engleski

Benefiting others while helping yourself: A three- wave study of reciprocal effects between job crafting and innovative work behaviour

Most employees change their jobs (e.g., their work tasks, relationships, and physical work environment) in order to improve their functioning at work (Vanbelle, 2017 ; Wrzesniewski & Dutton, 2001). Such self-initiated behaviours, referred to as job crafting, are primarily intended to benefit employees themselves (Bruning & Campion, 2018). The aim of this study is to contrast the self- serving nature of job crafting by hypothesizing its positive, reciprocal relationship with a form of work behaviour which primarily benefits organizations – innovative work behaviour (IWB). IWB captures intentional behaviours through which employees introduce and apply new and useful ideas, processes, products, and procedures within a work role, group, or organization and are intended to benefit the individual, the group, or the wider society (West & Farr, 1990). As such, IWB is considered crucial for organizational competitive advantage in today’s dynamic economic environments. Despite that, in the last two decades, knowledge regarding job crafting and IWB has mainly accumulated independent of each other (Potočnik & Anderson, 2016) with few empirical tests of the link between the two (e.g., Afsar et al., 2019 ; Bindl et al., 2019). In response, we draw upon conservation of resources theory (Hobfoll et al., 2018) to test a novel perspective according to which job crafting and IWB perpetuate each other by forming gain cycles that develop through the accumulation of employee resources. Furthermore, we examine whether participative decision making (PDM ; i.e., the extent to which employees are encouraged to engage in organizational decisions ; Evans & Fischer, 1992) can instigate these gain cycles by enhancing subsequent job crafting and IWB. Accordingly, we propose and test a research model in which 1) job crafting and IWB relate positively and reciprocally to each other over time and 2) PDM is an antecedent of both forms of employee behaviour. In addition to the proposed direct effects, the model also proposes two indirect effects linking PDM to job crafting through IWB and linking PDM to IWB through job crafting. The research hypotheses were tested using longitudinal survey data collected among employees (N = 404) from the Belgian higher education sector at three measurement occasions (i.e., in February, March, and April 2018). The sample was composed of the junior research staff (e.g., doctoral students and postdocs ; 48.6%), permanent academic staff (27.0%) and support and administrative staff (24.3%). Participants were predominantly female (76.0%), and the vast majority were highly educated (i.e., 98% had tertiary education). The average age was 37.23 years (SD = 10.83). The results obtained via cross-lagged panel analysis demonstrate that job crafting relates to subsequent increases in IWB, and vice versa, that IWB relates to subsequent increases in job crafting over three measurement occasions. In contrast, PDM does not predict subsequent changes in either form of work behaviour. We discuss these results in light of their contributions to advancing theoretical understanding of the job crafting-IWB relationship and practices intended to promote gain cycles beneficial to employees and employers alike.

job crafting ; innovative work behaviour ; participative decision making ; gain cycle

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