Job crafting in an emerging economy from South Asia: What do we know and where should we be heading?

Abstract

Purpose

This study aims towards developing a conceptual framework by systematically reviewing the available literature with reference to job crafting under the lens of an emerging economy from South Asia, i.e. India, which is the largest country and the largest economy in the South Asian region.

Design/methodology/approach

The study employs a hybrid methodology of a systematic literature review (SLR) and bibliometric analysis using VOSviewer and Biblioshiny. Bibliometric analysis provides glimpses into the current state of knowledge like-trend of publication, influential authors, collaboration with foreign authors, the major themes and studied topics on job crafting in India etc. Further, a detailed SLR of the selected articles led to the development of the conceptual framework consisting of the enablers and outcomes of job crafting.

Findings

It discusses implications for academia, business and society at large, and also provides valuable insights to policymakers and practitioners paving the way for better adoption, customization and implementation of job crafting initiatives.

Originality/value

Owing to its own unique social, cultural, and economic characteristics, the dynamics of job crafting in India may vary from other countries and regions which can also be reflective of how job crafting operates in South Asia in general. As job crafting was conceptualized and later evolved mostly in the western context, our study assumes greater significance as it is the first study which attempts to systematically review the job crafting literature to understand how job crafting manifests in the Indian context and presents a conceptual framework for the same.

Citation

Priyanka, Khera, S.N. and Suri, P.K. (2024), "Job crafting in an emerging economy from South Asia: What do we know and where should we be heading?", Business Analyst Journal, Vol. 45 No. 2, pp. 84-109. https://doi.org/10.1108/BAJ-04-2024-0020

1. Introduction

Considering societal shifts, dynamic work environments, and a workforce encompassing diversity, there is a pressing need for approaches that prioritize employee involvement due to the limitations of conventional top-down methods. Employee-driven job redesign empowers individuals to actively shape their work responsibilities, leading to improved alignment between their skills and job requirements, ultimately resulting in a better fit between the individual and their role. Work Reimagined Employee Survey, based on 16,264 responses (out of which more than half were millennials) spanning across 16 countries and 23 industries, concluded that more than half of workforce globally would quit their jobs if not provided flexibility (EY, 2021). According to De Smet, Dowling, Mugayar-Baldocchi, and Schaninger (2021), by failing to meet the emerging demands for more flexibility and autonomy at work, employers are risking their businesses. Flexibility in job performance becomes more relevant in modern workplaces which are in constant flux due to economic pressures, technological advances, and organizational changes. The new normal of the post-pandemic world and the “Great resignation”, sustained mass exodus of the employees, have also forced employers to reflect on what they need to provide to their employees to win them back (Kaplan, 2021). To tackle these challenges, organizations often adopt a top-down approach to redesigning jobs, where management optimizes the demands and resources of employees' roles to achieve desired outcomes (Oldham & Hackman, 2010). However, these top-down strategies are inadequate in keeping up with the fast-paced changes and often overlook the diverse workforce and increasing job specialization among employees. Implementing a top-down redesign may lead to a poor alignment between employees' needs or abilities and the organizational environment, resulting in reduced job satisfaction, higher turnover rates, and work-related health issues (Kristof-Brown, Zimmerman, & Johnson, 2005). Failing to adopt appropriate approaches is bound to put organizations' business goals in jeopardy. There is a greater need for the businesses to approach the work in a manner which takes into consideration, this shifting mindset of the people.

Janjuha-Jivraj (2019) observed that job crafting can be helpful for the employees in shaping their current roles into the jobs they want, enhancing flexibility and reducing burnout in the process. Knox (2022) writes that enhancing flexibility and encouraging job crafting can be effective for employee retention in today’s post pandemic era fraught by “Great resignation”. He further says that job crafting leads to decreased stress and increased satisfaction, loyalty and growth opportunities. Job crafting refers to self-initiated behaviours by which employees actively make certain changes in their job which can help in fostering engagement, satisfaction, and thriving (Wrzesniewski & Dutton, 2001). Slemp, Kern, and Vella-Brodrick (2015) also observed how job crafting can play an instrumental role in creating a better fit between employees and their jobs by reshaping their jobs. Job crafting also assumes greater significance with reference to multi-generational workforce that organizations have today as it has been observed that that integrating generational cohorts and job crafting perspective results in more satisfying and productive positive outcomes (Kim, Knight, & Crutsinger, 2009). When employees have a sense of power and a positive perception of organizational support, they become more flexible and proactively engaged in job crafting behaviour (Loi, Lin, & Tan, 2019).

