EFFECT OF JOB CRAFTING ON JOB PERFORMANCE: THE INFLUENCING ROLE OF WORK ENGAGEMENT AND LMX

Abstract

Over the last decade, researchers and managers have contemplated the importance of top-down job design in the field of human resource management. Later, the transition of manufacturing economy to a knowledge-based and service economy has become a calling for dynamic and creative jobs rather than the jobs assigned by management. The flourishing of the hospitality industry has also resulted into the recognition of the pivotal role that hotel employees, particularly frontline employees, play in catering diverse customers’ needs and achieving organizational effectiveness. The nature of the job and pace of technology calls for job designs through which hotel employees would be able to satisfy various customer demands and provide them with a real-time experience without confronting role stress and structural and involuntary unemployment. In today’s world, where competition is keen and the customer market is fickle, innovative practices and employees’ performance levels are the determinants of an organization that thrives in a competitive environment and the other one that struggles to survive. This study intends to examine the influence of hotel frontline employees’ job crafting on their work-role performance via the mediating role of work engagement. This study also puts forward the role of leader-member exchange (LMX) as a moderator between job crafting and work engagement. A survey was conducted among 310 hotel frontline employees and their 42 managers/supervisors working in the hotels of Uttar Pradesh, India. The analysis technique employed to analyze the data was Structural Equation Modeling. Two softwares, namely, SPSS 20.0 and AMOS 25.0 were used during the data analysis procedure. The study findings demonstrated a positive and significant nexus between job crafting and work-role performance of hotel frontline employees via work engagement. The results also revealed that LMX, as a moderator, strengthens the job crafting-work engagement relationship. Given the study findings, hospitality organizations are recommended to encourage job crafting, especially among FLEs, build and maintain healthy relationships between managers/supervisors and employees to enhance the work engagement and, subsequently, the work role performance of FLEs. While highlighting the significant role that FLEs play in the hospitality industry, this study is novel in its way of integrating the JD-R model, broaden-and-build theory, and SET to analyze a comprehensive model incorporating job crafting, work engagement, LMX, and work role performance.