Job crafting involves employees proactively changing their jobs to better suit their preferences. Recent integrative frameworks organize the multifaceted construct with superordinate factors, emphasizing the distinction between behavioral (actions to change job characteristics) and cognitive crafting (reframing one's view on the job). However, most existing job crafting literature focuses on behavioral crafting, leaving the dynamics between behavioral and cognitive crafting and their comparability regarding antecedents and outcomes unclear. This study provides a systematic juxtaposition of behavioral and cognitive crafting forms over time, examining their stability, reciprocal influences, and their unique relations with decision-making autonomy as an antecedent and person-job fit as an outcome. It also distinguishes between approach (enlarging one's roles) and avoidance (reducing one's roles) strategies within each form. Using structural equation modeling within a longitudinal design across three measurement points (N = 284 German employees, time lag of four weeks each), our study revealed remarkably high levels of stability in all job crafting forms. Unexpectedly, we found no support for reciprocal relationships between the crafting forms over time nor longitudinal relations with decision-making autonomy and person-job fit. In an additional latent profile analysis, we identified four distinct job crafting profiles with significant variations in used job crafting forms and their associations with person-job fit, providing further insights into the construct's interplay. Our findings seem to question the generalizability of common theoretical assumptions in the field and emphasize the importance of investigating more differentiated mechanisms of individual job crafting forms in the future.

Goal orientations represent a key approach for explaining employee motivation and performance. While a trichotomous framework (learning, performance-approach, and performance-avoidance goal orientations) dominates the work literature, goals regarding the work process, for example, minimal work expenditure, fall outside the scope. This is reflected in a lack of theoretical differentiation and validated instruments for assessing work avoidance goals in the work context. However, a minimization of effort among employees can pose a risk to the goals of many organizations. Therefore, we extend goal orientation theory at work by building on educational research and introducing the dimension of work avoidance goal orientation to the work context. In three studies of German employees (N1 = 115, N2 = 224, N3 = 121), including cross-sectional and cross-lagged data, we developed a reliable and construct-valid scale to assess work-avoidance goal orientation at the workplace. Furthermore, we reveal contradicting implications from an organizational (prediction of absenteeism/withdrawal behaviors) and an individual perspective (protecting influences in the form of reduced demands), thereby offering starting points for future research and organizational practices that seek to better differentiate in the lower performance and motivation ranges of employees.

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

Although job crafting finds widespread application as a leading approach to bottom-up work design, the foundation of the construct is rather shaky: two different theoretical perspectives exist within the research field that have largely been treated separately. An empirical examination of their congruency is missing so far, threatening construct validity, the informative value of the emerging literature, and comparability of effects in practice. In two studies, we investigated the comparability and possible integrative approaches for the two perspectives, including different versions of existing measurement instruments. Our results, based on two large samples of employees stemming from diverse backgrounds and countries (N-1 = 295, N-2 = 557), indicate distinct differences in terms of the internal structure of existing job crafting measures and with regard to theoretically anticipated relationships between subdimensions. A first empirical attempt to integrate both perspectives provided promising results for overarching approach/avoidance as well as targets of crafting factors. In general, our results provide cause for concern that the two perspectives should not be regarded as one uniform construct, nor should they be used interchangeably in theory or practice.

We investigated the role of core self-evaluations (CSE) as a positive, personal resource in the motivational and health impairment processes outlined in the Job-Demands-Resources (JDR) model. In two samples of German and Dutch employees we investigated how this higher-order personality construct integrating self-esteem, generalized self-efficacy, locus of control, and emotional stability, contributes to the prediction of two outcomes pertaining to strain and well-being. In Study 1 (N = 135) we found CSE to be positively related to work engagement, directly, and indirectly via job crafting behavior aiming to enhance structural resources at work. In Study 2 (N = 330), we found a negative relationship of CSE with burnout, directly, and an indirect relationship via psychological detachment with regard to exhaustion. Against our expectations, we did not find support for a moderating effect of CSE in either study, neither on the relationship of job crafting behavior and work engagement, nor on the relationship of psychological detachment with exhaustion and disengagement. Nonetheless, our results support the role of CSE as a positive individual resource, sustaining the building of psychological and job resources. Therefore, our findings bear important practical implications for enhancing motivation and health of employees in today's organizations.