Antecedents of Job Crafting and the Role of
Leadership in Employee Job Crafting
Thomas Stephens
10173072
Bachelor Thesis Business Studies
1
st
Supervisor: Eloisa Federici
Content Abstract ...4 Introduction ...5 2. Literature Review ...6 2.1 Charismatic Leadership ...6 2.2 Job Satisfaction ...7 2.3 Job Crafting ...11 ` 2.4 Hypothesis 1 ...13 2.5 Hypothesis 2 ...14 2.6 Hypothesis 3 ...16 3. Conceptual Model ...17 4. Methodology...18 4.1 Measure ...18 4.2 Procedure ...19 4.3 Sample ...19 4.4 Participants ...20
4.5 Analysis and Predictions ...20
Results ...21
5.1 Reliability ...21
5.2 Descriptive and Correlation ...22
5.3 Regression Analysis ...22 5.4 Interaction Effect ...23 6. Discussion ...25 7. Limitation ...28 8. Conclusion ...30 9. References ...32
Statement of Originality
This document is written by Thomas Stephens who declares to take full responsibility for the contents of this document. I declare that the text and the work presented in this document is original and that no sources other than those mentioned in the text and its references have been used in creating it. The Faculty of Economics and Business is responsible solely for the supervision of completion of the work, not for the contents.
Abstract:
A study is done to investigate the effect of charismatic leadership on the relationship between job satisfaction and job crafting. Job crafting is the changes employees make to their own job designs in ways that can bring numerous positive outcomes including job engagement, job satisfaction, resilience, and thriving. Job satisfaction is the extent to which the expectations that a person holds for a job match what one actually receives from their jobs. Charismatic leaders changes the needs, values, preferences and
aspirations of their followers from self-interest to collective interest. This study showed that highly satisfied employees engage more in job crafting. Charismatic leaders had no effect on employee job crafting. Lastly, the presence of Charismatic leadership in an organization did not influence the relationship of job satisfaction and job crafting.
Introduction
Imagine being an employee in an organization. You are very satisfied with your job but you feel like you can do more than what your job description says. You have found ways in which you can improve and work efficiently. First you are wondering about talking to your manager and see what he thinks about your solution of changing your tasks in the organization and also you are afraid of stepping on your employees toes as they may feel threatened because they may think you are trying to take their job also. The act of trying to actively change your job task and interactions with others at work is called job crafting.
Job crafting however depends on many factors in an organization like the type of leadership in an organization or job design (Petrou, Demerouti, & Schaufeli, 2015). If enacted properly job crafting is a way for employees to improve their lives at work and also make valuable contributions to the workplace (Spector, 1997). Job crafting helps employees deal with the ever changing business environment in an organization. Job crafting also helps employees who are not entirely satisfied with their job (Kanten, 2014). Job crafting leads to a higher work engagement which in turn leads to a higher job satisfaction. This however depends on the leadership style in the organization. A charismatic leader is a leader who possess a proactive behavior (Crant & Bateman, 2000). Proactive behavior is when an individual takes an initiative in improving their current circumstances or creating new ones. One can also say then that an employee trying to craft their job is exhibiting a proactive behavior. This similarity in character means that charismatic leadership will encourage employees to craft their job if necessary. There is however little research to back this theory of charismatic leadership leading to more job crafting in an organization.
To answer the role of charismatic leadership in the relationship between job satisfaction and job crafting this research question will be answered: What are the antecedents of job crafting in an organization and does the type of leadership in an organization affect the opportunities of employee job crafting?
The next paragraph of this thesis will be the theoretical framework. Here the variables chosen will be introduced through the existing literature found. From the literature review a conceptual model will made from the hypotheses stated in the literature review. The next chapter will be the methodology and after the results of the data collection will be stated. The next paragraph will the discussion where the results and hypotheses will be discussed. After the limitations of this research and suggestion for future research will be made and this thesis paper will end with the last chapter which is the conclusion.
2. LITERATURE REVIEW
2.1 What is a Charismatic Leader?
The type of leadership in an organization has a profound effects on its employees. A new genre of leadership has emerged called charismatic leadership in the last 15 years. According to Shamir, House and Arthur (1993), charismatic leaders have extraordinary effects on their followers and social systems. Charismatic leaders changes the needs, values, preferences and aspirations of their followers from self-interest to collective interests. This type of leadership causes individuals to commit to the leaders mission, sacrifice in the interest of the mission and perform above and beyond the call of duty. According to Howell & Shamir (2005), theories of charismatic leadership promote a stereotype of heroic leadership which depicts this kind of leader as a figure which determines the fate of the organization and employees
singlehandedly. Charismatic leadership emerges in times of crisis, turbulence and stress (Shamir & Howell, 1999). Under these conditions, followers long for someone who seems to be powerful and have a clear sense of direction. Bateman & Crant (2000), further state that charismatic leadership result in positive follower outcomes, heightened motivation,
performance and job satisfaction.
Charismatic leadership theory differs from the traditional leadership theory in that it emphasizes symbolic leader behavior, visionary and inspirational ability, intellectual
stimulation of the followers by the leader and the former describes leader behavior in terms of leader-follower exchange relationships, providing support and direction, reinforcement
behaviors (House & Howell, 1992). According to House et al (1992), charismatic leadership is seen as giving meaning to work by infusing work and organizations with moral purpose and commitment rather than influencing the employees’ cognition or the task environment and by offering material incentives. House (1997) states that charismatic leaders are identified by their profound and unusual effects on their followers. They have distinctive traits that are associated with successful influence attempts. This includes strong need for power, high self-confidence and a strong conviction in their own beliefs and ideals. Furthermore, charismatic leaders display characteristics behaviors. They use impression management tactics for
example to appear competent and trustworthy. Furthermore they articulate an appealing vision with ideological goals relevant to follower values, they communicate high expectations to their followers and express confidence in their followers that they will meet these
