مقاله سال ۲۰۱۷

In the field of leadership, researchers suggest that transformational leadership is especially effective during times of organizational change, because transformational leaders are able to reframe employees’ perceptions of change to view it as an opportunity rather than threat (Bass & Riggio, 2006; Burns, 1978). But, in a highly competitive and uncertain business environment, top-down change initiated by organizations is not adequate in addressing emergent demands and opportunities at work; organizational leaders have to rely on employees to take initiative and create change from the bottom-up. Employees are not only required to carry out the core tasks specified in the job description, but are also expected to be more proactive in improving the status quo (Grant & Parker, 2009; Griffin, Neal, & Parker, 2007; Martin, Liao, & Campbell, 2013). For example, employees can craft their jobs by initiating change in the task and relational boundaries of their work (i.e., job crafting, Wrzesniewski & Dutton, 2001). By constantly crafting what they do and how they do it in the job, employees can shape their work to better serve organizational goals in a changing environment. Thus, it is important to understand factors that facilitate employee job crafting.

In this study, we examine transformational leadership as an antecedent of job crafting (seeking resources, seeking challenges, and reducing demands). Specifically, we suggest that transformational leadership stimulate employees’ job crafting by increasing their adaptability defined as “the willingness and ability to change behaviors, feelings, and thoughts in response to environmental demands” (McArdle, Waters, Briscoe, & Hall, 2007, p.248). Adaptability in our definition is a positive motivational orientation toward changing oneself. Moreover, research found that the effect of transformational leadership was moderated by employees work identity (Li, Chiaburu, Kirkman, & Xie, 2013). Organizational identification is one form of work identity, referring to the extent to which an organization’s identity and an employee’s own identity overlap (Van Knippenberg & Sleebos, 2006). We examine the interaction of transformational leadership and employee organizational identification on employee adaptability and subsequently job crafting. We suggest that because transformational leadership particularly emphasizes the collective identity of the organization, for employees who already have a high level of organizational identification the effect of transformational leadership may become weaker. That is, employees’ motivation to change may be supplied by strong feelings of organizational identification instead of being supplied by a transformational leader.

This study makes several contributions to the literature. First, we link transformational leadership to employee job crafting, adding to the promising literature on job crafting. Researchers have focused on either the individual difference factors (e.g., proactive personality, Bakker, Tims, & Derks, 2012; individual approach temperament, Bipp & Demerouti, 2015; self-efficacy, Tims, Bakker, & Derks, 2014) or job characteristics as determinants of job crafting (e.g., job autonomy, Petrou, Demerouti, Peeters, Schaufeli, & Hetland, 2012). A perspective on leadership and employee job crafting, however, has received much less research attention.