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Multistudy Report

Tomayto, Tomahto?

An Empirical Comparison and Integration of Job Crafting Perspectives

Published Online:August 04, 2021https://doi.org/10.1027/1015-5759/a000669

Abstract

Abstract. Although job crafting finds widespread application as a leading approach to bottom-up work design, the foundation of the construct is rather shaky: two different theoretical perspectives exist within the research field that have largely been treated separately. An empirical examination of their congruency is missing so far, threatening construct validity, the informative value of the emerging literature, and comparability of effects in practice. In two studies, we investigated the comparability and possible integrative approaches for the two perspectives, including different versions of existing measurement instruments. Our results, based on two large samples of employees stemming from diverse backgrounds and countries (N1 = 295, N2 = 557), indicate distinct differences in terms of the internal structure of existing job crafting measures and with regard to theoretically anticipated relationships between subdimensions. A first empirical attempt to integrate both perspectives provided promising results for overarching approach/avoidance as well as targets of crafting factors. In general, our results provide cause for concern that the two perspectives should not be regarded as one uniform construct, nor should they be used interchangeably in theory or practice.

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