2.2 What is Job Satisfaction?
Job satisfaction of employees is a topic that has received attention by researchers and practitioners yet little has been found about this subject. It is also seen as one factor that is important for business effectiveness (Spector, 1997). Bruck, Allen & Spector define job satisfaction as the extent to which the expectations that a person holds for a job match what one actually receives from their job. Furthermore, they state that job satisfaction can mostly be characterized as the attitude concerning the extent to which people like or dislike their job. The most used definition when describing the concept of job satisfaction is that of Locke (1976). Job satisfaction is according to Spector (1997) is an attitudinal variable. Researchers approached job satisfaction from the perspective of need fulfillment like for example pay in the past, but now have turned their attention on the cognitive process rather than on the underlying needs. Job satisfaction can be classified according to the focus on the employee or the organization. It is considered to be a global feeling about a job or facets of the job. The global approach to job crafting is if one wishes to determine the effects of people liking or disliking their job and the facet approach is used to find out which parts of the job produce satisfaction or dissatisfaction. Job satisfaction facet can be concerned with any aspect of a job. Common job satisfaction asset are for example fringe benefits, job conditions, personal growth, rewards such as pays, people such as coworkers or supervisors (Spector, 1997). Spector (1997) argues that the facet approach provides a more complete picture of a person’s job satisfaction compared to the global approach.
There are two perspectives that explains the importance of job satisfaction: the humanitarian and the utilitarian perspective. The humanitarian perspective state that people deserve to be treated fairly and with respect. Spector (1997) state that job satisfaction is to some extent a reflection of good treatment. Job satisfaction can also be an indicator of emotional well-being or psychological health. The utilitarian perspective states that job satisfaction can lead to behavior by employees that affects organization functioning. Spector (1997) also states that job satisfaction can be a reflection of organizational functioning because differences in organization units in job satisfaction can be diagnostic of potential problems in an organization.
Antecedents of job crafting can be classified into two categories: environmental and individual factors. Spector (1997) states that factors associated with the job and the job environment itself are important influences on the level of job satisfaction of an employee. Examples of this are how people are treated, the nature of their job tasks, their relationship with their fellow employees and the rewards. Job redesign is advocated to be a means of
increasing one’s job satisfaction. This can be done by changing the characteristics of a person’s job and tasks. Hackman and Oldham’s (1976, 1980) theory of job satisfaction is the most influential. The basis of this theory is that people can be motivated to perform their jobs well when they find their jobs to be enjoyable and meaningful. The Job Characteristics Model of Hackman and Oldham (1976, 1980) that can be applied to a job are: skill variety, task identity, task significance, autonomy, and job feedback. According to this theory, the five core characteristics of job induces psychological states that in turn leads job performance, job satisfaction, motivation and turnover. Skill variety, task identity and task significance leads to meaningfulness of work. Autonomy leads to the feelings of responsibility and job feedback leads to the knowledge of results of previous work. The five core characteristics also determines how motivating a job is likely to be for an employee (Spector, 1997).
Organizational constraints is also an example of environmental factors that influences job satisfaction. These are conditions that interfere with employee job performance. Many aspects of a job can cause these constraints. Examples of these constraints are fellow employees or the physical work environment. Peters and O’Connor (1980) argued that
although the core focus of organizational constraints was on job performance, the relationship with job satisfaction is strong. This is because employees experience job dissatisfaction when they perceived high levels of organizational constraints. Work-family conflicts has also been a factor that influence job satisfaction of an employee. Work-family conflict is when the
demands of the employee’s job and the demands of his or family interfere with one another. This problem often occurs when for two-career way couples with children and for single parents. Spector (1997) state the work-family conflict has been found to correlate significantly with job satisfaction of employees of an organization. Work-family conflict affect male and female employees differently. Possible reasons are given for this statement. First and
foremost, women tend to be better able to juggle the demands of family and job so that work-family conflict has less impact on their attitudes at work. Men tend to be more sensitive to work-family conflict than their counterpart causing them to experience negative attitudinal reactions. To help employees dealing with work-family conflict organizations can adapt policies that help them cope. To help employee’s organizations could provide child care and flexible hours for employees to reduce work-family conflict and increase employee job satisfaction.
Role theory researchers have developed variables that are hypothesized to be
important influences on job satisfaction. The most studied of them is role ambiguity and role conflict. Role ambiguity is the degree of certainty about what the functions and
responsibilities of an employee are. Role conflicts occur when a person experience incompatible demands about their functions and responsibilities. Role conflicts can be catergorized into two functions: intra-role conflicts and extra-role conflicts. Intra-role
conflicts happens involves different people or functions at work (Spector, 1997). An example is when an employee gets demands from both his manager which conflicts and the employee has only time to finish when of the demands. Extra role conflicts occurs when there are conflicts between work and non-work. Work-family conflicts discussed above is an example of extra role conflict. According Spector (1997) both role ambiguity and role conflict have shown to correlate with job satisfaction. The payment of employees can also influence the job satisfaction of an employee. Spector (1997) even though pay issues was not important, pay fairness was. The author found out that employees in an organization were more concerned about their fellow employees earning more than them whilst in the same function. This can cause a decrease in job satisfaction. Aside from salary from salary difference, what is more important to employees is the procedural justice in pay policies meaning that employees the policies and procedures by which their salary is administered must be fair. It does not matter if this leads to differences in their salary.
