Job Crafting, Performance, and the Mediating  Role of Gratitude: A Study Among the Sales  Service Personnel of Tourist industry, India

Bala Subramanian R; Subhajit  Bhattacharya; Munsih Thakur

doi:10.5614/ajht.2022.20.2.04

Authors

Bala Subramanian R XIM University
Subhajit Bhattacharya
Munsih Thakur

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.5614/ajht.2022.20.2.04

Keywords:

Gratitude, Job crafting, Affective event theory, Job demand-resource model, Job performance

Abstract

Job crafting plays a key role in many aspects of the job. Providing support and autonomy to craft the job, makes the employees grateful and influences job related outcomes. We intended to examine the mediating role of gratitude on the relationship between job crafting and job performance. We surveyed the salesperson of tourism and hospitality organizations in India. Results showed that job crafting positively influences job performance mediated by the emotion of gratitude. Key theoretical and practical implications of our study are discussed followed by direction for future research.

References

Akg, A. E., Erdil, O., Keskin, H. and Muceldilli, B. (2016). The relationship among gratitude, hope, connections, and innovativeness. The Service Industries Journal, 36(3-4), 102-123.

Algoe, S. B. (2012). Find, remind, and bind: The functions of gratitude in everyday relationships. Social and Personality Psychology Compass, 6(6), 455-469.

Ali Ababneh, O. M., Awwad, A. S., & Abu-Haija, A. (2021). The association between green human resources practices and employee engagement with environmental initiatives in hotels: The moderation effect of perceived transformational leadership. Journal of Human Resources in Hospitality & Tourism, 20(3), 390-416.

Bakker, A.B. and Demerouti, E. (2007). The Job Demands?Resources model: state of the art. Journal of Managerial Psychology, 22(3), 309-328.

Bakker, A. B. and Demerouti, E. (2014). Job demands?resources theory. Wellbeing: A complete Reference Guide, 1-28.

Bakker, A. B., Rodruez-Muz, A. and Sanz Vergel, A. I. (2016). Modeling job crafting behaviors: Implications for work engagement. Human Relations, 69(1), 169-189.

Bartlett, M. Y. and DeSteno, D. (2006). Gratitude and prosocial behavior: Helping when it costs you. Psychological Science, 17(4), 319-325.

Batova, T. (2018). Work motivation in the rhetoric of component content management. Journal of Business and Technical Communication, 32(3), 308-346.

Berg, J. M., Dutton, J. E. and Wrzesniewski, A. (2013). Job Crafting and Meaningful Work. In B. J. Dik, Z. S. Byrne and M. F. Steger (Eds.), Purpose and Meaning in the Workplace (p. 81?104). American Psychological Association.

Berg, J. M., Wrzesniewski, A. and Dutton, J. E. (2010). Perceiving and responding to challenges in job crafting at different ranks: When proactivity requires adaptivity. Journal of Organizational Behavior, 31(2?3), 158-186.

Bruning, P. F. and Campion, M. A. (2018). A role?resource approach?avoidance model of job crafting: A multimethod integration and extension of job crafting theory. Academy of Management Journal, 61(2), 499-522.

Buonocore, F., de Gennaro, D., Russo, M. and Salvatore, D. (2020). Cognitive job crafting: A possible response to increasing job insecurity and declining professional prestige. Human Resource Management Journal, 30(2), 244-259.

Chang, Y. P., Lin, Y. C. and Chen, L. H. (2012). Pay it forward: Gratitude in social networks. Journal of Happiness Studies, 13(5), 761-781.

Chen, H., Yang, X., Xia, W., Li, Y., Deng, Y. and Fan, C. (2021). The relationship between gratitude and job satisfaction: The mediating roles of social support and job crafting. Current Psychology, 1-8.

Chen, C. Y., Yen, C. H. and Tsai, F. C. (2014). Job crafting and job engagement: The mediating role of person-job fit. International Journal of Hospitality Management, 37, 21-28.

