How can job crafting be reproduced? Examining the trickle-down effect of job crafting from leaders to employees

Xun Xin, Wenjing Cai*, Wenxia Zhou, Sabrine El Baroudi, Svetlana N. Khapova

*Corresponding author for this work

Research output: Contribution to JournalArticleAcademicpeer-review

Abstract

This study seeks to examine how and when job crafting trickles down from leaders to followers in a team context. Drawing on social learning theory, we hypothesize that team leaders’ job resources mediate the relationship between team leaders’ job crafting and team members’ job crafting. Empowering leadership is proposed to strengthen the mediation effect, such that under a stronger (higher) empowering leadership style the relationship between team leaders’ job resources and team members’ job crafting is further strengthened, thereby positively influencing the overall mediated relationship. We tested our multilevel moderated mediation model with leader-subordinate paired data from 64 work teams in seven Chinese enterprises over two time periods. The results support our hypothesized mediated relationship; however, contrary to our prediction, we find that empowering leadership negatively moderates the relationship between team leaders’ job resources and team members’ job crafting, and weakens the mediation effect of team leaders’ job resources. Theoretical and practical implications are discussed.

Original languageEnglish
Article number894
Pages (from-to)1-15
Number of pages15
JournalInternational Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health
Volume17
Issue number3
Early online date31 Jan 2020
DOIs
Publication statusPublished - 31 Jan 2020

Funding

Funding: This research was funded by Ministry of Education in China Youth Foundation Project of Humanities and Social Sciences, grant number 17YJC630180; and China Postdoctoral Science Foundation, grant number 2018M643786XB; and National Natural Science Foundation of China, grant number 71902166.

FundersFunder number
National Natural Science Foundation of China71902166
China Postdoctoral Science Foundation2018M643786XB
Humanities and Social Sciences Youth Foundation, Ministry of Education of the People's Republic of China17YJC630180

    Keywords

    • Empowering leadership
    • Job crafting
    • Job resources
    • Leader-subordinate
    • Trickle-down effect

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