The Role of Job Crafting in Feedback-Performance Relationship: A Study of Supervisors and Managers of the Indian Railways

Abstract

Self-determined work behaviors and job redesign strategies are characterized by autonomous regulation. They bear a marked influence on job performance. Job crafting in the form of employee level proactive reshaping of job characteristics at the cognitive, task, and relational levels has been found to mediate significantly between personal as well as contextual antecedents and various positive workplace outcomes such as work engagement and job performance. While feedback-performance relationship, directly and through various mediating factors like work engagement, has been examined in prior studies, there appears to be no published study exploring the mediating role of job crafting between feedback and performance. The current study tested, through Structural Equation Modeling (SEM), the influence of job crafting behaviors in the relationship between contextual factor of performance feedback and outcome variable of in-role performance. The study used sample data (N = 191) drawn from junior and middle managers and supervisors of the Indian Railways, a government organization. The study results support the hypothesized positive mediation effect of job crafting in the relationship between feedback and in-role performance in the sample population. Contribution to extant literature centered in job crafting and practical implications for the select organization and public organizations in India have been discussed.