Chien, G. C., Mao, I., Nergui, E. and Chang, W. (2020). The effect of work motivation on employee performance: Empirical evidence from 4-star hotels in Mongolia. Journal of Human Resources in Hospitality & Tourism, 19(4), 473-495.

Choi, E. K. and Joung, H. W. (2017). Employee job satisfaction and customer-oriented behavior: A study of frontline employees in the foodservice industry. Journal of Human Resources in Hospitality & Tourism, 16(3), 235-251.

Converso, D., Loera, B., Viotti, S. and Martini, M. (2015). Do positive relations with patients play a protective role for healthcare employees? Effects of patients' gratitude and support on nurses' burnout. Frontiers in Psychology, 6, 470.

Costantini, A. and Sartori, R. (2018). The intertwined relationship between job crafting, work-related positive emotions, and work engagement. Evidence from a positive psychology intervention study. The Open Psychology Journal, 11(1).

Dasborough, M. T., Hannah, S. T. and Zhu, W. (2019). The generation and function of moral emotions in teams: An integrative review. Journal of Applied Psychology, 105(5), 433.

Dickens, L. R. (2017). Using gratitude to promote positive change: A series of meta-analyses investigating the effectiveness of gratitude interventions. Basic and Applied Social Psychology, 39(4), 193-208.

Diener, E., Thapa, S. and Tay, L. (2020). Positive emotions at work. Annual Review of Organizational Psychology and Organizational Behavior, 7, 451-477.

Esmaeili, H. K., Mohammad, J. and Soltani, I. (2019). The relationship between job crafting and job performance: empirical evidence from the automobile industry. International Journal of Business Innovation and Research, 19(1), 109-124.

Fehr, R., Fulmer, A., Awtrey, E. and Miller, J. A. (2017). The grateful workplace: A multilevel model of gratitude in organizations. Academy of Management Review, 42(2), 361-381.

Ford, M. T., Wang, Y., Jin, J. and Eisenberger, R. (2018). Chronic and episodic anger and gratitude toward the organization: Relationships with organizational and supervisor supportiveness and extrarole behavior. Journal of Occupational Health Psychology, 23(2), 175.

Fornell, C. and Larcker, D. (1981). Evaluating Structural Equation Models with Unobservable Variables and Measurement Error. Journal of Marketing Research, 18(1), 39-50.

Fuller, A. and Unwin, L. (2017). Job crafting and identity in low-grade work: How hospital porters redefine the value of their work and expertise. Vocations and Learning, 10(3), 307-324.

Grant-Vallone, E. J. and Ensher, E. A. (2017). Re-crafting careers for mid-career faculty: A qualitative study. Journal of Higher Education Theory and Practice, 17(5), 10-24.

Grant, A. M. and Wrzesniewski, A. (2010). I won?t let you down? or will I? Core self-evaluations, other-orientation, anticipated guilt and gratitude, and job performance. Journal of Applied Psychology, 95(1), 108.

Janssen, M., Wallenburg, I. and de Bont, A. (2016). Carving Out a Place for New Health Care Occupations: An Ethnographic Study into Job Crafting. In Boundaryless Hospital (pp. 119-141). Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg.

Jena, L. K., Bhattacharyya, P. and Pradhan, S. (2019). Am I empowered through meaningful work? The moderating role of perceived flexibility in connecting meaningful work and psychological empowerment. IIMB Management Review, 31(3), 298-308.

Hair, J.F., Anderson, R.E., Tatham, R.L. and Black, W.C. (2008). Multivariate Data Analysis, (7th ed.). Prentice Hall Publisher, Upper Saddle River, New Jersey.

Jans-Beken, L., Jacobs, N., Janssens, M., Peeters, S., Reijnders, J., Lechner, L. and Lataster, J. (2020). Gratitude and health: An updated review. The Journal of Positive Psychology, 15(6), 743-782.

Jimenez, W. P. (2018). Grateful Beneficiaries and Proud Benefactors: A Moderated Mediation Model Relating Supervisors' Gratitude Expression to Employees' Organizational Citizenship Behavior. Old Dominion University

Jeskog, K.G. and Sbom, D. (1993). LISREL 8: Structural equation modeling with the SIMPLIS command language. Chicago: Scientifi c Software International.

