Master thesis Humans Resource Studies. The effect of a job crafting intervention and proactive personality on work engagement

Transcription

1 Master thesis Humans Resource Studies The effect of a job crafting intervention and proactive personality on work engagement Student: Jacqueline Boumans ANR: st Supervisor: Dr. M. van Woerkom 2 nd Supervisor: Dr. T.A.M. Kooij Project theme: Intervention study: The job crafting intervention Project period: January January 2015 Date: January 29, 2015

2 Abstract This study evaluates two different points of view regarding job crafting, which are both based on the Job Demands Resources model. The study analyzes how a job crafting intervention and a proactive personality can influence various dimensions of job crafting and, in turn, how these dimensions of job crafting influence the level of work engagement of an employee. In addition, the mediating effect of the various dimensions of job crafting, in particular between the job crafting intervention and work engagement, as well as between proactive personality and work engagement, was studied. In this experimental study (N=86) 31 participants took part in the job crafting intervention and 55 participants were placed in a wait list control group. A factor analysis was conducted which indicated four job crafting dimensions, namely job crafting towards strengths, job crafting towards interests, seeking resources and challenges, and reducing demands. Furthermore, a multiple hierarchical regression analysis was conducted. A significant relation was found between proactive personality and job crafting towards strengths. However, contrary to expectations, no significant relation was found between proactive personality and the other three dimensions of job crafting, between the job crafting intervention and the four dimensions of job crafting or between the four dimensions of job crafting and work engagement. Therefore, although this was a limited study, this experimental study was a first step towards exploring the field of job crafting in an organizational setting. Keywords: various dimensions of job crafting; proactive personality; work engagement; experimental study; multiple hierarchical regression analysis 2

3 INTRODUCTION Over the past decades, job design has been seen as a top-down process. This implies that the management of an organization designed the employee s job of for the employee (Berg, Wrzesniewski & Dutton, 2010). However, in recent years the active role of the employee in job design, rather than the role of the manager, has garnered more attention from researchers (Petrou, Demerouti, Peeters, Shaufeli & Hetland, 2012). Job design is thus seen as not only a top-down but also a bottom-up process, in which employees make their own changes with regard to the boundaries of their job (Berg, Wrzesniewski & Dutton, 2010). This bottom-up way of altering aspects or tasks of a job and the redesign of a job can be seen as job crafting (Wrzesniewski & Dutton, 2001). According to Wrzesniewski and Dutton (2001) crafting a job involves shaping the task boundaries of the job (either physically or cognitively), the relational boundaries of the job, or both (Wrzesniewski & Dutton, 2001, p. 179). Tims et al. argue that by changing the task boundaries an employee might become more engaged (Tims, Bakker & Derks, 2011). Work engagement was first studied by Kahn (1990). Later on, Schaufeli and Bakker (2004) defined work engagement as a positive state of mind experienced by an employee while doing his work. Additionally, it gives the employee an experience of fulfillment (Schaufeli & Bakker, 2004). Based on the Job Demand Resource (JD-R) model from Bakker and Demerouti (2008), it can be stated that job resources such as autonomy or feedback and personal resources such as optimism or self-esteem, either independently or combined, have a positive effect on work engagement. However, job demands such as work pressure or physical demands can have a negative effect on work engagement (Bakker & Demerouti, 2008). This implies when an employee changes the boundaries of a task, a result can be that an employee increases the job and personal resources or decreases the job demands, which has a positive effect on the employee s level of work engagement. Thus crafting a job can lead to an employee experiencing a higher level of work engagement (Tims, Bakker & Derks, 2011). There are two different points of view with regard to why employees craft their tasks and both are based on the JD-R model (2008). The first point of view, according to Wrzesniewski and Dutton (2001), is based on the personal resources of an employee, namely his or her strengths and interests. The employee crafts the tasks to create a better alignment between interests and strengths and the tasks he or she has to perform (Berg, Dutton, Wrzesniewski, 2008). The second point of view is based on the job demands and job resources of the JD-R model (2008). Petrou et al. (2012) argue that job crafting has three dimensions, which are 1) seeking resources; 2) seeking challenges; and 3) reducing demands. If an employee notices that the job resources or job demands do not correspond to the way he or she wants 3