In-depth review of the job crafting literature brings out two different approaches. First approach, put forward by Wrzesniewski and Dutton (2001), talks about three ways in which jobs can be crafted by the employees-task crafting (altering the number, types or scope of tasks to be performed), cognitive crafting (changing the way they perceive the job), and relational job crafting (modifying the quality and amount of interaction they are supposed to have with others at work). Second approach, given by Tims, Bakker, and Derks (2012), focusses on crafting job demands and job resources. As per job demands-resources (JD-R) model, a variety of factors determine the well-being of the employee such as job demands (physical, organizational, social, or psychological efforts) and job resources (aspects of the job that decrease job demands and facilitate achievement of work objectives, personal growth, and development) (Bakker & Demerouti, 2007). Studies have demonstrated a significant positive relationship between job crafting with performance (Leana, Appelbaum, & Shevchuk, 2009). Job crafting also predicts work engagement (Bakker, Tims, & Derks, 2012; Chen, Brown, Bowers, & Chang, 2015; Siddiqi, 2015; Tims, Bakker, & Derks, 2016; Van Wingerden & Poell, 2017) which has been demonstrated to result in decreased burnout and lowered intention to leave (Bilginoğlu & Yozgat, 2020) and creative work involvement (Adil, Hamid, & Waqas, 2020). It has also been revealed that job crafting reduces the turnover intention of the employees (Saks, 2006; Chiu, 2017; Sen & Dulara, 2017; Afroze, 2021; Zhang & Li, 2020). Considering the positive outcomes associated with job crafting, it becomes crucial to explore ways in which organizations can encourage such proactive behaviour. Although job crafting primarily involves employees' self-initiated actions, organizations can play a supportive role in facilitating its implementation.

1.1 Need for the study

In line with the increasing volume of literature, review papers (Demerouti, 2014; Lee & Lee, 2018; Wang, Demerouti, & Bakker, 2016) and meta-analysis (Lichtenthaler & Fischbach, 2016) have emerged to consolidate the diverse range of studies. Khilji (2012) observes that South-Asian countries are under-researched in many aspects and exploring their business and management issues can advance our understanding of international business theories and practices. India is the largest country in South Asia not only in terms of population and area but also in terms of economy. Jaiswal and Arun (2022) observe that despite India being fast emerging economy, there is a huge void in literature related to understanding of people practices and its impact in the Indian context. Owing to its own unique social, cultural, and economic characteristics, the dynamics of job crafting in India may vary from other countries and regions. Recent studies observe that most of the job crafting research has been done in the western context, pointing towards underrepresentation of larger geographical regions like Asia, Africa (Ajaz, Khan, & Farooq, 2022; Boehnlein & Baum, 2022) and countries like India (Mir, khan, & Farooq, 2022). So, it becomes difficult to understand how job crafting is impacted by geography and culture, and draw insights at national level. A systematic literature review (SLR) particularly focussing on India may help in capturing the specificities and nuances of job crafting practices in the Indian context and can further pave way for drawing comparative studies across geographical borders.

Also, a context-specific systematic review of job crafting in the India can help us in understanding what has been studied and what needs to be explored further by identifying the trends, gaps and inconsistencies in the current body of knowledge.

As recent studies reveal a dire need for flexibility for the Indian business organizations (Mercer, 2023) highest rates of burnout among employees at 59% (McKinsey Health Institute, 2023) and 42% employees showing inclination of changing jobs in the coming year (PwC India, 2023), the relevance of job crafting in the Indian scenario cannot be overemphasized. Prime Minister of India, Mr. Narendra Modi has also emphasized on the growing significance of flexibility with respect to emerging paradigms of work, and called for appropriate policies and endeavours in this arena to help India become a developed nation (PMINDIA, 2022). This SLR can offer valuable insights in this regard and have many practical implications for organizations, human resource professionals and policymakers.

The very first article regarding job crafting in the Indian context is from the year 2015. From then onwards the rise in the number of papers has been very slow. It has gained momentum in the recent years only. So, it is still an emerging field with respect to India which calls for a SLR to understand the dynamics and structure of the domain, unearth future avenues and avoid duplication of research. Despite their best efforts, authors could not locate any SLR on the job crafting research done in the Indian context. This study aims to fill the gap by systematically collating and reviewing the entire spectrum of job crafting research set in the Indian context leading to the consolidation of somewhat scattered literature. It helps in unravelling the outcomes, potential barriers and challenges related to job crafting initiatives in Indian organizations. Further, it presents a conceptual framework and an enriched research agenda for future researchers and generate insights leading to informed decision-making and better customization of practices and policies with respect to job crafting initiatives in the Indian context.

Following previous studies and their scope, the study aims to address the below-framed research questions:

RQ1.