Kirkman, B. L., & Rosen, B. (1999). Beyond self-management: Antecedents and consequences of team empowerment. Academy of Management Journal, 42(1), 58-74.

Kim, H., Im, J. and Qu, H. (2018). Exploring antecedents and consequences of job crafting. International Journal of Hospitality Management, 75, 18-26.

Ladhari, R. (2007), "The Effect of Consumption Emotions on Satisfaction and Word-of-Mouth Communications", Psychology & Marketing, 24(12), 1085-108.

Lazazzara, A., Tims, M. and De Gennaro, D. (2020). The process of reinventing a job: A meta synthesis of qualitative job crafting research. Journal of Vocational Behavior, 116, 103267.

Luu, T. T. (2020). Linking authentic leadership to salespeople's service performance: The roles of job crafting and human resource flexibility. Industrial Marketing Management, 84, 89-104.

Lyons, P. (2008). The crafting of jobs and individual differences. Journal of Business and Psychology, 23(1), 25-36.

Ma, L. K., Tunney, R. J. and Ferguson, E. (2017). Does Gratitude Enhance Prosociality? A meta-analytic review. Psychological Bulletin, 143(6), 601.

Martini, M. and Converso, D. (2014). Gratitude, or the Positive Side of the Relationship with Patients. Development and First Validation of New Instruments: A Scale of Gratitude Perceived by Operators and a Scale of Support Offered by the Gratitude Expressed by Their Patients. Psychology, 5, 572-580. DOI: 10.4236/psych.2014.56067.

Mattarelli, E. and Tagliaventi, M. R. (2015). How offshore professionals' job dissatisfaction can promote further offshoring: Organizational outcomes of job crafting. Journal of Management Studies, 52(5), 585-620.

Meged, J. W. (2017). Guides crafting meaning in a flexible working life. Scandinavian Journal of Hospitality and Tourism, 17(4), 374-387.

Nielsen, K. and Abildgaard, J. S. (2012). The development and validation of a job crafting measure for use with blue-collar workers. Work & Stress, 26(4), 365-384.

Nunnally, J.C. (1978) Psychometric theory. 2nd Edition, McGraw-Hill, New York.

O?Donoghue, A., Conway, E. and Bosak, J. (2016). Abusive supervision, employee well-being and ill-being: the moderating role of core self-evaluations. In Emotions and Organizational Governance. Emerald Group Publishing Limited.

Osborne, D., Smith, H. J. and Huo, Y. J. (2012). More than a feeling: Discrete emotions mediate the relationship between relative deprivation and reactions to workplace furloughs. Personality and Social Psychology Bulletin, 38(5), 628-641.

Post, C. (2015). When is female leadership an advantage? Coordination requirements, team cohesion, and team interaction norms. Journal of Organizational Behavior, 36(8), 1153-1175.

Pelver, J., Salanova, M., Martez, I. M. and Schaufeli, W. B. (2019). Happy-productive groups: How positive affect links to performance through social resources. The Journal of Positive Psychology, 14(3), 377-392.

Petrou, P., Demerouti, E. and Schaufeli, W. B. (2015). Job crafting in changing organizations: Antecedents and implications for exhaustion and performance. Journal of Occupational Health Psychology, 20(4), 470.

Pillay, N., Park, G., Kim, Y. K. and Lee, S. (2020). Thanks for your ideas: Gratitude and team creativity. Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes, 156, 69-81.

Presbitero, A. (2017). How do changes in human resource management practices influence employee engagement? A longitudinal study in a hotel chain in the Philippines. Journal of Human Resources in Hospitality & Tourism, 16(1), 56-70.

Renkema, M., Meijerink, J. and Bondarouk, T. (2018, July). Routes of Employee-Driven Innovation: How HRM Supports Emergence. In Academy of Management Proceedings (Vol. 2018, No. 1, p. 16237). Briarcliff Manor, NY 10510: Academy of Management.