4 to experience them, the employee can craft the tasks to either increase resources or challenges, or decrease demands to obtain a better balance with personal needs (Petrou et al., 2012). Another aspect of job crafting is the role of the personality of an employee. According to Wrzesniewski and Dutton (2001), job crafting is seen as an individual process. The level of initiative in this active role of redesigning a job can be different for every employee (Wrzesniewski & Dutton, 2001). This difference in taking initiative can be explained by the degree of an employee s proactivity. Bateman and Crant (1993) found that employees respond to changes in their environment differently. For example, an employee can simply adapt to environmental changes, or an employee can have a proactive approach and take initiative to alter the situation (Crant, 2000). The latter employee would be referred to as having a proactive personality (Crant, 2000). The implication is that having a proactive personality can influence job crafting. In this study an intervention concerning job crafting will be conducted to find out if there are indeed relationships between the above mentioned aspects in an organizational setting (Berg et al., 2008). The intervention is designed like a workshop. By using an online tool (Dorenbosch, 2013) the employees have to analyze their tasks and explore which tasks they like to do (more), or which tasks they dislike and eventually want to do less. In addition, they have to rearrange the remaining tasks and combine them, for example, with their needs and personal strengths or interests. This can result in a redesigned job that is more aligned with the personal and job resources or job demands of an employee, and therefore could result in the experience of a higher level of, for instance, work engagement (Berg et al., 2008). Taking all the above into account, it would be interesting to study how job crafting intervention and a proactive personality influence the employee s level of job crafting and in turn have an effect on the level of work engagement. Therefore, the aim of this study is to analyze how an intervention and proactive personality influence the level of job crafting and, in turn, how the level of job crafting influences an employee s experience of work engagement. Consequently, a relevant research question is: To what extent do a job crafting intervention and a proactive personality affect work engagement, mediated by the level of various dimensions of job crafting? At present, there is no study in which the effects of a job crafting intervention are tested. Previous studies have explored a theoretical framework with regard to job crafting in relation to work engagement (Bakker, Tims, & Derks, 2012; Petrou et al., 2012; Wrzesniewski & Dutton, 2001). However, an experimental study has not been conducted yet. With this study the author wants to contribute to 4

5 the literature by testing the job crafting intervention and its effect on various dimensions of job crafting and, in turn, on work engagement. Additionally, this study examines how a proactive personality might affect job crafting and work engagement. Another key aspect of this study is that this intervention will be implemented in an organizational setting, in contrast to previous master theses that were based on convenience sampling (Van Duijn, 2013; De Jager, 2013; Lansbergen, 2013). This way insight is given as to how this intervention can contribute to job crafting within an organization and if this has an effect on work engagement. The following sections provide a theoretical framework to explain the relations between job crafting, the job crafting intervention, proactive personality and work engagement. Furthermore, the methods used in and the results of the study are shown, ending with a discussion. THEORETICAL FRAMEWORK The effect of an intervention on job crafting According to Leana, Appelbaum and Shevchuk (2009), an employee can actively alter a boundary of a task in order to create a better fit between the task and the personal needs or the work environment of the employee. This process is labeled by Wrzesniewski and Dutton (2001) as job crafting. An employee has three different possibilities when crafting his or her job, namely task, relational and cognitive crafting (Wrzesniewski & Dutton, 2001). Firstly, task crafting is described as changing the task boundaries of the job. In a formal job description the tasks an employee has to carry out are explained. However, when an employee crafts tasks related to the job, an employee can change the number, scope or type of the tasks. For example, an employee can craft the job in such a way that he or she has to do less or more of a certain task or do the job in another way (Wrzesniewski & Dutton, 2001). Secondly, an employee can change the relational boundaries of a task. With this form of job crafting, employees can make changes to the frequency of interaction with other employees while carrying out tasks. For instance, employees can choose how often they will interact with colleagues during a work day (Wrzesniewski & Dutton, 2001). Thirdly, employees can change the boundaries of a task on cognitive grounds. This impacts how an employee sees the different tasks within a job. For example, an employee feels either more or less responsible for doing a certain task. The employee can see the task as an integrated one and feel responsible for carrying out the task, or the employee does not see it as a priority and does not feel responsible for carrying it out (Wrzesniewski & Dutton, 2001). 5

6 To evaluate whether various dimensions of job crafting indeed have an effect on how employees carry out their tasks, this study is based on Wrzesniewski and Dutton s (2001) job crafting intervention, in which employees have to complete eight steps with regard to their job, using an online tool (Dorenbosch, 2013). The online tool analyses the input and gives a conclusion in the form of diagram for every step. With setting a goal in the last step of the online tool, the employees are encouraged to actually craft their job. By taking these steps, the employees could obtain a better awareness of how their job fits with their personal needs. If employees have a better understanding of how they can craft their jobs, they are more likely to fit their jobs to their strengths or interests (Berg et al., 2008) or increase their job resources, or reduce demands (Petrou et al., 2012). Therefore, it can be argued that when employees have participated in this intervention, the level of job crafting should increase. The following hypothesis is formed on this basis: H1a: Participating in the job crafting intervention has a positive effect on job crafting towards strengths. H1b: Participating in the job crafting intervention has a positive effect on job crafting towards interests. H1c: Participating in the job crafting intervention has a positive effect on seeking challenges and resources. H1d: Participating in the job crafting intervention has a negative effect on reducing demands. The effect of proactive personality on job crafting Job crafting is a form of proactive behavior (Berg, Wrzesniewski & Dutton, 2010). In addition, based on research of Crant (2000) and Erdogan and Bauer (2005) it can be stated that a proactive personality is a predictor of proactive behavior. Proactive personality is defined as "the degree to which individuals have an active role orientation (Erdogan & Bauer, 2005, p. 861). Crant (2000) states that an employee with a proactive personality uses his or her personal initiative to influence the environment. In comparison to reactive employees, proactive employees, for instance, ask for more feedback and take more initiative with regard to their job (Seibert, Kraimer & Crant, 2001). In addition, Bateman and Crant (1993) define a proactive personality as a "relatively stable tendency to effect environmental change" (Bateman & Crant, 1993, p. 104). This implies that a proactive personality can be seen as "a personality trait which is stable over time" (Bateman & Crant, 1993). This aspect of a proactive personality can be related to job crafting. When an employee crafts the job, the employee is changing the boundaries of the job to align the job with personal interests and needs (Berg et al., 2008). Thus, in order to redesign a job, an employee has to show proactive behavior 6