(a) What is the annual trend of publications in India and (b) What type of relationship between exists between major topics, authors and sources in the field of job crafting research in India?

RQ2.

Which are the most influencing articles contributing to the job crafting research in India?

RQ3.

Who are the top prolific authors, affiliations with respect to the job crafting research in India?

RQ4.

What is the extent of collaborations between Indian researchers and the international community?

RQ5.

What are the major themes and studied topics on job crafting in India?

RQ6.

What is the future scope and directions of research in the arena of job crafting in India?

As for the structure of the paper, the concept of job crafting, its relevance in today’s scenario and the need for a SLR with reference to the Indian context has already been discussed in Section 1. Section 2 deals with “Methodology” followed by “Bibliometric analysis” and “Systematic literature review and conceptual framework” in Sections 3 and 4 respectively. Section 5 deals with the “Future Research Agenda”. “Limitations of the study” and “Implications of the Study” are discussed in Sections 6 and 7, respectively. Finally, Section 8 concludes the article.

2. Methodology

To achieve the objective of this study and address the research questions, a hybrid methodology has been employed, integrating a SLR with a bibliometric analysis. This approach ensured an impartial overview of the knowledge pertaining to job crafting in the Indian context. The techniques employed for the bibliometric analysis can be broadly classified into main techniques, such as performance analysis and science mapping, and enrichment techniques, such as network analysis (Donthu, Kumar, Mukherjee, Pandey, & Lim, 2021). The study utilized freely accessible software tools, namely VOSviewer and Biblioshiny – a web-based interface for bibliometrix, to conduct the analysis.

Database chosen was Scopus and search was conducted in June, 2023. Scopus is one of the largest multidisciplinary citation databases which includes content from over 25,000 currently active titles and 7,000 publishers.

In order to identify job crafting articles, set in the Indian context and indexed by Scopus, we utilized specific search parameters. The terms “Job crafting”, “Crafting your job”, “Crafting the job” and “Job Craft” were entered in the Source Title field on the Scopus search page, while the country name “India” was specified in the Affiliation Country field. This search resulted in 41 papers. Later, filters like “review” and “letter” were applied as we wanted to exclude these. All papers were in “English” only so no “Language” filter was applied. We also did not put any time frame as we wanted to cover entire gamut of research that had been done in the Indian context. It resulted in 37 papers.

The generated search string, automatically created by Scopus based on our search approach is presented below:

TITLE-ABS-KEY (“Job crafting” OR “Crafting your job” OR “Crafting the job” OR “Job Craft”) AND AFFILCOUNTRY (“India”)) AND (EXCLUDE (DOCTYPE, “re”) OR EXCLUDE (DOCTYPE, “le”

2.1 PRISMA diagram

After that abstract reading was done to check the eligibility of the articles to be included in the review. This resulted in 33 papers (which served as our final sample for bibliometric analysis through Biblioshiny and VOSviewer). After further check for eligibility, 20 articles have been included in the final analysis for SLR using the preferred reporting items for systematic reviews and meta-analyses (PRISMA) framework (Moher, Liberati, Tetzlaff, Altman, & PRISMAGroup, 2009) to select relevant studies for this systematic review (Figure 1). For 19 papers, full text was accessed through Scopus. One article was shared on request by the concerned author through research gate platform.

3. Bibliometric analysis

Figure 2 presents main information about the 33 articles submitted to VOSviewer and Biblioshiny.

The rationale for RQ1: “(a) What is the annual trend of publications in India and, (b) What type of relationship between exists between major topics, authors and sources in the field of job crafting research in India?” is to understand the trajectory of growth and the status of research and the dynamics of the relationship between the issues discussed, authors and the journals publishing on job crafting in India. We can see (Figure 3) that there are no papers available before the year 2015 in the Indian context. In 2015, only one article on job crafting is available while in subsequent years (2016, 2017) there are no articles published on the topic. The year 2018 saw three articles being published on the topic of job crafting which again declined to two articles in the year 2019. After that the publication has seen an upward trend with three articles in 2020, six articles in 2021, nine in 2022 and nine in 2023 (till June 2023 when the search was made). We can see that job crafting research in India has started gaining momentum making it an apt time to conduct SLR. Table 1 summarizes articles published year-wise.

