The crossover of job crafting between coworkers and its relationship with adaptivity

This daily diary study among 55 dyads of co-workers working within the same unit examined the crossover of expansive job crafting which, framed within the Job-Demands Resources Model, consists of two distinct behaviours: seeking challenges and seeking resources. We hypothesized that seeking resources and seeking challenges are transferred from one employee (actor) to the other (partner) on a daily basis and that there is more crossover of job crafting from actor to partner when the partner is high in empathy. Moreover, job crafting was expected to relate positively to daily adaptation to changes as measured both by self-reports and peer-reports. Multilevel analyses confirmed the crossover of seeking challenges and partly confirmed the crossover of seeking resources. Empathy of the partner acts as a moderator in this latter crossover process: there is more crossover of seeking resources from actor to partner when the partner is high in empathy. Moreover, day-level seeking resources and seeking challenges were both positively related to self-rated day-level adaptivity. Day-level seeking resources was also positively related to other-rated day-level adaptivity. These results imply that stimulating job crafting within organizations is valuable because it spreads around and can help in the adaptivity to changes.