7 to have an influence on the work environment (Crant, 2000). This implies that employees with a proactive personality play a more proactive role in adapting their jobs to changes within the organization, towards personal strengths and interests, or job resources and demands. By adapting in response to changes, employees can increase their level of performance (Bakker, Tims, & Derks, 2012) or their level of work engagement (Berg et al., 2008). Other researchers also found evidence that employees with a proactive personality influence their environment (Bandura, 1989; Bateman & Crant, 1993; Crant & Ashford, 2008; Seibert, Kraimer, & Crant, 2001). Based on this evidence it can be assumed that employees with a proactive personality influence their work environment (Seibert, Kraimer, & Crant, 2001). A form of influencing the work environment is job crafting (Wrzeniewski & Dutton, 2001). Bakker, Tims and Derks (2012) have also found a positive relationship between proactive personality and job crafting. Thus, it can be stated that employees with a proactive personality are more likely to craft their jobs (Bakker, Tims & Derks, 2012). Therefore, the following hypothesis is proposed: H2a: The level of an employee's proactivity has a positive effect on job crafting towards strengths. H2b: The level of an employee's proactivity has a positive effect on job crafting towards interests. H2c: The level of an employee's proactivity has a positive effect on seeking challenges and resources. H2d: The level of an employee's proactivity has a negative effect on reducing demands. The effect of job crafting on work engagement According to Schaufeli and Bakker (2004), work engagement is defined "as a positive, fulfilling, workrelated state of mind that is characterized by vigor, dedication and absorption" (Schaufeli & Bakker, 2004, p. 295). Vigor can be explained as an experience of a high level of energy while an employee is working (Schaufeli & Bakker, 2004). According to Mauno, Kinnunen and Ruokolainen (2006), an employee who experiences a high level of vigor is highly motivated to carry out the job. Additionally, when an employee with a high level of vigor has to do a difficult task, the employee persists until the job is finished correctly. Dedication is described as feelings of enthusiasm, inspiration, pride and challenge, which are the result of a strong psychological involvement an employee has towards the job (Schaufeli & Bakker, 2004). Absorption refers to being in a state of total concentration in which one has no sense of time (Schaufeli & Bakker, 2004). Other studies pointed out that absorption is similar to the concept of "Flow" (González-Roma, Schaufeli, Bakker, & Lloret, 2006; Langelaan et al., 2006; Llorens et al., 2007). The main difference between these concepts is that with absorption, perseverance plays an important 7

8 role and is related to the work domain (Mauno, Kinnunen & Ruokolainen, 2006). Flow is a short peak experience that can occur in every aspect of an employee s life and is thus is not strictly work related (Schaufeli et al., 2002a; Schaufeli et al., 2006). In addition, according to Schaufeli et al. (2002a, 2002b) work engagement is relatively stable over time. The JD-R model assumes that the personal (Wrzeniewski & Dutton, 2001) and job resources, as well as the job demands (Petrou et al., 2012) an employee has influences work engagement (Bakker & Demerouti, 2008). By crafting a job an employee can alter tasks in a certain way. This can increase the personal (e.g. the strengths and interests of an employee) and job resources or decrease job demands, which can have a positive effect on the level of work engagement an employee can experience (Tims, Bakker, & Derks, 2011). In other words, by crafting a job, the job tasks are redesigned, resulting in a higher level of personal or job resources or a lower level of job demands, ultimately having a positive influence on work engagement (Tims, Bakker, & Derks, 2011). Hence, it can be argued that job crafting has a positive effect on the level of work engagement. Therefore, the following hypothesis is formulated: H3a: The higher the level of job crafting towards strengths, the higher the level of work engagement. H3b: The higher the level of job crafting towards interests, the higher the level of work engagement. H3c: The higher the level of seeking challenges and resources, the higher the level of work engagement. H3d: The higher the level of reducing demands, the lower the level of work engagement. The mediating effect of job crafting on work engagement By participating in job crafting intervention employees can become aware of the fact that their personal and job resources and job demands are not balanced in the manner they want them to be (Berg et al., 2008). Participating in the intervention brings about an improved understanding of how an employee can craft the job (Berg et al., 2008). This higher level of understanding of job crafting implies that employees can better align their job with their personal needs (Wrzeniewski & Dutton, 2001) and job resources and demands (Tims, Bakker, & Derks, 2011) after taking part in the intervention (Berg et al., 2008). A result of this can be that the employee crafts the job and experiences an increased balance between personal (Wrzeniewski & Dutton, 2001) and job resources, and the job demands (Petrou et al., 2012). Crafting the task, based on participating in the job crafting intervention has, in turn, a positive effect on the level of work engagement an employee experiences. For that reason it can be assumed that 8

