Make It Work: How Cognitive & Behavioural Dynamics Shape Job Crafting

One of the most significant current discussions in work and organisational psychology centres on the ways in which employees can face and adapt to growing levels of uncertainty and complexity in the workplace. In this regard, the construct of job crafting has gain momentum, as it designates a set of employees\u2019 proactive behaviours balancing the job characteristics to allow optimal functioning in dynamic work environments. Despite a common agreement on the nature of job crafting as a bottom-up, self-initiated work redesign behaviour, construct clarification is still needed to advance knowledge on its nomological network. Against this background, this dissertation aimed at deepening knowledge on the structure and behavioural features of job crafting, in order to further investigate the role of employees\u2019 psychosocial beliefs in driving such proactive behaviours, and whether and how intervention initiatives can be used to support them. To reach these aims, we present one theoretical chapter and three empirical contributions, conducted with different research designs. Chapter 2 presents a systematic literature review on the scales developed to measure job crafting and three empirical studies (i.e., cross-sectional, three-wave, and weekly diary) aimed at investigating the validity of a four-dimensional, hierarchical conceptualisation of behavioural job crafting. Our conceptualisation integrates the dimension of optimising job demands as a constituting domain of job crafting and accounts for the hierarchical features that reflect or form an overall job crafting construct. Results showed that a four-factor solution fitted the data well at both the within- and between-level of analysis. Also, these dimensions were relatively stable over time. Moreover, our results provide initial evidence suggesting that overall job crafting may be more strongly characterised by effortful actions to expand the work characteristics rather than to reduce them. In Chapter 3, we adopt a dynamic perspective to the theory of planned behaviour as an overarching theoretical framework allowing us to understand how personal and social beliefs drive behavioural job crafting over time. Assuming a bi-directional perspective, we further propose that previous engagement in job crafting serves to shape the drivers of job crafting behaviours. Results suggest that modelling and initiatives providing employees with the tools and techniques to craft their jobs are critical to stimulating virtuous cycles for job crafting to flourish in the work environment. Chapter 4 and 5 present a theoretical contribution and an intervention study on how the theory of planned behaviour (TPB) can serve to design job crafting interventions that are likely to be effective to support job crafting and subsequent flow at work because they target the psychosocial mechanisms underlying behaviour formation. Results from our quasi-experimental study show that the intervention was effective in supporting participants\u2019 higher intentions to engage in job crafting compared to the control group, and in promoting weekly flow at work, which eventually prompted subsequent job crafting. Weekly initial and changing intentions were, in turn, both related to post-measures of job crafting. This dissertation contributes to the literature on job crafting and behaviour formation. In our studies, we explored and provided evidence on the role of different behavioural strategies in defining an overall conceptualisation of job crafting. Moreover, we investigated the psychosocial boundaries and processes that contribute to the formation of such a set of behaviours. The validity of such a framework to explain the roles of the antecedents of job crafting then served us to design and test an intervention initiative, which proved be effective to support employees\u2019 behavioural tendencies towards the development of work environments that are auto-generative of resources

The Benefits of Being Proactive While Working Remotely: Leveraging Self-Leadership and Job Crafting to Achieve Higher Work Engagement and Task Significance

Given the growing number of remote and hybrid working arrangements, this research investigates the process and outcomes of proactivity during remote work. We approach proactivity during remote working as a resource-building process and integrate self-leadership and job crafting literature. We propose that employees' self-leadership allows them to regulate their resources optimally, enabling resource availability that can be used to arrange remote working demands and resources proactively. We collected three-wave data from remote workers (n = 329 observations) and tested our hypotheses using multilevel analyses. Results differed by level of analysis. Specifically, at the between level, comparing behaviors between participants, social expansion mediated the relationship between self-goal setting and task significance. In contrast, at the within level (analyzing differences in behavior within the same person), social expansion mediated the relationship between self-goal setting and work engagement. Overall, these findings suggest that self-leadership allows higher availability of resources enabling the proactive initiation of social interactions, which, at the within level enhance work engagement, and at the between level improve task significance during remote work. We discuss these findings considering the implications for interventions to foster more positive remote-work experiences

Psychosocial Interventions for the Enhancement of Psychological Resources among Dyslexic Adults: A Systematic Review