Another environmental factor that has influence on job satisfaction is job stress. Every single job has conditions and situations which makes them stressful. Meeting deadline whilst having other job demands are examples of job stressors. Studies of Warr and Payne (1983) found out that most employees are upset about something that happened at their job and that these situations can affect not only their emotional state but also their long term job
satisfaction. Spector (1997) also found out that job satisfaction has an impact on employee’s emotional well-being and their physical health. Job stress can be categorized into two
categories: job stressors and strainers. Job stressor is a condition or event at work that requires and adaptive response by the employee. An example is completing a difficult task or being yelled at by your supervisor or a customer. A job strain is the result of a job stressor such as the emotion of anxiety or the physical symptom of a headache. The second category is the individual factors an employee brings to the job. These factors are the employee’s personality and prior experience (Spector, 1997). The fit between an employee and their job is an
Effects of Job Satisfaction:
There are many effects of job satisfaction and Spector (1997) discuss some in his book. Job satisfaction can for example have an effect on the performance of job of an employee because a satisfied employee must be a productive employee. However recent studies about the relationship of job satisfaction and job performance have been modest. Furthermore the authors state that the magnitude of correlation between job performance and job satisfaction is unexpectedly low. Spector (1997) also mention that the opposite direction of causality is feasible. This means that not only can job satisfaction lead to job performance, the opposite is can also happen. There is stronger evidence that people who perform better like their jobs because of the rewards they may expect which is associated with their good performance.
Spector (1997) explained in his book that employees who are highly satisfied with their job exhibit organizational citizenship behavior. Organizational Citizenship behavior or shortly OCB is a behavior shown by employees intended to help their coworkers or the organization and it is a behavior that goes beyond the formal requirements of the employee’s job. OCB consists of voluntary things the employee does to help their fellow employees. According to Spector (1997), many theories have hypothesized the employees who mainly dislike their job do everything to avoid them by quitting or coming in late. These are all examples of withdrawal behaviors and job satisfaction is a central variable in most of theory of withdrawal behavior. Absenteeism of an employee can reduce organizational effectiveness and costs.
2.3 What is Job Crafting?
Before delving into the topic of job crafting, job itself has to be defined. A job is according to Berg, Dutton and Wrezesniewski (2001), a collection of tasks and interpersonal relationships assigned to one person in an organization. There are many definitions of job crafting used by different authors but the main message of these definitions are all the same. Berg et.al (2001) for example define job crafting as the changes employees make to their own job designs in ways that can bring numerous positive outcomes including job engagement, job satisfaction, resilience, and thriving. Wrzesniewski & Dutton (2001) define job crafting as the physical and cognitive changes individuals make in the task or relational boundaries of their work.
Opportunities to Job Craft.
Employees are motivated to job craft when they perceived that the opportunity to that exists. It refers to sense of freedom employees have in what they do in their job and how they do it. Opportunities to job craft is psychologically positive because they imply a sense of autonomy, a sense of possible gain and a sense of means to act (Wrzesniewski & Dutton, 2001).
Employees who are motivated will assess the opportunities to craft their jobs before they do so. Perceived opportunities for job crafting allows employees to see what paths are available in how they enact their jobs. Tims et.al (2013) model sets forth two contributors to the
perceived opportunity to craft a job. The level and form of task interdependence and the level of discretion or freedom to job craft implied by monitoring systems in the job. They state that the work employees perform are more or less interdependent (Wrzesniewski & Dutton , 2001). This means that changes in one element of a job will affect the state of others. Employees with more task interdependence work under more constraints and have less freedom to alter their tasks and relational boundaries. So the more task dependence an employee has, the less freedom he/she has to craft their job. Another issue which may affect the opportunity to job craft is the supervision by management (Wrzesniewski & Dutton, 2001). Jobs that have management that closely control its employees will have less job crafting. This means that autonomy in the job will lead to perceived opportunities for job crafting and encourages employees to alter the task and relational boundaries of their jobs. They revise their jobs in ways that will fit their job orientations, causing them to do the same job but in a different way.
Forms of Job crafting
Wrzesniewski, et.al (2001), presents three forms of job crafting. The first form of job crafting is when an employee changes the jobs task boundaries. Employees alter their jobs task
boundaries by changing the number, scope, or type of jobs tasks done at work. An example is when an employee decide to do more or less tasks than in their job description which results in creating a different job. The second form of job crafting is an employee changing the relational boundaries of his/her job. Changing one’s relational boundaries is changing the amount or quality of interactions with others at work. Employees can decide how frequently they wish to interact with others on the job and can also help determine the quality of those interactions. Employees may try to limit their relational boundaries with their fellow employees to avoid frustration (Wrzesniewski & Dutton, 2001). Changing one relational boundaries may not always be beneficial for the organization. The third form of job crafting occurs when employees change the cognitive task boundaries of their jobs. Employees
changing their cognitive boundaries involves them altering how they parse the job by viewing it either as a set of discrete work tasks or as an integrated whole. Changing their cognitive boundaries fundamentally changes how employees approach the job.
The effects of Job Crafting:
According to the authors the effects of job crafting are both general and specific. Job crafting creates alterations in the meaning of the work, as well as revisions of work identity. They state that crafting a job changes the meaning of the work by changing job tasks or relationships in ways that allow employees to reframe the purpose of the job and experience the work
differently (Wrzesniewski & Dutton, 2001). This results in the psychological meaningfulness of one’s job because they feel worthwhile and valuable at work. Actions that employees take to alter their jobs will increase the feelings of purpose and changing the meaning of their work. Job crafting allows people doing stigmatizing jobs transform the meaning of their work by reframing the work (Wrzesniewski & Dutton, 2001). This means that individuals
reconstruct their jobs in ways that differ from its original structure. They craft a different purpose for the work that is believable for self and others (Wrzesniewski & Dutton, 2001). Job crafting also has the potential to shape one’s work identity. They argue that people have the freedom in creating sustainable work identities by selectively influencing the relational partners with whom they interact. So by shaping the form and amount of interaction with others at work, employees participate in the creation of their work identity with others and enable the creation of desirable identities that fulfill a need for positive self-assessment
(Wrzesniewski & Dutton, 2001). Job crafting is an individual level activity. An employee decides when and how to shape jobs task and interactions with other employees. This can be beneficial for an employee but job crafting can have positive or negative influence for the organization.
