What happens at work does not always stay at work: Daily job crafting and detachment among colleagues

Ana Isabel Sanz Vergel, Karina Nielsen, Alfredo Rodríguez-Muñoz, Mirko Antino

Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

4 Citations (Scopus)
12 Downloads (Pure)

Abstract

Through job crafting, employees proactively change or modify their tasks, thus reducing adverse job demands or protecting resources. There is still a lack of understanding of the impact that job crafting may have on colleagues at work (crossover effect), and how this may affect their ability to disconnect from work (spillover effect). In the present daily diary study, we examine these two processes among 82 dyads of colleagues (N = 164 employees) over five consecutive working days (N = 820 observations). We found a number of crossover and differential spillover effects. For example, when the focal employee starts new challenging projects, their colleague reacts by reducing the number of stressful tasks. This, in turn, affects psychological detachment from work. Specifically, whereas increasing challenging demands hinders daily detachment, decreasing hindering demands facilitates it. Taken together, these findings demonstrate that the impact of job crafting goes beyond the focal employee and beyond the work domain.

Original languageEnglish
Pages (from-to)776-800
Number of pages25
JournalApplied Psychology
Volume73
Issue number2
Early online date2 Sept 2023
DOIs
Publication statusPublished - Apr 2024

Keywords

  • colleagues
  • crossover
  • job crafting
  • psychological detachment
  • spillover

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