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We propose that employees craft their jobs by changing cognitive, task, and/or relational boundaries to shape interactions and relationships with others at work. These altered task and relational configurations change the design and social environment of the job, which, in turn, alters work meanings and work identity. We offer a model of job crafting that specifies (1) the individual motivations that spark this activity, (2) how opportunities to job craft and how individual work orientations determine the forms job crafting takes, and (3) its likely individual and organizational effects.
Organizational researchers care about what what composes the experience of a job. Traditionally, they have focused on either individual determinants (Dubin, 1956; Lodahl & Kejner, 1965; Roberson, 1990), such as expectations or values, or external characteristics of the job itself (Griffin, 1987; Hackman & Oldham, 1980), such as work tasks or social interaction at work. Both perspectives minimize the role that employees play in actively shaping both the tasks and social relationships that compose a job. Even in the most restricted and routine jobs, employees can exert some influence on what is the essence of the work.
The core premise of this article is that the work tasks and interactions that compose the days, the jobs, and, ultimately, the lives of employees are the raw materials employees use to construct their jobs. In our perspective we draw on assumptions of social constructionism that "place particular stress on the individual's psychological construction of the experiential world" (Gergen, 1994: 67). The social context provides employees with the materials they use to build the experience of work (Salancik & Pfeffer, 1978). Interactions with others help employees define and bound tasks by shaping impressions of what is and is not part of the job. However, job boundaries, the meaning of work, and work identities are not fully determined by formal job requirements. Individuals have latitude to define and enact the job, acting as "job crafters." We define job crafting as the physical and cognitive changes individuals make in the task or relational boundaries of their work. Thus, job crafting is an action, and those who undertake it are job crafters. Our perspective illuminates how, when, and why employees are likely to craft their jobs, and how crafting revises both...