Furthermore job crafting involves shaping the task boundaries of the job, the relational boundaries of the job, or both. According to Wrzesniewski, et.al (2001), changing the
boundaries of one’s task means altering the number of activities they engage while doing the job and changing one’s cognitive task boundaries refers to changing how one sees their job. Changing the relational boundaries of one’s job is when the person decides with whom one interacts with while they do their job. Changing one of these boundaries results in an
individual altering the design and social environment in which one works Tims, et.al (2013).
2.4 JOB SATISFACTION HAS NEGATIVE RELATION ON EMPLOYEE JOB CRAFTING
According to Tims, Bakker & Derks (2013), the work environment can have major effect on employee well-being or job satisfaction. Employees who are less satisfied with their job will try to engage in job crafting to make their work more desirable. According to Tims, Bakker & Derks (2012), because job crafting involves changes in the job design, it is operationalized to the types of job characteristics suggested in the Job Demands – Resources model.
According to the JD-R model, all job characteristics can be categorized into two broad classes. These are the job demands and job resources. They define job crafting as the changes employees make to balance their job demands and job resources. Tims, Bakker & Derks (2013) define job demands as job characteristics that require sustained psychical or
psychological effort from employees and are associated with certain costs. The exposure of high job demand results in the reduced well-being of an employee. Examples are work overload, time pressure, and emotional demands. These examples results in employee
burnouts. Burnouts is a distressed emotional/psychological state experienced by employees on the job (Spector, 1997). The theory of burnout states that an employee is in state of a burnout experiences symptoms of emotional exhaustion and low work motivation resulting in
employee job satisfaction. Job resources are job characteristics that contribute toward achieving work related goals, reducing the effort of job demands and associated costs, and stimulating personal development. Job resources have a positive effect on the well-being of employees (Tims et.al, 2013). Resources such as the control over ones job, social support,
learning opportunities and performance feedback tend to have a favorable effect on the work engagement of employees and their job satisfaction. These findings conclude that job redesign can improve the well-being of individuals by optimizing the balance between job demands and resources (Tims et.al, 2013).
Tims et.al (2012) argue that everyone is capable of crafting his/her job characteristics. They state that every job consists of specific job demands and job resources that could be increased or decreased. Many employees however think that only employees who hold positions with high level of autonomy in an organization are able to craft their job. According to Tims et.al (2012) the Job Demand-Resource model can be categorized into four
dimensions. The dimensions are increasing structural job resources, increasing social job resources, increasing challenging job demands and decreasing hindering job demands. Increasing structural job resources refers to the opportunity for development, resources variety and autonomy. Social job resources referred to supervisory coaching and feedback. Increasing challenging job demands refers to the behavior employee’s exhibit that would results in the adding more tasks to their jobs. Decreasing hindering job demands is an employee giving up tasks or working less. Researchers aim therefore to use job crafting to improve employee well-being by optimizing the relationship between job demands and resources. With this one can conclude that job satisfaction may increase as a consequence of job crafting because job crafting allows the employee to craft their jobs to meet their own preferences and needs. An employee high on job satisfaction will have little incentive to alter the dimension of his or her job, so we can hypothesize that:
Hypothesis 1: Job Satisfaction has a negative relation on employee Job Crafting.
2.5 CHARISMATIC LEADERSHIP HAS A POSITIVE EFFECT ON EMPLOYEE JOB CRAFTING
Leaders can stimulate job crafting by developing personal resources of employees and designing resourceful jobs with urgency to craft. According to Wang, Demerouti & Bakker (2015) leader behaviors like promoting employees’ organizational identification and building a trusting, open, and supportive work climate may also influence employee job crafting. Wang et al (2015) suggest that self-efficacy to be a core foundation of human motivation,
performance accomplishments and well-being. Employees with high self-efficacy are confident about their own abilities and are likely to maximize resourceful and challenging aspects of their job to achieve a desired level of job performance. A successful job crafter in
an organization will largely depend on the crafters ability to utilize resources at their work (Berg et al, 2008). What leadership can do for these types of employees is boost their efficacy believes. This can be done by for example raising the employee’s self-confidence, developing their potential, providing positive feedback to their employee for their performance in the organization (Wang et al, 2015). An employees’ heightened self-efficacy is associated with perceived competence which leads to self-initiated job crafting.
Leadership in an organization can indirectly enhance job crafting by stimulating positive work-related effect of employees like work engagement. Wang et al (2015) state that positive affective states is expected to more proactive behavior. Job crafting can be said to be a form of proactive behavior amongst employees. Crant (2000), defines proactive behavior as taking the initiative in improving their current circumstances or creating new ones. Employees can engage in proactive activities as part of their in-role behavior in which they fulfill their basic job requirements. Employees can also be proactive, such as efforts to redefine their role in the organization. This can be done by engaging in career management activities by
identifying and acting on opportunities to alter the scope of their jobs, in others words the act of job crafting (Crant, 2000). Charismatic leaders also possess proactive behavior. Grant & Bateman (2000) state that a proactive personality is an important predictor of charismatic leadership. The authors further explains that this leadership effect environmental change. They identify opportunities and act on them, they transform their organization’s mission, find and solve problems and take it upon themselves to have an impact on their environment (Grant & Bateman, 2000). Positive work engagement and high arousal affective state was found to be positively related to both changes in physical and relational job crafting (Wang et al, 2015).
