Daily job crafting and the self-efficacy – performance relationship

Abstract

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to examine whether job crafting and work enjoyment could explain the well-established relationship between self-efficacy and job performance. The authors hypothesized that employees would be most likely to engage in proactive job crafting behaviors on the days when they feel most self-efficacious. Daily job crafting, in turn, was expected to relate to daily performance through daily work enjoyment. Design/methodology/approach – A daily diary study was conducted among a heterogeneous sample of employees (N=47, days=215). Participants completed the survey on five consecutive days. Findings – The results of multilevel structural equation modeling analyses were generally in line with the hypotheses. Specifically, results indicated that employees who felt more self-efficacious on a given day were more likely to mobilize their job resources on that day. Daily job crafting, in turn, was positively correlated to work enjoyment and indirectly associated with performance. Participants reported elevated levels of performance on the days on which they enjoyed their work most. Research limitations/implications – Self-reports were used to assess all constructs, which may result in common method bias. However, within-person correlations were moderate, and a two-level CFA indicated that a one-factor model could not account for all the variance in the data. Originality/value – The findings of this study underscore the importance of daily proactive behavior for employee and organizational outcomes.