Employees’ Job Characteristics and Job Crafting Behavior: The Mediating Role of Perceived Opportunities to Craft

Abstract

The present study was designed to gain knowledge about the relationship between job characteristics in the workplace (job demands and job resources), employees’ perceived opportunities to craft, and subsequently their actual job crafting behavior. Specifically, the potential mediating role of perceived opportunities to craft could shed better light on the mechanisms that lead employees to job craft in the context of particular work characteristics. We collected data among a group of Dutch health care professionals working in an organization that offers care for patient with mental disabilities (N=522). Participants of the study reported their job demands; workload, emotional demands and work-home interference, their job resources; role clarity, communication and team cohesion, their perceived opportunities to craft, and their job crafting behavior. We tested the hypothesized antecedents of job crafting perceptions and behavior model with structural equation modelling (SEM) analyses. Results indicated that perceived opportunities to craft mediates the relationship between job resources and employees actual job crafting behavior. The insights provided in this study do not only build on job crafting literature but are also helpful to understand which aspects of the workplace influence employees’ job crafting behavior. Therefore, these insights may be useful for the deliberate cultivation of job crafting behavior within organizations.