Leaders in an organization can also promote good employee job crafting by raising the organizational identification of its employees (Wang et al, 2015). Employee high in
organizational identification may engage in job crafting that is beneficial to the goals of the organization rather than their own personal goals. This is because employees who identify themselves with the organization identify themselves as members and are willing to discard their self-interests to the collective interest of the organization (Wang et al, 2015). By making the organization goal clear and what they want to accomplish and why, leaders can increase the organizational identification of employees. When employees adapt the organizational goals as their own and adapt them as their own personal goals, they may use this cognitive perception to legitimate their own job crafting behaviors according to Wrzesniewski & Dutton (2001). Leaders can also tell employees how their work is connected to the effectiveness of
the work unit as a whole. This will lead employees to perceive their jobs as important and meaningful, leading them to be intrinsically motivated to craft their jobs to improve work process and achieve high level of performance (Wang et al, 2015).
Mutual trust between employees and their leaders can play an important role in stimulating personal initiative which in turn encourages employee job crafting in an organization. Building a healthy and trusting work climate were for example mistakes are accepted as learning mistakes, will encourage employees to try new things. When trusted by their leaders, employees engage more in job crafting because they are more confidence in their own abilities. Leaders who encourage employees to risk making mistakes and create an atmosphere that encourages employees to share these mistakes will encourage their fellow employees to learn from these mistakes when engaging in job crafting to make it successful. We can thus hypothesize thus that:
Hypothesis 2: Charismatic Leadership has a positive relation with employee job crafting
2.6 CHARISMATIC LEADERSHIP MODERATES THE NEGATIVE RELATIONSHIP OF JOB SATISFACTION AND JOB CRAFTING
An employee who is low on job satisfaction will contemplate to engage in job crafting. Most employees that craft their job possess a proactive behavior. Leader behaviors signaling appreciation for change should be a critical motivation for employee job crafting. Because charismatic leaders also possess this kind of behavior their influence will moderate the
negative relationship between high job satisfaction and job crafting. They will encourage their employees to find ways to craft their jobs. Being a charismatic leader, employees are likely to follow this leader. So we can hypothesize that:
Hypothesis 3: Charismatic leadership moderates the negative relationship between job satisfaction and job crafting, so that this relationship is stronger for higher levels of charismatic leadership.
3. Conceptual Model (Hypothesis) Job Crafting Charismatic Leadership Job satisfaction H1 (-) H2 (+) H3 (+)
4. METHODOLOGY:
4.1 Measure
The variables that will be measured in this research paper will be the dependent variable job crafting and two independent variables; job satisfaction and charismatic leadership.
Job crafting will be rated by a survey containing 20 5 likert question developed by Bindl, Unsworth & Gibson (2014) with elements taken or adapted from Tims et al. (2012), Laurence (2010). Slemp et al. (2013), Leana et al. (2009). The questions in this survey are categorized in 6 categories with the different dimensions of job crafting. The six categories are: Enhancing Task Crafting, Limiting Task Crafting, Enhancing Relationship Crafting, Enhancing Skill Crafting, Enhancing Cognitive Crafting, and Limiting Cognitive Crafting. An example question from Enhancing Task Crafting was: I changed my tasks so that they were
more challenging. An example question from Limiting Task Crafting was: “I tried to simplify some of the tasks that I worked on”. An example question from Enhancing Relationship
Crafting was: “I actively sought to meet new people at work”. An example question from Enhancing Skill Crafting was: “I actively tried to develop wider capabilities in my job”. An example question from Limiting Cognitive Crafting: “I tried to think of my job as a set of
separate tasks, rather than as a whole”. The answering scale from all the dimensions ranged
from 1(never) to 5(very much). A higher score on the example question of Enhancing Task Crafting means that when an employee engages in job crafting to make their job more challenging with the goal to enhance their skills.
The data on Job Satisfaction will be collected through 3 7-point Likert question
developed by Cammann, Fichman, Jenkins, & Klesh (1979). An example question is “ Al met al ben ik tevreden met mijn werk”. The answering scale for Job Satisfaction ranged from 1 (Strongly Disagree) to 7 (Strongly Agree). A higher score with this means that the employee is highly satisfied with their job. The reliability coefficient of Cammann et al. (1979) reported a reliability coefficient of α = 0.84 which means that this skill is highly reliable.
The data on charismatic leadership will be a 6 7-point Likert question. An example question of charismatic leadership will be a “Mijn leidinggevende heeft een visie en een
helder beeld van de toekomst”. The answering scale for Charismatic Leadership ranged from
1 (Strongly Disagree) to 7 (Strongly Agree). A higher score on this clarifies how charismatic the employee’s leader is in the organization. These question are from the employee survey. The managers in the organization have different survey as they also rate the employees working under them.
4.1 Procedure
This bachelor thesis will be a cross-sectional survey based research that will be conducted online. To collect the data for the bachelor thesis paper, every member of the team had to find a 30 dyads. A dyad was a combination of a manager and an employee of the same
organization. There is was also an option to find a combination of one manager and two employees of the same organization. The manager and employee were contacted individually to ask for their participation and their emails were collected for the link to survey and
explanation of what was expected from them. Three separate emails were then sent to the members of a dyad. The first email was sent to explain what the purpose of the questionnaire was and to thank the participants of the survey for participating. Separate emails were sent to the managers and employees. In the manager email, the names of the employees he/she had to rate was given. The manager also was given a unique code to fill in at the beginning of the survey. The unique codes were given to each member of a dyad, so we could connect the participants (managers and employees) with each other during the data collection process. The employees were also sent an email with instructions on how to complete the survey and with unique codes to identify them during the data processing process.
4.2 Sample:
According to Saunders et al (2012), non-probability sampling means that the probability of each case being selected from the total population is not known and it is impossible to answer the research question or to address objectives that require you to make statistical inferences about the characteristics of the population. There are four categories sampling technique with non-probability sampling techniques. They are quota, purposive, volunteer and haphazard sampling techniques. For this research the haphazard technique will be used. Haphazard sampling occurs when sample cases are selected without any obvious principles of
organization in relation to the research question. In this study convenience sampling is used. This involves selecting cases haphazardly only because they are easily available to obtain for your sample (Saunders et al, 2012). Findings from convenience samples are often given little credible. This sampling technique is however prone to bias and influences beyond the control of the researchers thus interpretations of the data must be treated with caution (Saunders et al, 2012).