9 if employees participate in the job crafting intervention, their level of job crafting increases, which in turn increases their level of work engagement. Thus, the following hypothesis is proposed: H4a: Job crafting towards strengths mediates the relationship between participating in the job crafting intervention and work engagement. H4b: Job crafting towards interests mediates the relationship between participating in the job crafting intervention and work engagement. H4c: Seeking challenges and resources mediates the relationship between participating in the job crafting intervention and work engagement. H4c: Reducing demands mediates the relationship between participating in the job crafting intervention and work engagement. As stated in a previous section, a proactive personality has a positive effect on the level of job crafting (Seibert, Kraimer, & Crant, 2001). When an employee experiences a higher level of job crafting, based on the JD-R model (Bakker & Demerouti, 2008), an increased level of personal (Wrzeniewski & Dutton, 2001) or job resources and a reduction in job demands follows (Petrou et al., 2012). This, in turn, has a positive effect on work engagement (Tims, Bakker & Derks, 2011). As a result, a mediation effect can be expected. It can be stated that employees with a proactive personality have a higher level of job crafting, which in turn has a positive effect on the level of work engagement. Therefore, the following hypothesis is proposed: H5a: Job crafting towards strengths mediates the relationship between participating in the job crafting intervention and work engagement. H5b: Job crafting towards interests mediates the relationship a proactive personality and work engagement. H5c: Seeking challenges and resources mediates the relationship between a proactive personality and work engagement. H5c: Reducing demands mediates the relationship between a proactive personality and work engagement. 9

10 The above stated hypotheses are presented in the conceptual model, which is shown in Figure 1. Job Crafting Intervention H1 Job Crafting H4 & H5 a) towards strengths b) towards interests c) seeking resources and challenges d) reducing demands H3 Work Engagement H2 Proactive Personality Figure 1. Conceptual model METHOD Research set-up This study was set up as an experimental study with a pre- and post-test design. The participants were divided into two groups; the control group and the experimental group. This distribution between the groups was based on the enrollment for the job crafting intervention. The job crafting intervention was conducted at the headquarters of a large health care insurance organization in Tilburg, the Netherlands. A presentation about job crafting intervention was given to potential participants from the organization. The intervention itself was designed as a workshop and after the presentation the employees who were interested in participating could sign up for the workshop. Those who enrolled were divided into two groups. Five workshops were given in May 2014 and those participants represented the experimental group. The three more workshops were given in September 2014 and participants formed the control group. Approximately ten employees participated in each workshop. Furthermore, both groups were asked to fill in pre-test questionnaires and post-test questionnaires to measure the level of the variables job crafting, proactive personality and work engagement. All the participants had to fill in the pre-test before the first intervention was given and the post-test had to be filled in four weeks after the intervention in May Two weeks after the intervention the experimental group received a phone call by one of the researchers in order to give advice or stimulate 10

11 the participants with regard to the job crafting process. The researchers had a fixed script (see Appendix A), so each participant was asked the same questions. The participants in the intervention in September 2014 were called the wait list control group. While the study took place these participants formed the untreated group as their questionnaires were intended to be a means of comparison between the experimental and control group. Sample The data collection was done by three master s students from Tilburg University. All the students who participated in the thesis circle did so to further their research for their master s theses on job crafting. The sample consisted of N = 86 participants. All the participants had a Dutch nationality and were working in various departments, located in Tilburg, Breda, Goes and Sittard, of the health care insurance company. With regard to the deviation of the sample based on gender, 19 (22.1%) participants were male and 67 (77.9%) participants were female. The age of the participants ranged from 22 to 55 years, with a total average of 32.2 years. The educational background of the participants varied from secondary school to university. In addition, the participant s average contract hours were 33.7 hours a week, the average organizational tenure was 5.5 years and the average functional tenure was 3.0 years. In addition, a t-test was conducted to find out if there were significant differences between the experimental and control group with regard to the descriptives. The gender, age and average functional tenure descriptives were not significantly different. However, the descriptives of educational background (t = p =.00), contractual hours (t = p =.03) and average organizational tenure (t = 2.95 p =.00) differed significantly between the experimental and control group. This implies that the groups of the sample did not correspond with each other on three of the six descriptives used in this study. In order to measure whether the job crafting intervention had an effect, the participants were assigned to the experimental group (N = 31) and control group (N=55). To have a better overview of the descriptives of both groups, the descriptives of both groups are also described and are presented in Table 1. The experimental group consisted of more male participants (29.0%) in comparison to the control group (18.2%). The average age of the experimental group was 30.7 years (SD = 5.8) and that of the control group 33.0 years (SD = 7.3). The educational background of the two groups differed. The educational background of the experimental group ranged from an intermediate vocational education to university. The majority of these participants (58.1 %) had a university degree. However, the educational background of the control group ranged from secondary school to university. In this group, the majority of the participants (60.0%) had a secondary vocational education degree. The groups varied in numbers 11

