Why is Crafting the Job Associated with Less Prosocial Reactions and More Social Undermining? The Role of Feelings of Relative Deprivation and Zero-Sum Mindset

Yanan Dong (), Limei Zhang (), Hai-Jiang Wang () and Jing Jiang ()
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Yanan Dong: Beihang University
Limei Zhang: Shanghai Jiao Tong University
Hai-Jiang Wang: Huazhong University of Sciences & Technology
Jing Jiang: Beijing University of Posts and Telecommunications

Journal of Business Ethics, 2023, vol. 184, issue 1, No 10, 175-190

Abstract: Abstract Employees frequently engage in job crafting to better match their jobs with their personal abilities and skills. Compared with its benefits, the potential detrimental consequences of job crafting have received less attention from researchers. Drawing on relative deprivation theory, we examined employees’ potential negative reactions to coworkers’ job crafting. We proposed that coworkers’ job crafting is positively related to employees’ feelings of relative deprivation, thus reducing prosocial behaviors and giving rise to social undermining. We further argued that employees’ zero-sum mindset moderates the relationship between coworkers’ job crafting and employees’ feelings of relative deprivation, such that the relationship is more positive when the zero-sum mindset is high rather than low. Our hypotheses were generally supported by time-lagged data collected from a sample of 313 employees and their leaders from 85 teams. Our findings advance the understanding of the unintended consequences of job crafting in organizations.

Keywords: Job crafting; Relative deprivation theory; (Un)ethical behavior (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2023
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Citations: View citations in EconPapers (1)

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DOI: 10.1007/s10551-022-05093-2

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