4.3 Participants
A total 150 cases were expected to take part in the data collection. The sample size however of this research paper consisted of 118 cases. The response was 83% for managers and 88% percent for employees. There were in total 53 man and 65 woman considered as employees who participated in the data collection. The participants varied in age from a minimum of 17 to a maximum of 63 years old with an average age of 32.03 years (SD = 12.09). Education varied also with some 19.5% finishing high school and 15% enjoying the university bachelor courses. 31% of the employees finished the HBO which was the highest percentage of the participants. 26% of the employees enjoyed the MBO, 16% finishing the University with a Master degree and 1% with a PHD. The average working hours of the employees was 28.4 with an SD = 12.3. The average working years of the employees for the organization was 6.3 with an SD = 8.34. Participants of the survey are Dutch-speaking residents of the Netherlands as the questions of the survey will be in Dutch
4.4 Analysis & Predictions:
In the literature review and theoretical concept a moderation effect is assumed. To test this effect we will carry out regressions in SPSS. First we will test the main effects between each of the independent variables (job satisfaction and charismatic leadership) with the dependent variable (job crafting). In the first regression I predicted a negative main effect of employee job satisfaction on the dependent variable employee job crafting. This means that when employees are low on job satisfaction the motivation to craft their jobs increases. I also predict a positive main effect between charismatic leadership and employee job crafting. This means that when charismatic leadership is high in an organization employee job crafting is encouraged. Another regression will be carried out to test the interaction effect between job satisfaction, job crafting and charismatic leadership. I will investigate the moderation effect of charismatic leadership on the relationship between job satisfaction and job crafting. For this regression I predict that the presence of charismatic leadership in an organization will increase the determination of employees who are low in job satisfaction to engage in job crafting.
5. Results
5.1 Reliability:
A reliability test was conducted to test the variables (Job crafting, job satisfaction and
charismatic leadership) to find their Cronbach’s alpha. Saunders et.al (2009) reliability as the extent to which data collection techniques or analysis procedures yield consistent findings. The results of these tests are found in table 1 below.
Tabel 1. Descriptive and correlations between the variables
M SD 1 2 3 4 5 1. Age 32,03 12,091 (-) 2. Gender 1,55 0,500 - 0,11 (-) 3. Job Satisfaction 4,938 1,0538 0,232* 0,127 (0,828) 4. Job Crafting 2,959 0,493 0,373 0,071 0,279** (0,874) 5. Charismatic Leadership 5,211 1,080 0,191 -0,034 0,472** 0,248** (0,926) Note: N=141,
* Correlation is significant at the 0,05 level ( 2-tailed)
** Correlation is significant at the 0,01 level ( 2-tailed) ( )= Cronbach’s alpha
In table 1 we can see the Cronbach’s alpha of the three variables. Job satisfaction has a high reliability with a Cronbach’s Alpha of = .828. The corrected item-total correlations indicate that all the items have a good correlation with the total score of the (all above .30). None of the items would have substantially affect reliability if they were deleted. Job Crafting had a Cronbach’s Alpha of = .874 and Charismatic Leadership had a Cronbach’s alpha of = .926. The corrected item-total correlation of Job Crafting were also all above .30 thus indicating that the items have a good correlation. The same could be said about the variable charismatic leadership. For both variables none of the items would have substantially affect reliability if they were deleted. Table 1 also includes the relevant correlations of the variables with each
other. We can see in the table that Job Crafting had a positive correlation with Job
satisfaction. The relation was statistically significant with a Pearson correlation of 0.232 and a p value of 0.012. This means that these two variable had the tendency to relate. Furthermore, we can see in the table that Charismatic leadership has a positive correlation with Job Crafting and Job Satisfaction. The Pearson correlation of Charismatic Leadership with Job Satisfaction = 0,472, p value = 0.000 and with Job Crafting = 0,248 with a p value of 0.007 and both were statistically significant. Charismatic Leadership tends to relate both with job crafting and job satisfaction.
5.2 Regression Analysis:
Table 2. Hierarchical Regression Model of Job Crafting
R R2 R2 Change B SE Beta t Step 1 0,107 0,011 0,011 Gender 0,063 0,093 0,064 0,685 Age -0,003 0,004 -0,079 -0,844 Step 2 0,350 0,122** 0,111 Gender 0,031 0,090 0,032 0,351 Age -0,006 0,004 -0,156 -1,694 Job Satisfaction 0,109 0,049 0,234* 2,233 Charismatic Leadership 0,074 0,046 0,163 1,606 Note. Statistical significance: *p < 0,05; **p < 0,01; ***p < 0,001
Hierarchical multiple regression was performed to investigate the ability of perceived
charismatic leadership and job satisfaction to predict levels of job crafting, after controlling it for gender and age. In the first step of this hierarchical multiple regression, two predictors were entered. These predictors were gender and age. This model was not statistically significant F (2, 113) = 0,654; p > 0.05 and explained only 1.1 % of the variance in job crafting. After entry of job satisfaction and charismatic leadership at step 2 the total variance explained by the model as a whole was 12.2 % F (4, 111) = 12.2; p < 0.01. The introduction of
job satisfaction and charismatic leadership explained additional 11.1 % variance in job crafting, after controlling for gender and age (R2 change = 0.111; F (4, 111) = 7.009; p < 0.001). Table 2 illustrate that the regression analysis of Gender and Job Crafting is not statistically significant (B = 0,032; p = 0,726) and the same can be said about Age and Job Crafting which was also statistically not significant (B = -0,156; p = 0,093).
Hypothesis 1
The first hypothesis was: Job Satisfaction has a negative relation with Job Crafting”. Reading from table 2 we can see that the regression of job crafting on job satisfactionis statistically significant but has a positive beta (B = 0,234; p < 0, 05). This means that we can reject this hypothesis. It can be concluded then that when job satisfaction is high, employees tend to engage more in job crafting.