12 of contract hours. The experimental group had 34.8 contract hours (SD = 2.9) and the control group 33.1 hours (SD = 4.0). Additionally, there was a difference due to the organizational tenure. The organizational tenure of the experimental group was 3.1 years (SD = 5.2) and that of the control group was 6.9 years (SD = 6.3). Nevertheless the difference due to the functional tenure was smaller: 2.6 years with regard to the experimental group (SD = 3.6) and 3.3 years for the control group (SD = 3.0). Table 1. Participants descriptives (N=86) divided in experimental (N=31) and control group (N=55) Description Mean / % Significance (two-tailed) Experimental Group 36% (N=31) Control Group 64% (N=55) Gender (Experimental Group) Male 29.0% (N=9).28 Female 71.0% (N=22) Gender (Control group) Male 18.2% (N=10) Female 81.8% (N=45) Average Age in Years Experimental Group 30.7 (SD=5.8).14 Control Group 33.0 (SD=7.3) Educational Background Secondary School 0.0% (N=0).00*** (Experimental Group) Intermediate Vocational Education 3,2% (N=1) Secondary Vocational Education 38.7% (N=12) University 58.1% (N=18) Education Background (Control Secondary School 7.3% (N=4) Group) Intermediate Vocational Education 12,7% (N=7) Secondary Vocational Education 60.0% (N=33) University 20.0% (N=11) Contractual Hours Experimental Group 34.8 (SD=2.9).03* Control Group 33.1(SD=4.0) Average Organizational Tenure in Years Experimental Group 3.1 (SD=5.2).00** Control Group 6.9 (SD= 6.3) Average Functional Tenure in Years Experimental Group 2.6 (SD=3.6).40 Control Group 3.3 (SD=3.0) Note. *p<.05; **p<.01; ***p<.001 (two-tailed) Procedure After the students contacted the organization, a presentation was given to the members of a network for the younger employees within the health care insurance organization. This presentation explained the content of the intervention. Subsequently, an invitation to participate in the intervention was also sent by to all the other employees of the health care insurance organization. If the employees were 12

13 interested, they could sign up for the job crafting intervention by and choose when they wanted to participate. The intervention took place in May for the experimental group and in September for the control group. However, some participants asked for a transfer to another date and the students replied to those requests. The participants were transferred to the dates they preferred. After the dates were set, the job crafting intervention started. The intervention consisted of eight weeks. In the first two weeks the participants had to fill in the pre-test questionnaire to determine the level of several variables. In the third week the experimental group participated in the intervention; the control group, however, did not take part in the intervention. In the fifth and sixth weeks the experimental group was contacted by the students by phone. Working with a fixed script, the students asked the participants if there were any problems with reaching the goals they had set in the intervention. In the seventh and eighth weeks both the experimental and the control group had to fill in the post-tests. The total procedure lasted for eight weeks in total. The Intervention The intervention was executed using an online tool, created by Dorenbosch (2013). This online tool made it possible to give the participants a better understanding of how a job can be crafted. After a short explanation about the content of the workshop, the online tool was initiated. It consisted of eight steps. In the first step the participants had to make a diagnosis of their tasks. The job was divided into several tasks and in the second step the participants had to divide those tasks into small, medium and large tasks. After categorizing the tasks, a percentage was assigned to the small, medium and large tasks, which represented the time a participant spent on this type of task. In the third step the dynamics of the tasks were discussed. In this step the participants made a distinction between tasks they had executed from the start and tasks they had acquired later on in their careers. In this way the participants created an overview of how their work changed over time. In the fourth step the participants explored how likable their work was. The personal interests and risks of the participants were discussed and person-job (mis)fits were identified. In the fifth step the participants combined the previous steps by comparing the tasks they mentioned in step one with the interests and risks of step four. In step six, the participants examined which tasks had priority in order to carry out their tasks in the future. After those six steps the participants received an overview of their own tasks, personal risks and wishes, and how these risks and wishes fitted with the way they wanted to work in the next two years. In the seventh step, they had to choose which task they wanted to craft based on a summary that took into account all the previous 13

14 steps. The participants had to choose how they wanted to craft their task. There were four different crafting possibilities, namely: a task which the participant liked could be enlarged so that more time could be spent on the task; a risk task could be made smaller so that he or she would spend less time on it; the participant could carry out the task in a different manner; or he or she might have wanted to learn new skills to carry out the task. Finally, in the eighth step the participant had to come up with a plan explaining why and exactly how the participant wanted to craft this task. There had to be a very practical argumentation with regard to which steps the participant wanted to take to alter the task. The aim was that the participant would complete the alteration within four weeks after the workshop (Dorenbosch, 2013). Instruments Job crafting was measured with two scales. The first scale used in this study was a shortened version of Van Woerkom and Kooij s (2013) scale. It was shortened because not every employee worked with customers, so the outcomes were not consistent. Therefore, the items related to customers were removed. This scale consisted of 10 items in total and was measured with a seven-point Likert scale, ranging from one (never) to seven (always). This scale measured two aspects of job crafting: 1) job crafting towards strengths, which is based on the Short Measure of Character Strength by Furnham and Lester (2012), and 2) job crafting towards interests, which was based on the shortened version of the Person Globe Inventory by Tracey (2010). The Cronbach's α was.83 for the subscale of job crafting towards strengths. It consisted of five items. An example item was: "I organize my work in a way that it fits my strengths." For the subscale of job crafting towards interests the Cronbach's α was.85 and also consisted of five items. An example item was: "I actively look for tasks that fit my interests." In addition, job crafting was measured with a shortened version of the scale by Tims and Bakker (2010), created by Petrou et al. (2012). The scale consists of eight items and is measured with a sevenpoint Likert scale ranging from one (never) to seven (always). The scale consists of two subscales. The first subscale measured seeking challenges and seeking resources. It consisted of five items. The scale had a Cronbach's α of.86. An example item is: "I ask others for feedback on my job performance". The second subscale was reducing demands and consisted of three items. An example item is: "I make sure that my work is mentally less intense". The Cronbach's α was.65. If the item "I try to ensure that my work is physically less intense" was deleted, the Cronbach's α would be.81. However, the corrected item-total correlation was still >.30. In addition, testing the subscale without this item, the results 14

