Most jobs are initially designed by organizations and the employees are the recipients of this top-down job design process. Employees may, however, craft their jobs, i.e., modify the job characteristics to make the jobs better fit their needs and preferences [1, 2]. This way, the job is re-designed bottom-up and employees take over the agency in the process. Who has the propensity to ‘take charge’ and feel responsible for their job design? The Dual Perspective Model (DPM) proposed by Abele and Wojciszke [3] argues that a fundamental feature of any social context is the presence of two perspectives: the agent and the recipient. The perspective of the agent is taken by the one who performs an action and exerts control over the situation, whereas the perspective of the recipient is taken by the one who experiences the consequences of an agent’s actions. We propose that a tendency to assume that one is the agent in social situations predisposes individuals to be proactive in job re-design in general. When people who view themselves as agents experience a misfit with their jobs, they assume that they have the power to influence their conditions, which may contribute to introducing changes to one’s job. Those, who believe that they are only recipients of the decisions and events in the work context, will be reluctant to take a proactive stance towards their job design or may engage in a different pattern of re-design attempts. Thus, we propose that agents and recipients choose to craft their jobs using different strategies that correspond to their mindsets.
The purpose of the present article is to integrate the DPM [3] with the Job Demands-Resources (JD-R) model [4] to better explain who engages in job crafting and in what form. We aim to contribute to the literature and practice in three important ways. First, by acknowledging that people may differ in their chronic tendency to assume the agent or recipient perspective, we explain why only some individuals perceive job crafting as an option when they are faced with misfit to their job characteristics. Second, our research provides patterns of typical job crafting strategies for agents and recipients, and thus, refines our understanding of who crafts in what way. This is relevant, as choosing a strategy that fits with individual preferences, rather than engaging in each type of job crafting, may be more effective in achieving the desired aim. Third, to the best of our knowledge, the DPM [3] has not been previously used to predict workplace outcomes; yet, this model explains perceptions, emotions and behaviors in social interdependence context, and as such it applies to the workplace. Thus, we extend the DPM by showing its application in organizational contexts. Specifically, because past research identified that the perspectives of agent and recipient can be temporarily activated [5], there is an opportunity to apply this framework and to design an evidence-based activity during job crafting training interventions as a technique to support forming job-crafting intentions.
Job Crafting and Its Types
Traditionally, job design has been perceived as a top-down process wherein the job is designed and redesigned (if needed) by the organization[2]. However, the fast-paced changes that occur within and outside organizations, as well as individual differences of the employees who perform the jobs, make it difficult for organizations to create optimal job designs: one size does not fit all. Thus, job crafting (JC) may be a method to accommodate employees’ unique needs. JC is a form of proactive behavior that involves employees actively changing distinct aspects of their jobs. A central feature of JC is that employees modify job characteristics on their own initiative. JC aims to increase a job’s meaningfulness [6] and how it fits one’s preferences [2].
Wrzesniewski and Dutton [1] argued that employees enhance the meaning of their work through task, relational, and cognitive crafting. Task crafting involves altering the boundaries of one’s work by changing the number, scope, or type of tasks (e.g., adding tasks that one enjoys). Relational crafting comprises changes to the social aspects of the job, such as modifying the nature of interactions with others. Cognitive crafting describes changing how one perceives their role at work (e.g., a janitor at the hospital who sees their role as being part of the healing team rather than moping the floors).
Tims and Bakker [2] framed JC in the context of the JD-R model [4] to describe changes that individuals make in their work characteristics. According to the JD-R model, all job characteristics can be categorized as either job demands or job resources. Job demands are those aspects of the job that result in physiological or psychological costs [7]. There are two types of job demands[8]: challenges, which provide the potential for growth (e.g., task complexity), and hindrances, whichthreaten effective goal pursuit (e.g., role conflict). Job resources are those characteristics of the work environment that help reduce the strain associated with job demands, as well as are functional in achieving work goals and stimulating employee growth[9]. There are two main types of job resources: structural resources, which relate to the design aspects of a job, like learning opportunities or autonomy, and social job resources, which refer to communal aspects of the job, such as support and feedback. Based on the JD-R model, Tims et al. [10]distinguished four job-crafting strategies. First, individuals increase structural job resources, e.g., by expanding their job discretion. Second, employees engage in increasing social job resources, e.g., by reaching out for support from colleagues. Third, employees increase the level of challenging demands by, e.g., adding more stimulating tasks. Finally, hindering job demands may be reduced to decrease the strain; for example, individuals may look for ways to minimize taxing tasks.