Figure 4 depicts the relationship between keywords, sources and authors. The height of the rectangular node is directly related to how frequently a particular author, keyword or journal appears in the collaborative network. The thickness of the lines connecting nodes corresponds to the number of connections. We can see that other than “job crafting” and “india”, the topics that that have been studied frequently with respect to job crafting are “work engagement”, “job satisfaction”, “employee engagement”, “telecommuting”, “self-determination theory” and “public sector”. Authors who have frequently published on the topic are “Moulik, M.”, “Giri, V.N.”, “Singh,P.”, “Nagarajan. R.”, “Dhar, R.L.”, “Parayitam, S.”, “Zahoor, A.”, “Garg, N.”, “Priyadarshi, P.”, “Sameer, S.K.” and “Nehra, N.S.”. Talking about journals, “Personnel Review”, “Vision”, “Vikalpa”, “Journal of organizational Effectiveness” and “International Journal of hospitality and tourism” come across as most visible sources publishing on these topics.

For answering RQ2- “Which are the most influencing articles contributing to the job crafting research in India?” Figure 5 gives us a glimpse of the top ten most influencing articles published in the area of job crafting in the Indian context. Article by Rastogi and Chaudhary (2018) has been the most influential article with 46 citations while the article by Singh and Singh (2018) has received 24 citations. Yadav and Dhar (2021), Siddiqi (2015) have been cited 21 times each and article by Sharma and Nambudiri (2020) has got 19 citations. By compiling a list of the most frequently cited articles in the job crafting arena, future researchers can delve deeper into job crafting research done in India till now, align their work with established research, and gain valuable insight into the dimensions which are yet unexplored or under-investigated.

To find out “Who are the top prolific authors with respect to the job crafting research in India?” (RQ3) Figure 6 depicts most prolific authors in India publishing on the job crafting. Authors who figure on the top are Giri, V.N., Moulik, M., Priyadarshi, P., Sameer, S.K., Singh, P. and Zahoor, A. with three articles each. Authors’ production over time is shown in Figure 7.

For addressing, RQ4 “What is the extent of collaborations a) between Indian researchers and the international community and b) within Indian researchers’ community?” mapping of co-authorship network (Figures 8 and 9) is particularly important as it helps us uncover how different ideas are being exchanged and embraced within the academic community. Figure 8 shows the collaboration of Indian authors with authors from other countries. We find four articles that Indian authors have co-authored with United States while with the rest of the countries (UAE, South Africa, France and Moracco), they have collaborated for one article with each country. The current status of India’s collaboration with other countries in the arena of job crafting research leaves a lot to be desired. Similarly, in Figure 9 we find the researchers working on the topic of job crafting in India are scattered and disconnected. Though there are few well-defined clusters of authors but there seems to be a lack of co-authorship between different clusters.

Exploring “What are the major themes and studied topics on job crafting in India?” (RQ5) we ran a keyword co-occurrence analysis in VOSviewer. Visualizing keyword co-occurrence network offers valuable understanding of the domains, issues, and outcomes that have been the focus of job crafting studies in India till now. Author keywords serve as the main topics that authors perceive their papers are centred upon. By conducting author keywords co-occurrence analysis, we can identify patterns across various studies, resulting in the clustering of related terms. This approach sheds light on the interconnectedness and thematic relationships within the field of job crafting research in India. In order to investigate the patterns within job crafting research, we excluded the keyword “job crafting” and its variations from the analysis. This step was necessary to avoid any potential interference in the analysis. We also removed certain words like “india”, “structural equation modelling”, etc. and replaced different variations/acronyms of a term with a single term to avoid duplication. For example, different variations of job demands-resources model like- “jdr”, “Job demands resources”, “JD-R model” etc. were replaced with “jdr model”. Keywords co-occurrence analysis (Figure 10) reveals nine clusters reflecting conceptual foundation and thematic relationships between various topics. For identifying each cluster, we used keyword with the highest link strength, of the same cluster. For cluster 9.