15 remained the same. Thus, this item did not influence the results and therefore it was still considered in this study. To validate the scale by Van Woerkom and Kooij (2013) and the scale by Petrou et al. (2012), a principal components analysis was conducted. The Kaiser-Meyer-Olkin (KMO) value was.83, which was above the recommended value of.6. The Bartlett's Test of Sphericity was statistically significant. This supported the factorability of the correlation matrix. The principal components analysis showed that there were five components with eigenvalues above 1. They explained 37.8%, 11.2%, 10.1%, 6.2% and 5.8% of the variance. An oblimin rotation was conducted in order to obtain a better interpretation of these four components. Based on the rotated solution, the pattern matrix showed that the subscale general level of seeking resources and the subscale general level of seeking challenges loaded on one component, namely Component 3. In addition, some items loaded on two or three components. To see whether there was a better fitting solution, a fixed number of four components was generated based on the fact that two subscales were combined. The four-component solution explained 65.3% of the variance. Component 1 contributed 37.8%, Component 2 contributed 11.2%, Component 3 contributed 10.1%, and Component 4 contributed 6.2%. Based on the four-component solution, only the items that loaded on Component 1, which represented job crafting towards strengths, Component 2, which represented general level of reducing demands, and Component 3, which represented the general level of seeking resources and challenges, loaded only on one component. With regard to Component 4, which represented job crafting towards interests, these items did not exclusively load on one component. Nevertheless, the job crafting towards interests subscale was still considered in this study based on the fact that, although the items of Component 4 did not exclusively load on one component, the items were still representative with respect to the subscale. In addition, the subscale's Cronbach's α was.85. Subsequently, the component correlation matrix did show that there was a weak positive relationship between Component 1 and Component 2 (r =.07) and Component 2 and Component 3 (r =.05). Between Component 2 and Component 4 there was a weak negative correlation (r = -.08). With regard to Component 1 and Component 3 (r =.45), and Component 1 and Component 4 (r = -.39), the correlation was of a medium level. Finally, there was a small correlation between Component 3 and Component 4 (r = -.30). The output of this factor analysis is presented in Appendix B. Work engagement was measured with the nine items of the short Dutch version of the Utrecht Work Engagement Scale by Schaufeli and Bakker (2003). The scale consists of three subscales: vigor, 15

16 dedication and absorption. The seven- point Likert scale ranged from one (totally disagree) to seven (totally agree). The Cronbach's α was.91 and an example item is: "At work I am full of energy". Proactive personality was measured with a shortened version of the scale by Bateman and Crant (1993), created by Tims and Bakker. The shortened version consists of six items that have the highest average factor loadings and were measured with a five-point Likert scale, ranging from one (totally disagree) to five (totally agree). An example item is: "When I see something I don t like, I change it". The Cronbach's α is.82. See Appendix C for the complete scales, which are translated in Dutch. Statistical analysis After the collection of the data, the statistical program SPSS was used to process the data (Pallant, 2007). First, the data was checked for outliers, missing values and errors. Second, the reliability of the scales was tested. Five control variables, namely age, gender, education, contract hours and organizational tenure, were used to test whether the control variables influenced the effect of the independent and dependent variable. Those four were taken into account due to the fact that they correlated with at least one of the independent or dependent variables (see Table 2). The statistical analysis used in this study was a multiple regression to test hypotheses 1, 2 and 3. A multiple regression is done to verify if the independent variables predict certain outcomes. Also, this method verified if an independent variable was also able to predict an outcome when checked for the effects of another variable (Pallant, 2007). The job crafting intervention and proactive personality were the independent variables that were included to predict the scores of the mediator (job crafting, measured at T2) and the dependent variable (work engagement, measured at T2). Furthermore, the analyses were checked for the baseline levels of job crafting and engagement (measured at T1) by including them as independent variables in our models. The mediating effect of hypotheses 4 and 5 was tested with the procedure of MacKinnon, Fairchild, and Fritz (2007). A mediation effect occurred when an independent variable (intervention or proactive personality) had a significant effect on the mediation variable (job crafting), and the mediator had an effect on the dependent variable in an analysis in which the independent variable was checked. Pure mediation occurred when, in this second equation, the independent variable had no significant effect on the dependent variable, while the mediator did have a significant effect on the dependent variable. Partial mediation occurred when the independent variable still had a significant effect on the dependent variable (and the mediator as well). Therefore, first a regression analysis was conducted with the job crafting intervention (1, 0), proactive personality and the baseline level of job crafting as 16