Integrating these role- and resource-based crafting approaches, Lichtenthaler and Fischbach [11] distinguished between crafting aimed at reaching gains (promotion crafting), versus that concerning avoiding negative end-states (prevention crafting). Similarly, Laurence [12] differentiated between expansion- and contraction-oriented JC, which discriminates between employees' attempts to increase vs reduce certain job characteristics. These streams of research on JC have been synthesized by Zhang and Parker [13] who proposed a three-level hierarchical structure of JC. The first level relates to its orientation: approach (enriching and expanding) versus avoidance (reducing and limiting) crafting. The second describes the JC form, i.e., behavioral (changes in actions) versus cognitive (changes in perceptions). The third level concerns the content of JC: altering the levels of job resources or job demands. For instance, increasing social job resources represents an approach-, behavioral-, and resources-focused crafting attempt.
Approach and avoidance crafting differ both conceptually as well as empirically. The meta-analysis by Rudolph and colleagues [14] showed that the dimensions of approach crafting (i.e., seeking resources and seeking challenges) and avoidance crafting (i.e., decreasing demands) have very weak relationships with each other. Additionally, decreasing hindering demands demonstrates a low standardized factor loading with the latent general JC factor. Finally, empirical studies and meta-analytic results have shown distinct antecedents and outcomes of approach and avoidance crafting [13]. For example, approach and avoidance crafting have opposite effects for work engagement, job satisfaction, burnout, strain, and job performance [14].
Predictors of Job Crafting
Certain contextual factors reinforce JC. Quantitative meta-analysis underlined the role of autonomy and workload as positive predictors of approach-oriented JC; these factors were, however, unrelated to avoidance-oriented JC [14]. A meta-synthesis of qualitative research refined the role of workload as representing a reactive motive for JC, i.e., related to the need to cope with adversity, rather than a proactive one, describing situations where individual’s initiate JC to reach desirable goals [15]. Other relevant factors include supportive work environment that stimulates and encourages JC efforts, such as high social support, a proactive organizational culture, or a shared organizational identity. These contexts enable both proactive and reactive motives to approach crafting. In contrast, constraining contexts (e.g., excessive supervision) prompt avoidance crafting driven by reactive and proactive motives.
Several individual differences factors predict employee crafting attempts. High proactive personality and high conscientiousness [14] are linked with general JC (i.e., aggregated scores across the dimensions). Research has demonstrated that individual differences affect the orientation of JC. Employees high in approach temperament and promotion focus tend to engage more in approach crafting, while avoidance temperament and prevention focus predict avoidance crafting [14]. There is additional variation in JC content depending on individual differences. For instance, increasing social job resources is characteristic of individuals high in extraversion or narcissism, whereas higher levels of psychoticism inhibit these attempts [16].
Knowledge of factors that promote JC in the organization is relevant given the documented benefits of JC for individual employees, work teams, and whole organizations [13]. Yet, the context factors are not always possible to be modified (i.e., workload in health care) or they take time to change (e.g., organizational culture). Individual differences that relate to temperament or personality traits are relatively stable [17] and thus, while they may serve as criteria in employee selection process, they cannot be changed in interventions that aim at boosting JC. As an alternative, JC facilitators may turn to mindsets, perspectives, or orientations, which may have stable components, but are also possible to be activated and shaped. One such possibility is presented by the Dual Perspective Model (DPM) [3]. We use DPM to better explain how individuals perceive their role in job redesign and how their perspective can be changed using the premises of this model.
The Agents and Recipients of the Social World
DPM [3] proposes that there are two major perspectives that people undertake in the social world: agent and recipient. Agent is the one who takes an action, and recipient—the one at whom the action is directed and who experiences its outcomes. This division delineates their differences in the mindset: of either being an actor, who shapes the environment, or the one who is at the receiving end of whatever takes place in the social world. An agentic mindset is linked with higher self-esteem, self-efficacy, and more positive emotions than that of a recipient [3]. Recipients focus on understanding the social world around them. They strive to avoid losses and obtain gains involved in interactions. This focus results in increased accessibility of communal content, i.e., traits that are relevant for social relations, like helpfulness or honesty, and higher interest in other people [18]. The foundation of the DPM is a body of research on agency and communion as two basic dimensions in social cognition (for a review, see [3]. The connection between agent-recipient perspectives and the dimensions of agency-communion result from the nature of each perspective. When performing an action, one must monitor their effectiveness. Thus, taking the agent perspective involves the agency dimension. In the recipient perspective, people concentrate on the actions that affect them; therefore, they need to be vigilant towards the social value of others’ actions and their intentions. Thus, recipient perspective orients an individual to communion.
