IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/h/spr/prbchp/978-3-319-43434-6_42.html
   My bibliography  Save this book chapter

The Effects of Age on Job Crafting: Exploring the Motivations and Behavior of Younger and Older Employees in Job Crafting

In: Leadership, Innovation and Entrepreneurship as Driving Forces of the Global Economy

Author

Listed:
  • Sabrine El Baroudi

    (Canadian University of Dubai)

  • Svetlana N. Khapova

    (VU University Amsterdam)

Abstract

Purpose: This paper contributes to the job-crafting theory of Wrzesniewski and Dutton (The Academy of Management Review 26(2):179–201, 2001) by exploring the effects of age on job-crafting behaviors (i.e., task crafting, relational crafting, and cognitive crafting) and on job-crafting motivations (i.e., the need for personal control, the desire to create and sustain a positive self-image, and the need for human connection). Design/methodology/approach: Semi-structured interviews were conducted with 16 younger and 15 older employees (n = 31) at a socially responsible non-profit organization in the Netherlands. The qualitative data were analyzed in two major steps: (1) identifying job-crafting motivations and behaviors in older and younger employees and (2) identifying and comparing the differences in the job-crafting motivations and behaviors between older employees and younger employees. Findings: We found that both older and younger employees are likely to engage in job-crafting behavior to assert control over their jobs and to create a positive self-image. However, younger employees may have two different motivations (personal control and positive self-image) for engaging in such job-crafting behavior. Whereas both younger and older employees engage the most in task crafting, younger employees are more likely to engage in all three types of job-crafting behavior; additionally, we found that the three different forms of job-crafting behavior of younger employees occur in conjunction with one another. Research limitations/implications: This study contributes to the original job-crafting model of Wrzesniewski and Dutton (The Academy of Management Review 26(2):179–201, 2001) by including the effect of age in the model, and by demonstrating the importance of studying the three original main job-crafting motivations and behaviors separately from one another. Practical implications: This paper addresses the multigenerational challenges of the contemporary workforce. It demonstrates that managers may play a pivotal role in stimulating older employees to engage in job-crafting behaviors by informing them about job-crafting strategies and providing them with more opportunities to engage in job crafting. Originality/value: This paper is original in that it re-examines, refines, and enriches the job-crafting model of Wrzesniewski and Dutton (The Academy of Management Review 26(2):179–201, 2001), which is receiving a growing interest among researchers and business practitioners.

Suggested Citation

  • Sabrine El Baroudi & Svetlana N. Khapova, 2017. "The Effects of Age on Job Crafting: Exploring the Motivations and Behavior of Younger and Older Employees in Job Crafting," Springer Proceedings in Business and Economics, in: Rachid Benlamri & Michael Sparer (ed.), Leadership, Innovation and Entrepreneurship as Driving Forces of the Global Economy, chapter 0, pages 485-505, Springer.
  • Handle: RePEc:spr:prbchp:978-3-319-43434-6_42
    DOI: 10.1007/978-3-319-43434-6_42
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    To our knowledge, this item is not available for download. To find whether it is available, there are three options:
    1. Check below whether another version of this item is available online.
    2. Check on the provider's web page whether it is in fact available.
    3. Perform a search for a similarly titled item that would be available.

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:spr:prbchp:978-3-319-43434-6_42. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    We have no bibliographic references for this item. You can help adding them by using this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Sonal Shukla or Springer Nature Abstracting and Indexing (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.springer.com .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.