17 independent variables, and job crafting as the dependent variable. In a second analysis, job crafting (T2) and engagement (T1) was added to the independent variables and work engagement (T2) was included as a dependent variable. Furthermore, if a significant effect of the mediating variable was found, bootstrapping (Hayes, 2014) was conducted to confirm this. RESULTS Descriptive Statistics The correlations of the variables regarding the strengths and interest scales, and the correlations of the variables regarding the scale of Petrou et al. (2012) used in this study are presented in the correlation matrix, which is shown in Table 2. The means and the standard deviations of those variables are also included in this table. With regard to the job crafting intervention, correlations with reducing demands are significant (r =.31, p <.01). The variables proactive personality (T1) and work engagement (T2) are both significant in relation to job crafting towards strengths (T2) and job crafting towards interests (T2). Proactive personality had significant positive relationship with job crafting towards strengths (r =.45, p <.01) and job crafting towards interests (r =.37, p <.01). This also is the case regarding the relationship between work engagement and job crafting towards strengths (r =.79, p <.01) and work engagement and job crafting towards interests (r =.48, p <.01). In addition, the variable proactive personality has a significant positive correlation to the seeking challenges and resources scale (T2) of Petrou et al. (2012) (r =.34, p <.01). Work engagement (T2) was also positively significantly related to seeking challenges and resources (T2) (r =.34, p <.01). In order to test whether there was a significant difference between the three master students/researchers who provided the job crafting intervention (workshop leader), an ANOVA analysis was conducted. The results of this ANOVA analysis showed that, regarding the variable job crafting towards strengths and regarding the variable reducing demands, there was a significant difference between the workshop leaders. For this reason, control variables were conducted. 17

18 Table 2. Means, standard deviations, and correlations of dependent, independent and control variables (N= 86) M SD Gender Age (year) Education * - 4. Contract hours (week) * -.55 **.26 * - 5. Tenure company (year) ** -.33 ** -.51 ** - 6. Tenure function (year) ** -.27 * -.47 **.76 ** - 7. Intervention **.23 * -.30 ** JC strengths T JC interests T *.67 ** Seeking chal/res T ** * **.54 ** Reducing demands T Proactive Personality * **.51 **.61 ** Work engagement T **.47 **.50 ** ** JC strengths T **.50 **.39 ** **.36 ** JC interests T * **.60 **.30 ** **.31 **.71 ** Seeking chal/res T ** * -25 * **.39 **.65 ** **.31 **.59 **.50 ** Reducing demands T ** -0, ** ** Work engagement T **.46 **.51 ** **.79 **.48 **.39 **.34 ** Note. * Correlation is significant at the 0.05 level (2-tailed); 1 Reference category = man 2 Education = 1) Secondary School, 2) Intermediate Vocational Education, 3) Secondary Vocational Education, 4) University 18

19 Regression analyses To test the proposed hypotheses in this study, a multiple regression analysis was used. However, first the variance inflation factor (VIF) was conducted to check for multicollinearity. According to Cohen et al. (2003, p. 423), the VIF has to be below the value of 10, which was the case in all analyses. The tested variables were entered into different blocks. The independent variables were added into the first block and the control variables into the next block. Hypothesis 1a states that the relationship between the job crafting intervention and job crafting towards strengths is positively related. Hypothesis 2a also states a positive relationship between having a proactive personality and job crafting towards strengths. In model 1, the independent variables explained 21.0% of the variance in job crafting towards strengths. Adding the control variables, the total variance explained by model 2 is 41.5% (F = 5.80). Nevertheless, the relationship between the job crafting intervention and job crafting towards strengths was not significant (β =.08, p >.05). Therefore, hypothesis 1a is rejected. However, the relationship between proactive personality and job crafting towards strengths was statistically significant in model 1 (β =.46, p <.001) and in model 2 (β =.28, p <.05). In model 2 the control variable job crafting towards strengths T1 (β =.38, p <.001) was statistically significant. Based on these, findings hypothesis 2a is accepted. In addition, Hypothesis 1b describes the relationship between the job crafting intervention and job crafting towards interests, which is positively related. Likewise, hypothesis 2b describes that having a proactive personality is positively related to job crafting towards interests. In model 1, the independent variables explained 14.0% of the variance in job crafting towards interests. Adding the control variables, the total variance explained by model 2 is 41.7% (F = 5.80). The job crafting intervention was not significantly related to job crafting towards interests in either model 1 (β =.01, p >.05) or model 2 (β = -.18, p >.05). However, proactive personality was significantly related to job crafting towards interests in model 1 (β =.37, p <.001), but not in model 2 (β =.10, p >.05). In model 2, two control variables were significantly related to job crafting towards interests, namely job crafting towards interests T1 (β =.58, p <.001) and gender (β =.20, p <.05). Therefore, hypothesis 1b and hypothesis 2b are rejected. Hypothesis 1c states that the relationship between the job crafting intervention and seeking challenges and resources is positively related. In addition, Hypothesis 2c also proposes a positive relationship between having a proactive personality and seeking challenges and resources. In model 1, the independent variables explained 12.1% of the variance of seeking challenges and resources. Adding the control variables, the total variance explained by model 2 was 43.8% (F = 7.69). In model 1 (β =.08, 19