Hypothesis 2
The second hypothesis of this study was: Charismatic Leadership in an organization has a
positive relation with employee Job Crafting. From table 2 we can see the regression of job
crafting on charismatic is statistically not significant but still has a positive beta (B = 0,163; p = 0,111). It can be concluded then that regardless of the type of leadership in an organization, employees will still engage in the act of job crafting.
5.3 Interaction Effect: Table 3 Interaction Effect:
Coefficient SE t p Intercept i1 2.956 0.047 62.359 <0.0001 Job Satisfaction c1 0.095 0.052 1.647 0.070 Charismatic Leadership c2 0.073 0.044 1.829 0.102 JobSat * Char. Leadership c3 0.030 0.030 0.124 0.901 R2 = 0,097; p < 0.01; F = 4.427
Before running the interaction effect with Process in SPSS between the variables I made sure to mean center the independent variable and the moderator. In table 3 we can read the first conditional effect of Job Satisfaction on Job Crafting when Charismatic leadership is average. 0.095 is the estimated difference in Job Crafting between 2 people who differ by one unit in Job Satisfaction, among those scoring average on Charismatic Leadership and it was also statistically not significant (p > 0.05).
The second conditional effect we can read in the table is that of Charismatic
Leadership on Job Crafting when Job Satisfaction is average. 0.073 is the estimated difference in Job Crafting between managers who differ by one unit in Charismatic Leadership among those having an average level of Job Satisfaction, and it can be concluded that this is also not significant (p > 0.05).
The third conditional effect is the interaction term. The interaction effect is how much effect of Job Satisfaction on Job Crafting is different between high or low Charismatic
Leadership in an organization. In table 3 this is statistically not significant (p > 0.05), meaning that the effect of perceiving Job Satisfaction on Job Crafting does not depend on the level of Charismatic Leadership in an organization. When Job Satisfaction increases by one unit, the difference in Job Crafting among employees whose leader is differently in charisma is 0.30 and is not statistically significant.
Hypothesis 3
The third hypothesis of this paper was: “Charismatic leadership moderates the negative
relationship between job satisfaction and job crafting, so that this relationship is stronger for higher levels of charismatic leadership”. From table 3 the third hypothesis will be rejected the
interaction term between Job Satisfaction and Charismatic Leadership was statistically not significant (B = 0.030; p = 0.901).
6. Discussion.
This research study examines the role of job satisfaction and charismatic leadership have on employee job crafting in an organization. Specifically this study was conducted to test
whether the relationship between job satisfaction and job crafting is moderated by charismatic leadership in an organization. Three hypothesis were tested to see the relationship between the three variables. The first hypothesis of this study was:
Hypothesis 1: Job Satisfaction has a negative relation on employee Job Crafting.
This hypothesis was rejected. The results showed that job satisfaction had a relation with employee Job Crafting but it was a positive relation instead of a negative relation. This means that employees engage more in job crafting when they are highly satisfied with their job. Employees who are highly satisfied with their jobs are more engaged with the organization they work for which benefits the organization (Tims, Bakkers & Dirks, 2015). Work engagement is described as a positive, fulfilling, work-related state of mind that is
characterized by vigor, dedication, and absorption (Schaufeli & Bakker, 2010). Employees who feel motivated, enthusiastic and engaged will be more likely be proactive and engage in job crafting. Positive emotions from the satisfaction of their job from employees makes them open about their work environment and makes them initiative at work. Engaged employees who care about their jobs, have job resources to spend and are concentrated on their work. These employees may see value in their work by proactively changing their job
characteristics. According to Tims et al (2015), engaged employees search for more job characteristics because they want more from their jobs in terms of autonomy and challenging workload. Engaging in job crafting is the only they can reach these goals.
Hypothesis 2: Charismatic Leadership in an organization has a positive relation with employee Job Crafting
This hypothesis was also rejected. The results showed job crafting increased when there was charismatic leadership but this was statistically not significant. This means charismatic leadership in an organization did not cause employees to engage in job crafting. Job crafting refers to the changes employees make to perform their jobs. Charismatic leaders in an organization changes the needs, values, preferences and aspirations of their followers from self-interest to the collective needs of the organization. This type of leadership causes
employees to commit to the leaders mission. When the leader is not supportive of job crafting of an employee or the crafting of the employee is not in line with the leader’s goals or
mission, he or she will make sure that the employee stick their boundaries of their job description and stop the employee from engaging in job crafting. Therefore leader of the organization has to signal appreciation for change to influence employee’s motivation to craft Wang et al (2015). The type of leadership in an organization may be the cause to this. In the article of Wang et al (2015), the authors state that a recent study found a positive relationship between transformational leadership and employee proactive behavior which is a form of job crafting. Transformational leadership differ from charismatic leadership in that they typically articulate a vision, foster the acceptance of group goals, high performance expectation, individualized support and intellectual stimulation (Wang et al, 2015). They motivate their employees to set long-terms goals and adjust their work environment in an effort to achieve this goals. Adjusting their work environment is a form of job crafting. The authors further states that under transformational leadership, employees are likely to make changes to expand their tasks and relational environments and also lower the levels of hindering demands since those demands may inhibit performance and achievement of valued goals and threaten personal growth and future gains (Wang et al, 2015).
The level of autonomy of a job is expected to encourage job crafting because job autonomy implies considerable latitude to determine one’s working activity. Want et al (2015) suggest the level of autonomy of one’s job may substitute the effect of leadership on job crafting. So when job autonomy is high, employees may not need the encouragement of their managers because the employees themselves are determined to modify their jobs.
Hypothesis 3: Charismatic leadership moderates the negative relationship between job satisfaction and job crafting, so that this relationship is stronger for higher levels of charismatic leadership.