People differ in the chronic tendency to view themselves as agents or recipients [18]. The propensity to take the agent perspective is defined as a ‘habitual preference to take action, influence others and have control over the situation’ (p. 72) [5]. Chronic recipient perspective is a habitual preference to succumb to what others have decided and to withdraw from action [18]. However, certain situations naturally place individuals into one of these roles, such as when one is the physician and the other–the patient. Thus, the agent and recipient perspectives may be temporarily activated given the context and roles dedicated to one in an interaction [5]. Thus, we could speak both about chronic (trait) and temporal (state) agent-recipient perspectives.
JC requires personal initiative and as such is predicted by proactive personality, which may at first glance appear similar to DPM. The propensity to take the agent perspective is a habitual preference to view oneself as being in control and the one shaping the outcomes in a dyadic interaction. Thus, in agent-recipient perspective one usually considers themselves in relation to somebody else. Proactivity, on the other hand, refers to ‘self-initiated and future-oriented action that aims to change and improve the situation’ (p. 636) [19]. Thus, proactive behavior involves taking control and causing change, and acting in advance of a future situation. Additionally, proactivity usually refers to a sense of control over oneself and introducing change to one's life, while propensity to take the agent perspective relates not only to beliefs about control over oneself, but most importantly to behavioral tendencies and to adopting certain roles in social situations. Overall, propensities to take the agent vs recipient perspective are, thus, a wider construct which are not only related to the anticipatory self-initiated actions and personal initiative but also to particular behavioral preferences, sense of control, and autonomy in social context. Thus, we predict that these perspectives explain engaging in JC over and above proactivity. We expect that differences in agent-recipient perspectives affect not only the orientation of crafting attempts (approach versus avoidance), but also its content (i.e., types of resources and demands). Thus, the role of agency and communion concerns may provide us with a nuanced understanding of the content of JC attempts.
Predicting Job Crafting Patterns From Dual Perspectives Model
The differences in the agent-recipient perspectives are related to a set of cognitive and emotional changes that occur in people’s mindsets. The agent experiences an increase in personal control and efficacy, accompanied by high positive affect and self-esteem [3]. These outcomes may also act as positive personal resources enabling an individual to craft his or her job [13]. Numerous studies inspired by the DPM have shown that agentic content is associated with the propensity to act and ‘take charge’. Abele and Wojciszke [3] propose that the agent perspective relates to a general expansion. This corresponds with approach crafting, i.e., seeking resources and challenging job demands. However, because past research showed links between agency and inhibition of communal content [20], we expect that a chronic agent perspective is linked with seeking structural resources as well as seeking challenging job demands, but not with seeking social job resources.
Hypotheses 1. An agent perspective is positively linked with seeking structural job resources.
Hypothesis 2. An agent perspective is positively linked with seeking challenging job demands.
A recipient perspective signifies being subjected to the actions of others and depending on them. Therefore, a recipient is concerned with communal content and experiences increased feelings of vulnerability [3]. Taking this perspective results in an increased interest in the social aspects of the world. Past research has shown that individuals with strong interest in social contact (i.e., high in extroversion or narcissism), craft their jobs by seeking social resources [16]. Since recipients look up to others, they may be more interested in seeking their support. For JC, this would translate into pursuing more social job resources.
Hypotheses 3. A recipient perspective is positively linked with seeking social job resources.
Abele and Wojciszke [3] argue that the recipient mindset may result in a general contraction—a lowered tendency to act, to contribute, and to take control. Faced with problems, recipients resort to avoidance as they perceive problems as threats rather than challenges. Previous research demonstrated that chronic recipient perspective is correlated with neuroticism [18], and the latter predicts reducing demands [14]. Therefore, a propensity to a recipient role may result in reducing demands that are perceived as hindrances. On the other hand, obstacles are rather viewed as a challenge than a threat in the case of agents [3]. Overall, we predict that these two perspectives are linked with a different pattern of prevention-oriented crafting:
Hypothesis 4. An agent perspective is negatively linked with decreasing hindering job demands.
Hypotheses 5. A recipient perspective is positively linked with decreasing hindering job demands.
Figure 1 demonstrates the expected relationships between agent-recipient perspectives and four types of JC.