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9848Job crafting is a process through which individuals proactively redefine and redesign their work to make it more meaningful and fruitful. Most of the research on job crafting in North America uses the concept of Wrzesniewski and Dutton while the majority of European research is set within the job demand and resource (JD-R) framework, which proposes that all job characteristics can be categorized as either job demands or job resources. What is more, job crafting, argued by Both North American and European schools, is not only a concept or an act, but also an intervention (JCI). So JCI is an interactive visual means for managers or researchers to guide employees to create a more optimal fit between their values, strengths, & passions and their jobs. JCI has three types along its different dimensions: strengths based vs. relations based, individual vs. collective and involving vs. not involving the management. Strengths-based JCI utilizes work-related competency or skill frameworks customized for the organizations. It focuses on more universal and deeper character strengths or virtues of employees spanning beyond the organizational boundaries, which have higher potential to create meaningful experience of work. And relations-based JCI encourages relational crafting that increases high quality connections as well as performance. Individual vs. collective JCI needs both individual and collective efforts, through which work groups collaboratively change the task and relational boundaries of their jobs. The group resists management direction towards specialization and division of labor to protect their work identity as innovative craftsmen involved in the entire design process, indicating that motivation behind collective JCI also has higher meaningfulness of work. Involving vs. not involving management JCI refers to whether managers get involved in the JCI act. Employee-initiated job crafting is generally not authorized or supervised by managers. Even the facilitated job crafting exercises do not explicitly call for involvement of management. Most research on job crafting outcomes, enablers and risks is focused on JCI without management involvement. Generally speaking, research design of JCI usually includes two kinds, one based on cognition, relationship and task changes, and another based on job demand and resource model, and both aim to achieve the common goal of staff as well as organizations. More specifically, practical ways of JCI include training, JCI based on JD-R model, job crafting exercises (JCE) and personal development crafting intervention. Training is to inform employees of job crafting strategies and stimulate them to take initiative and manage their engagement. JCE is an interactive tool for facilitated individual job crafting that helps individuals to create a more optimal fit between their values, strengths, & passions and their jobs. It focuses people’s attention on resourcefully using and altering elements of their jobs, challenges them to think and experience their jobs in a new way, unlocks insights through visual representation and serves as both a diagnostic and prescriptive tool. JCI based on JD-R model aims to teach employees to view their work environment as a constellation of demand and resources that can be altered using job crafting behavior. Participants are taught how demand and resources are related to motivational and well-being outcomes, and it also outlines how job crafting is the process through which employees shape the presence and balance of their demand and resources. The last but not the least, personal development crafting intervention is an action plan for learning and development that is agreed between managers and their team members. Using design and ways of JCI mentioned above, researchers find that JCI not only affects employees’ subjective well-being and job performance, but also has an impact on job crafting itself and organizational performance. Future research can focus on the mechanism of JCI, influence comparison of JCI under different conditions, JCI based on personal strengths and empirical research in Chinese context.
/ Journals / Foreign Economics & Management
Foreign Economics & Management
LiZengquan, Editor-in-Chief
ZhengChunrong, Vice Executive Editor-in-Chief
YinHuifang HeXiaogang LiuJianguo, Vice Editor-in-Chief
Job Crafting as an Intervention: Concept, Design and Influences
Foreign Economics & Management Vol. 39, Issue 12, pp. 112 - 126 (2017) DOI:10.16538/j.cnki.fem.2017.12.008
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References
Summary
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Cite this article
Tian Xizhou, Peng Xiaoping, Guo Xinyu. Job Crafting as an Intervention: Concept, Design and Influences[J]. Foreign Economics & Management, 2017, 39(12): 112–126.
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