Dyslexic employees are likely to be more at risk of low levels of personal resources because of their cognitive makeup compared to their non-dyslexic counterparts. Low personal resources, in turn, may lead to low employability because of difficulties in positively facing transitions. This research aimed to systematically review evidence on interventions for improving psychological resources in dyslexic adults. We searched Scopus, ERIC EBSCOhost, PsycINFO, Social Science Citation Index Web of Science, and Universe up to May 2020. We also examined the reference lists of published studies. We included studies that compared any intervention format against no intervention, any other intervention considered as a comparator by the authors, or that had no control group. Participants were dyslexic adults aged minimum 18 years old. We included four studies with 278 participants. Studies were run in the UK, Sweden, and Finland. Two studies involved a control group, and two studies were observational. Interventions varied between studies in intensity, duration, and format (individual and small groups). Risk of bias was unclear for most risk criteria. Findings from this review show that there is initial evidence suggesting initiatives can be effective in supporting a set of personal resources, i.e., self-confidence, organization, time, and stress-management, which are important in allowing dyslexic adults\u2019 positive adjustment in the workplace. Yet, more studies are needed to improve outcome assessment and study design

Guest editorial

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Implementing Job Crafting Behaviors:Exploring the Effects of a Job Crafting Intervention Based on the Theory of Planned Behavior

This article presents a combined motivational and volitional intervention based on the theory of planned behavior aimed at promoting expansion-oriented job crafting behaviors. Participants were employees working in different companies, assigned to either an intervention (n = 53) or a control group (n = 55). Results of a field study (including premeasure, postmeasure, and weekly diaries) indicated that the intervention enhanced participants’ perceptions of behavioral control referred to job crafting and awareness regarding others’ engagement in job crafting. Latent change growth modeling showed that participation in the intervention led to participants shaping their job crafting intentions during the weeks, which translated into more frequent job crafting behaviors at the end of the study period. Besides, the intervention served to trigger weekly work-related flow experiences in terms of high absorption while working. Findings suggest that job crafting interventions can benefit from the inclusion of self-regulatory strategies complementing goal setting

The Intertwined Relationship Between Job Crafting, Work-Related Positive Emotions, and Work Engagement. Evidence from a Positive Psychology Intervention Study

The present study examines the impact of a positive psychology intervention on job crafting, positive emotions and work engagement. A sample of 43 employees working in a public organisation received a three day-long resource-based intervention grounded on meaningfulness and practical exercises. Results showed that the intervention had a positive effect on job crafting, positive job-related affective well-being and work engagement. Moreover, findings from a mediation model show that the intervention was effective in sustaining work engagement resulting from experienced positive emotions, which in turn resulted from job crafting behaviours. To the best of our knowledge, this study is the first investigating the intertwined relationships between job crafting behaviours, positive emotions in the workplace, and work engagement. Moreover, our findings provide evidence of the effectiveness of the proposed positive psychology intervention to support work engagement resulting from proactive adjustment to the work environment and the positive emotions deriving from it

Reviewing psychological facets of workplace innovation

In this article, we discuss the potential advantages of taking a work and organisational psychology (WOP) perspective on Workplace Innovation (WPI). WPI represents a construct that can be applied at different organisational levels and be considered from multiple inter-related perspectives. Accordingly, this contribution takes a systemic perspective on WPI. Such an approach suggests that multiple disciplines have something to contribute to our understanding of WPI and this contribution aims to show how research in WPI can benefit from a WOP perspective. Accordingly, a main goal of this article is to recognise how organisational and work-related dynamics influence the effectiveness of WPI practices, an issue that will be examined by means of recent WPI studies analysed from a WOP perspective. In doing so, we seek to encourage perspectives on WPI and research in WOP to be merged, in order to promote a deeper investigation of the predictors and consequences of WPI, as well as a greater understanding of factors influencing the effectiveness of WPI practices

Turning bad into good: How resilience resources protect organizations from demanding work environments

An organization\u2019s survival and its performance are often connected to employees\u2019 well-being, which in intensive work conditions can be compromised by employee exhaustion. To date, the last economic crisis has forced several companies to downsize and leave the remaining employees facing higher job demands and vulnerability toward job exhaustion. The present study investigates whether resilience together with other personal resources can function as a psychological shield through a mediation and/or moderation process that mitigate the emergence of burnout. Based on a sample of employees from three different Italian companies (N\u2009=\u2009208), our results confirmed that \u201cresilience resources\u201d (i.e., resilience, self-efficacy, self-regulation) mediated the relationship between job demands, exhaustion, and task performance (i.e., energetic process). These results suggest that organizational environments characterized by challenging demands are likely to foster the development of resilience resources to cope with the emergence of potentially harming processes