20 p >.05) and model 2 (β =.01, p >.05) the relationship between the job crafting intervention and seeking challenges and resources was not statistically significant. However, the relationship between proactive personality and seeking challenges and resources was significant in model 1 (β =.33, p <.01) but not in model 2 (β = -.06, p >.05). In model 2, one control variable was significant in relation to seeking challenges and resources, namely seeking challenges and resources T1 (β =.66, p <.001). Based on these findings, hypothesis 1c and 2c are rejected. Hypothesis 1d describes a negative relationship between the job crafting intervention and reducing demands. Hypothesis 2d also states a negative relationship between having a proactive personality and reducing demands. In model 1, the independent variables explained 9.7% of the variance of reducing demands. Adding the control variables, the total variance explained by model 2 is 39.9% (F = 6.73). In addition, the relationship between job crafting intervention and reducing demands was significant in model 1 (β =.31, p <.01) but not in model 2 (β =.15, p >.05). Proactive personality in both model 1 (β = -.00, p >.05) and model 2 (β = -.01, p >.05) was not significantly related to reducing demands. Nevertheless, three control variables were significantly related to reducing demands, namely reducing demands T1 (β =.22, p <.05), workshop leader (β =.37, p <.001) and gender (β = -.28, p <.01). Based on these results, hypotheses 1d and 2d are rejected. The results are presented in Table 3. 20

21 Table 3. Hierarchical multiple regression predicting job crafting Towards strengths Towards interests Seeking challenges Reducing demands and resources Model 1 Model 2 Model 1 Model 2 Model 1 Model 2 Model 1 Model 2 b β b β b β b β b β b β b β b β Intervention¹ **.31 ** Proactive Personality.66 ***.46 ***.40 *.28 *.69 ***.37 *** **.33 ** JC Strengths T1.40 ***.40 *** JC Interests T1.62 ***.58 *** Seeking chal/res T1.60 ***.66 *** Reducing Demands T1.26 *.22 * Workshop leader a -.65 ** -.32 ** Workshop leader b 1.44 ***.37 *** Age (year) Education Contract hours (week) Organizational tenure (year) R 2.21 ***.42 ***.14 **.42 ***.12 **.44 *** *** Δ R 2.21 ***.28 ***.32 ***.36 *** F *** *** 6.75 ** *** 5.08 ** 7.70 *** *** Δ F 9.36 *** *** 7.81 *** *** Note. *p<.05; **p<.01; ***p<.001 (two-tailed) ¹ Reference category = control group a Reference category = Sanne and Jacqueline, workshop leader = Dominique b Reference category = Dominique and Sanne, workshop leader = Jacqueline 2 Reference category = man 3 Education = 1) Secondary School, 2) Intermediate Vocational Education, 3) Secondary Vocational Education, 4) University 21

22 The relationship between job crafting and work engagement (T2) is described by four hypotheses: 1) hypothesis 3a states that the relationship between job crafting towards strengths and work engagement is positively related, 2) hypothesis 3b states that the relationship between job crafting towards interests and work engagement is positively related, 3) hypothesis 3c states that there is a positive relationship between increasing challenging job demands and work engagement, and 4) hypothesis 3d describes a negative relationship between reducing demands and work engagement. In model 1, the independent variables explained 24.5 % of the variance of work engagement. Adding the control variables, the total variance explained by model 2 is 72.7% (F = 14.60). Both in model 1 as well as in model 2, there was no significant relationship between a form of job crafting and work engagement. Two control variables were significant related to work engagement, namely work engagement T1 (β =.66, p <.001), and gender (β = -.28, p <.05). Therefore, hypotheses 3a, 3b, 3c, and 3d are rejected. The results are shown in Table 4. Table 4. Hierarchical multiple regression predicting work engagement Model 1 Model 2 b β b β Job crafting towards strengths Job crafting towards interests Seeking challenges and resources Reducing demands Work engagement T Job crafting intervention Proactive personality Workshop leader a Workshop leader b Age (year) Gender 2.33 *.20 * Education Contract hours (week) Organizational tenure (year) R 2.25 **.73 *** Δ R 2.48 *** F 5.67 ** *** Δ F *** Note. *p<.05; **p<.01; ***p<.001 (two-tailed) ¹ Reference category = control group a Reference category = Jacqueline and Sanne, workshop leader 1 = Dominique b Reference category = Dominique and Sanne, workshop leader = Jacqueline 2 Reference category = man 3 Education = 1) Secondary School, 2) Intermediate Vocational Education, 3) Secondary Vocational Education, 4) University