile membership over time. Moreover, ‘Active job crafters’ reported higher levels of work engagement than ‘Passive job crafters’ at both measurements. These results indicate that employees actively use multiple job crafting strategies simultaneously, and that this facilitates day-specific work engagement. The results also suggest that the strategy of decreasing hindering job demands is less detrimental to work engagement when used together with other job crafting strategies. Overall, the results demonstrate the benefits of investigating combinations of job crafting behaviors.

Validation of a Short Form of Job Crafting Scale in a Spanish Sample.

Applications of job crafting are widespread in the professional practice. In an attempt to measure this phenomenon, Tims, Bakker and Derks (2012) developed a Job Crafting Scale based on the Job Demand-Resources model (JD-R) and validated it in a Dutch sample. However, its application to other cultural contexts presented some difficulties. The present work aimed to validate a shorter version of scale by Tims et al. (2012) in a Spanish sample (n = 1,647). The data were randomly split in two independent subsamples (Sample 1: Explorative; Sample 2: Confirmative). The exploratory factor analysis showed a three-factor structure. Through a confirmatory factor analysis, the four-dimensionality structure of the original scale was replicated. In fact, the four-factor solution presented better goodness of fit indices than the alternative one-factor model, χ2(48) = 192.70, p < .01; AGFI = .94; NNFI = .93; RMR = .05; RMSEA = .06. Alpha reliabilities were acceptable for increasing structural job resources (α = .75), decreasing hindering job demands (α = .64), increasing social job resources (α = .78) and increasing challenging job demands (α = .77). Convergent validity was appropriate for three of the four dimensions, because each construct's AVE were around .50 and each construct's Composite Reliability were around .70. Decreasing hindering job demands presented more limited values (CR = .65; AVE = .40). In addition, the four job crafting dimensions presented significant correlations with job performance (range -.09 to .42) and personal growth (ranging from -.09 to .45). Finally, the squared correlations between factors were lower than the square root of AVE, which confirmed discriminant validity.

The Spanish version of the Job Crafting Scale.

A literature review reveals that there is no measure of job crafting available in Spanish. This paper presents the translation, adaptation and validation of a scale to measure job crafting behaviors (i.e. the Spanish Job Crafting Scale &ndash; SJCS; Tims, Bakker, &amp; Derks, 2012). The scale was applied to a sample of 896 employees in Spain (52.26% women and 47.4% men). We tested the reliability and factorial validity of the 21-item instrument. After confirmatory factor analysis (CFI=.858, TLI= .838, IFI= .860, RMSEA= .067), the results show a structure consisting of four factors: Increasing structural job resources; Decreasing hindering job demands; Increasing social job resources; Increasing challenging job demands. These four factors demonstrate adequate reliability and evidence of validity with others scales that refer to Engagement at Work and Proactivity. The questionnaire may be a useful tool for the assessment of job crafting and for future research in Spanish speaking countries.

Job crafting: A meta-analysis of relationships with individual differences, job characteristics, and work outcomes

Job crafting is a form of proactive work behavior that involves employees actively changing the (perceived) characteristics of their jobs, including behaviors aimed at increasing challenging and decreasing hindering job demands, as well as those directed at increasing structural and social job resources (Tims & Bakker, 2010). Research on job crafting has rapidly increased over the past decade, but findings have thus far not been quantitatively synthesized. We first integrate job crafting as conceptualized by Tims and Bakker (2010) with a more general theoretical model of proactive work behavior. Then, we present a meta-analysis (K=122 independent samples representing N=35,670 workers) of relationships between job crafting behaviors and their various antecedents and work outcomes derived from our model. We consider both overall and dimension-level job crafting relationships. Notably, overall job crafting was found to be strongly associated with proactive personality (rc=0.543), promotion regulatory focus (rc=0.509), and work engagement (rc=0.450). Differential results emerged when considering specific job crafting dimensions. For example, increasing challenging job demands was associated with other-rated work performance (rc=0.422), whereas decreasing hindering job demands was related to turnover intentions (rc=0.235). Beyond these zero-order relationships, a meta-analytic confirmatory factor analysis provides support for the operationalization of overall job crafting based upon the proposed dimensions, with the exception of decreasing hindering demands. Additionally, results of meta-analytic relative weights analyses speak to the unique relationships of all four job crafting dimensions with different work outcomes.

Outcomes of job crafting among flight attendants

Underpinned by Job Demands-Resources theory, our study proposes and tests a conceptual model that examines the outcomes of job crafting among flight attendants. Specifically, our study links job crafting, as manifested by increasing structural job resources, increasing social job resources, and increasing challenging job demands, to quitting intentions and service recovery performance through work engagement. Our study used a time-lagged design and multiple sources of data. The results from structural equation modeling reveal that job crafting fosters flight attendants' work engagement and service recovery performance. As hypothesized, work engagement alleviates quitting intentions. Consistent with our prediction, work engagement mediates the influence of job crafting on quitting intentions. Contrary to what has been hypothesized, the empirical data do not lend any support to the mediating role of work engagement in the relationship between job crafting and service recovery performance.