Être l’artisan de son propre mieux-être au travail : le remodèlement d’emploi, ses antécédents et ses résultantes

As the job market is becoming increasingly uncertain and precarious, it is crucial to identify ways in which employees can take proactive initiatives at work to anticipate and to adapt to change (Grant and Parker, 2009). One of the concepts that has identified some of these initiatives is job crafting, that is to say the changes that employees can bring to the limits of their job (Wrzesniewski and Dutton, 2001). However, several models of job crafting have been put forward in recent years, and as such, the operationalization of the concept has several shortcomings. The first objective of this thesis is to propose an integrative model of job crafting, integrating several previously postulated dimensions in a coherent and parsimonious whole. Furthermore, as job crafting has been linked to several positive outcomes for employees and organizations, the second objective of the thesis is to clarify the contribution of its dimensions to the various repercussions experienced by workers. Finally, job crafting being a self-initiated behavior, a third objective of the thesis is to determine if certain work characteristics can help foster job crafting, beyond the personal characteristics of the employees. To answer the first objective, the first article compares the two most prominent models of job crafting in the literature (Wrzesniewski and Dutton, 2001, Tims, Bakker and Derks, 2012) and as exploratory factorial analyses demonstrate that the two models are mostly complementary, the second article presents an integrative, seven dimensional job crafting model. This model is based on a conceptual recension of all job crafting models (n = 10, including theses). At the end of this recension, seven dimensions emerged: five expansion dimensions of job crafting; task, relational, cognitive, developmental and environmental crafting, and two contraction dimensions of job crafting; task and relational crafting. A series of exploratory and confirmatory factor analyses confirm the theoretically proposed structure of seven dimensions. In order to answer the second objective, job crafting dimensions were correlated with several outcomes: psychological health at work, meaning at work, person-job fit and performance. In the first article, job crafting was related to most of the outcomes six months later, and in the second article, a transversal study, expansion dimensions were positively associated with positive dimensions of psychological health at work, while contraction dimensions were positively related to its’ negative dimensions. In addition, some types of expansion job crafting, more specifically cognitive, development and task crafting, were more strongly related to the various outcomes. Finally, to answer the third objective, the third article compares the individual and organizational determinants and measures the relative contribution of proactive personality, approach / avoidance temperaments, and Karasek’s (1998) work characteristics on job crafting. Hierarchical linear regressions indicate that while controlling for personal characteristics, the organizational predictor that explained the most job crafting variance is employee decision latitude.

Keyphrases: job crafting, Job crafting, Well-being at work, Meaning at work, Work performance