The third and last hypothesis was also rejected. The kind of leadership in an organization did not matter to employees who were not satisfied with their job to engage in job crafting. Upon speculating, one could say that charismatic leaders will encourage employees who were not satisfied with their jobs to engage in job crafting but this turned out not to be true. In hypothesis 1, I predicted that job satisfaction had a negative relationship with job crafting. This turned out not to be true. Job satisfaction had a positive relationship with job crafting causing employees to craft their job when they were highly satisfied. Also charismatic
leadership did not have a positive relationship with job crafting. Charismatic leadership can however influence the relationship on employees who are highly satisfied with their job, leading to high work engagement by job crafting.
7. Limitation.
In this section of the research paper the methodological limitations of this study will be reported. In this research study the use of non-probability convenience sampling technique was used. This involves selecting cases haphazardly only because they are easily available to obtain for your sample (Saunders et al, 2012). The use of this sampling technique is a
limitation because it hinders the generalizability of the findings of this study. Convenience sampling technique also suffers from different biases. A bias of convenience sampling is the over or under representation of groups within the collected sample. Another limitation of this study is that the data collected was not from one particular sector of the labor market. The sampling frame of this research study was bounded to the Dutch population but because of using the convenience sampling technique this is not entirely representative of the population being studied (Saunders et al, 2012).
Another limitation of this study is the time horizon of this study. In this study the cross-sectional time horizon is used. Cross-sectional is the study of a particular phenomenon or a snapshot at a particular time because of time constraint (Saunders et al, 2012). Cross-sectional study is a limitation because it does not allow the inference of causal relationship. We can thus not conclude for example that job satisfaction has for example a negative effect on job crafting because the data collected is only a snapshot at a particular time. It is also important to note that the possibility of having reverse causality cannot be ruled out. In my case with job crafting has been conceptualized to influence job satisfaction and not the other way round.
Furthermore another limitation of this study is the use of not previously validated scale to measure job crafting. Because we do not know the reliability of this the job crafting scale we do not know if the questions will results in reliable data. Another limitation of this study is the use of only self-reported measures. The reason this is a limitation because it can increase the common method bias, because the respondent providing the measure of the predictor and criterion variable is the same person.
From the results we could see employees who highly satisfied tend to engage in job crafting more increasing their work engagement and performance. Managers of organizations should implement methods to increase employee satisfaction causing the increase of job crafting. Also future research can research the relationship between other types of leadership like transformational leadership and job crafting. I think that transformational leadership are
more likely to encourage job crafting amongst employees than charismatic leadership as both leadership have some qualities that are the same but charismatic leadership focusing more on the leaders goal. Most people also think that the act of job crafting also benefits the
organization. This is not always true because sometimes managers of an organization never know when their employees engage in job crafting. The employee might engage in job crafting to create a better atmosphere and work environment for him or herself but this does not necessarily mean that it will be good for the organization. Every employee more or less engage in job crafting. It will however be beneficial for the organization if this is done line with the goals of the organization. Employees should encourage job crafting but steer in the direction of the goals of the organization.
8. Conclusion
This bachelor thesis was to found the effect of charismatic leadership on the relationship between job satisfaction and job crafting. We found out the type of leadership in an organization had a profound effect on the organization employees. Charismatic leaders in organization are leaders who changes the value, needs, preferences and aspirations of their followers from self-interest to the collective interest of the organization. Charismatic leaders emerges in times of crisis, turbulence and stress to lead the organization into prosperity. Charismatic leaders results in positive follower outcome, heightened motivation, performance and job satisfaction. They are seen as giving work by infusing work and organizations with moral purpose and commitment rather influencing their employees with material incentives or influencing the task environment. Charismatic leaders articulate an appealing vision with ideological goals relevant to follower’s values, they communication high expectations to their followers and express confidence in their followers that they will meet these expectations.
Job satisfaction is the extent to which expectations that a person holds for a job match what they receive from their job. There were two perspective that explained the importance of job satisfaction. These were the humanitarian and utilitarian perspective. The humanitarian perspective state that people deserve to be treated fairly and respect. The utilitarian
perspective states that job satisfaction can lead to behavior by employees that affects organization functioning. Antecedents of job crafting can be classified into two categories which are the environmental and individual factors. Factors associated with the job or the job environment can have influence on the satisfaction level of an employee. Environmental factors that affects job satisfaction are the job characteristics of one’s job. Organizational constraints of one’s job are also factors that influences employee job satisfaction. Work-family conflicts, role ambiguity and role conflicts of an employee influences job satisfaction. The degree of fairness experienced by employees and job stressors are also factors that may influence their job satisfaction. Person fit job is an example of individual factors that may influence job satisfaction.
Job crafting is the changes an employee makes to their own job designs in way that can bring positive outcomes including job engagement, job satisfaction, resilience, and thriving. It is the physical and cognitive changes individuals make in the task or relational boundaries of their work. Employees are motivated to job craft when they perceive that they have the opportunity to do so. Employees engage in job crafting when an employee changes their task boundaries, relational boundaries and cognitive boundaries. The effects of job crafting can be both general and specific and it is not always necessarily in the benefit of the
organization.
In the results we could conclude that employees who were highly satisfied with their job tend to engage more in job crafting. Employees who are highly satisfied tend to have a higher work engagement which cause them to look for other ways to do their job more efficiently and with pleasure leading to higher job satisfaction. Charismatic leadership in an however did not lead to employee job crafting and that was maybe because of the nature of charismatic leaders. Charismatic leaders tend to convince employees to follow the leader’s goal which means when employees engage in job crafting which may conflict with the leader’s goal, the leader will try to stop it. However Charismatic leadership did not influence the relationship of job satisfaction and job crafting, leading me to believe that employees who high satisfied with their job will engage in job crafting regardless of the type of leadership in the organization.
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