In recent years, there has been heightened interest in the active role of employees in shaping activities and experiences in their pursuit of optimal functioning (i.e., feeling and performing well), referred to as job-, leisure-, home-, and work-life balance crafting. Various perspectives have emphasized distinct dimensions within the crafting process (i.e., motives, behaviors, life domains, and outcomes) yielding a rich but fragmented theoretical account. With psychological needs satisfaction as the underlying process, we propose an integrative model to account for past conceptualizations of crafting motives and efforts across a person´s various role identities. This integration highlights the importance of recognizing unfulfilled needs, matching needs and crafting efforts, within-and between-level temporal dynamics of the crafting process, and possibilities for spillover and compensation processes across identity domains. Accordingly, the Integrative Needs Model of Crafting explains a) why and how people craft, b) when and why crafting efforts may (not) be effective in achieving optimal functioning, c) the sequential process of crafting over time, and d) how crafting processes unfold across different identity domains.
In recent years, there has been an increasing interest in psychological need satisfaction and its role in promoting optimal functioning. The DRAMMA model integrates existing need and recovery models to explain why leisure is connected to optimal functioning (i.e., high well-being and low ill-being). It encompasses six psychological needs: detachment, relaxation, autonomy, mastery, meaning, and affiliation (DRAMMA). While the individual needs of the DRAMMA model have been previously shown to relate to different aspects of optimal functioning, a longitudinal study examining the entire model has not been conducted before. In this longitudinal field study covering leisure and work episodes, we tested the within-person reliability and (construct and criterion) validity of the operationalization of the DRAMMA model in a sample of 279 German employees. Participants filled out measures of DRAMMA need satisfaction and optimal functioning at five measurement times before, during, and after vacation periods in 2016 and 2017. The six-factor model showed good fit to the data. In the multilevel models, relaxation, detachment, autonomy, and mastery had the most consistent within-person effects on optimal functioning, while the relationships between optimal functioning, meaning, and affiliation were considerably weaker. In conclusion, DRAMMA need satisfaction can aid and nurture employees' optimal functioning.
Shaping off-job life is becoming increasingly important for workers to increase and maintain their optimal functioning (i.e., feeling and performing well). Proactively shaping the job domain (referred to as job crafting) has been extensively studied, but crafting in the off-job domain has received markedly less research attention. Based on the Integrative Needs Model of Crafting, needs-based off-job crafting is defined as workers’ proactive and self-initiated changes in their off-job lives, which target psychological needs satisfaction. Off-job crafting is posited as a possible means for workers to fulfill their needs and enhance well-being and performance over time. We developed a new scale to measure off-job crafting and examined its relationships to optimal functioning in different work contexts in different regions around the world (the United States, Germany, Austria, Switzerland, Finland, Japan, and the United Kingdom). Furthermore, we examined the criterion, convergent, incremental, discriminant, and structural validity evidence of the Needs-based Off-job Crafting Scale using multiple methods (longitudinal and cross-sectional survey studies, an “example generation”-task). The results showed that off-job crafting was related to optimal functioning over time, especially in the off-job domain but also in the job domain. Moreover, the novel off-job crafting scale had good convergent and discriminant validity, internal consistency, and test–retest reliability. To conclude, our series of studies in various countries show that off-job crafting can enhance optimal functioning in different life domains and support people in performing their duties sustainably. Therefore, shaping off-job life may be beneficial in an intensified and continually changing and challenging working life.
Ongoing developments, such as digitalization, increased the interference of the work and nonwork life domains, urging many to continuously manage engagement in respective domains. The COVID-19 pandemic and subsequent home-office regulations further boosted the need for employees to find a good work-nonwork balance, thereby optimizing their health and well-being. Consequently, proactive individual-level crafting strategies for balancing work with other relevant life domains were becoming increasingly important. However, these strategies received insufficient attention in previous research despite their potential relevance for satisfying psychological needs, such as psychological detachment. We addressed this research gap by introducing a new scale measuring crafting for a work-nonwork balance and examining its relevance in job-and life satisfaction, work engagement, subjective vitality, family role and job performance, boundary management and self-rated work-nonwork balance. The Work-Nonwork Balance Crafting Scale was validated in five countries (Austria, Finland, Germany, Japan, and Switzerland), encompassing data from a heterogeneous sample of more than 4,200 employees. In study 1, exploratory factor analysis revealed a twofactorial scale structure. Confirmatory factor analysis, test for measurement invariance, and convergent validity were provided in study 2. Replication of confirmatory factor analysis, incremental and criterion validity of the Work-Nonwork Balance Crafting Scale for job and life satisfaction were assessed in study 3. Study 4 displayed criterion validity, test-retest reliability, testing measurement invariance, and applicability of the scale across work cultures. Finally, study 5 delivered evidence for the Work-Nonwork Balance Crafting Scale in predicting work-nonwork balance. The novel Work-Nonwork Balance Crafting Scale captured crafting for the challenging balance between work and nonwork and performed well across several different working cultures in increasingly digitalized societies. Both researchers and practitioners may use this tool to assess crafting efforts to balance both life TYPE
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