Ryan, R. M. and Deci, E. L. (2000). Self-determination theory and the facilitation of intrinsic motivation, social development, and well-being. American Psychologist, 55(1), 68.

Schiffinger, M. and Braun, S. M. (2020). The impact of social and temporal job demands and resources on emotional exhaustion and turnover intention among flight attendants. Journal of Human Resources in Hospitality & Tourism, 19(2), 196-219.

Shin, Y., Hur, W. M. and Choi, W. H. (2020). Coworker support as a double-edged sword: A moderated mediation model of job crafting, work engagement, and job performance. The International Journal of Human Resource Management, 31(11), 1417-1438.

Singh, V. and Singh, M. (2018). A burnout model of job crafting: Multiple mediator effects on job performance. IIMB Management Review, 30(4), 305-315.

Stegen, A. and Wankier, J. (2018). Generating gratitude in the workplace to improve faculty job satisfaction. Journal of Nursing Education, 57(6), 375-378.

Sturman, M. C. (2003). Searching for the inverted U-shaped relationship between time and performance: Meta-analyses of the experience/performance, tenure/performance, and age/performance relationships. Journal of Management, 29(5), 609-640.

Scott-Halsell, S. A., Blum, S. C. and Huffman, L. (2008). A study of emotional intelligence levels in hospitality industry professionals. Journal of Human Resources in Hospitality & Tourism, 7(2), 135-152.

Sumaneeva, K. A., Karadas, G. and Avci, T. (2021). Frontline hotel employees? proactive personality, I-deals, work engagement and their effect on creative performance and proactive customer service performance. Journal of Human Resources in Hospitality & Tourism, 20(1), 75-100.

Tims, M. and Bakker, A. B. (2010). Job crafting: Towards a new model of individual job redesign. SA Journal of Industrial Psychology, 36(2), 1-9.

Tims, M., Bakker, A. B. and Derks, D. (2012). Development and validation of the job crafting scale. Journal of Vocational Behavior, 80(1), 173-186.

Tims, M., Bakker, A. B. and Derks, D. (2015). Job crafting and job performance: A longitudinal study. European Journal of Work and Organizational Psychology, 24(6), 914-928.

Tsang, J. A. (2006). Gratitude and prosocial behaviour: An experimental test of gratitude. Cognition & Emotion, 20(1), 138-148.

Tuan, L. T. (2020). Crafting the sales job collectively in the tourism industry: The roles of charismatic leadership and collective person-group fit. Journal of Hospitality and Tourism Management, 45, 245-255.

Van Wingerden, J., Derks, D. and Bakker, A. B. (2017). The impact of personal resources and job crafting interventions on work engagement and performance. Human Resource Management, 56(1), 51-67.

Weiss, H. M. and Cropanzano, R. (1996). Affective events theory: a theoretical discussion of the structure, causes and consequences of affective experience at work. In BM Staw and LL Cummings (Eds) Research in organization behavior: An Annual Series of Analytical Essays and Critical Reviews-18 inde (1-74). Greenwich, CT: JAI Press.

Williams, L. A. and Bartlett, M. Y. (2015). Warm thanks: Gratitude expression facilitates social affiliation in new relationships via perceived warmth. Emotion, 15(1), 1-5.

Wrzesniewski, A. and Dutton, J. E. (2001). Crafting a job: Revisioning employees as active crafters of their work. Academy of Management Review, 26(2), 179-201.

Wrzesniewski, A., LoBuglio, N., Dutton, J. E. and Berg, J. M. (2013). Job crafting and cultivating positive meaning and identity in work. In Advances in Positive Organizational Psychology. Emerald Group Publishing Limited.

Yavas, U., Karatepe, O. M. and Babakus, E. (2018). Does positive affectivity moderate the effect of burnout on job outcomes? An empirical investigation among hotel employees. Journal of Human Resources in Hospitality & Tourism, 17(3), 360-374.

Zhang, Z., Wang, M. O. and Shi, J. (2012). Leader-follower congruence in proactive personality and work outcomes: The mediating role of leader-member exchange. Academy of Management Journal, 55(1), 111-130.