9, since all keywords had similar link strength, a common theme representing the items was used to name the cluster. So, the nine cluster are- “job design”, “leader-member exchange”, “employee engagement”, “public sector”, “job satisfaction”, “proactivity”, “work engagement”, “JD-R model” and “work environment and its impact on employee attitudes”. Cluster 1 named “Job Design” includes affective commitment, alienation, empowering leadership, job design, person–job fit, psychological empowerment, teachers, vitamin model, work meaningfulness, work-family enrichment and work-life balance. Job-design has highest link strength of 12 followed by affective commitment with link strength of 11. Cluster 2 i.e. “Leader-member exchange” consists of customer incivility, emotional exhaustion, harmonious passion, hotel, leader-member exchange, perceived organizational support, readiness for change, service recovery performance and work role performance. Leader-member exchange and hotel both have equal link strength of 5. Cluster 3 termed as “Employee Engagement” is marked by keywords – COVID-19, emotional stability and intrinsic motivation, employee engagement, intrinsic motivation, performance, psychological detachment, satisfaction (job and performance), spirituality and task performance with employee engagement having the highest link strength of 8. It has been found that physical engagement plays a mediating role in the connection between job crafting and task performance, cognitive engagement acts as a moderator between job crafting and physical engagement while emotional engagement acts as a second moderator, influencing the relationship between job crafting and cognitive engagement (Nagarajan, Alagiriswamy, & Parayitam, 2023). Cluster 4 labelled as “Public sector” consists of the factors like-big-five personality, employability, innovation/innovativeness, job insecurity, job stability, psychological attachment, public sector and regulatory focus. Public sector with link strength of 11 has also emerged as a major theme. Public enterprises also encounter similar market complexities as any other commercial organization. In order to ensure the survival and success of such enterprises, it is vital to effectively manage the emerging job demands faced by their employees. Cluster 5 with the title “Job Satisfaction” has keywords such as authentic happiness, job satisfaction, mental toughness, millennials, psychological ownership, seeking challenging demands, service sector and workplace happiness make cluster 5. Job satisfaction is a dominant theme in this cluster with the highest link strength of 9. Cluster 6 named “Proactivity” deals with the topics-employee customization efforts, higher education, idiosyncratic deals, perceived opportunity to craft, proactivity, recovery performance, student satisfaction and loyalty. Proactivity (link strength = 13) emerge as a major theme. Cluster 7 is denoted by “Work Engagement” which depicts customer loyalty, customer satisfaction, it sector, mental health, physical health, reverse mentoring and work engagement together create cluster 7. It is important to note that work engagement has the highest link strength of 38, not only in this cluster but among all the keywords. It has been the most researched variable around job crafting in the Indian context. Cluster 8 with the title “JD-R model” includes jdr model with the greatest link strength of 22, which makes it the second most researched aspect with respect to the job crafting research in India. Other keywords in this cluster are personal attributes, productivity, psychological needs, self-determination theory, telecommuting, and wellbeing. Cluster 9 depicts “Work environment and its impact on employee attitudes”, comprises of four keywords-general life satisfaction, intention to quit, perception of change and workplace civility, each with link strength of 4.

Figure 11 depicts the overlay visualization co-occurrence which maps the results by considering the publication year of the articles. By utilizing this visualization, valuable insights regarding the current state of the research and trends can be identified. Based on the Figure 11, it can be inferred that from mid-2022 to 2023 the topics discussed are “millennials”, “job satisfaction”, “telecommuting”, “self-determination theory”, “employee engagement” and “leader-member exchange”. In 2023 (till June 10, 2023, when this search was made) topics being discussed are “job insecurity”, “job stability”, “employability”, “idiosyncratic deals”, “employee customization efforts”, “productivity”, “psychological needs”, “task performance”, “spirituality”, “psychological detachment” and “emotional stability and intrinsic motivation”, “perceived organizational support”, “readiness for change” and “customer incivility”.

4. Systematic literature review and conceptual framework

In this section, for further addressing of RQ5, we try to uncover the major themes and topics being discussed in the job crafting domain in India by thorough analysis of the articles included in SLR (see Table 1). As discussed in Section 2, twenty (20) studies were deemed to be eligible for SLR as per PRISMA protocol. Those articles which empirically investigated job crafting as an independent/mediator/dependent variable were included. After a thorough analysis, a comprehensive report in matrix format encompassing the major features of the analysed articles was formulated (refer Table 2). Further, articles were reviewed in-depth to develop a conceptual framework (Figure 12) visualizing the relationship between the most frequently studied variables as the enablers and outcomes of job crafting in context of job crafting research in India.

4.1 Enablers of job crafting in the Indian context

Variables that were identified as enablers for job crafting were classified into two categories-work-environment factors and individual factors.

Work-environment factors include leader-member exchange, empowering leadership and perceived organizational support. Job crafting by increasing social and structural resources effectively mitigates the negative impact of customer incivility and emotional exhaustion on service recovery performance while reducing hindering job demands significantly moderate the negative effect of emotional exhaustion on service recovery performance but, increasing challenge job demands strengthens the relationship between them (Zahoor & Siddiqi, 2023). Positive leader-member exchange accompanied by perceived organizational support has the potential to create an environment conducive to motivating employees to engage in job crafting behaviours while change readiness of the employees act as a moderator (Sethi et al., 2023). Leader-member exchange has also been found to moderate the relationship between job crafting and work engagement (Yadav & Dhar, 2022). In a study of 624 primary school teachers in private schools in India, it was found that principals who exhibit empowering leadership have the potential to facilitate teacher proactivity and empowerment, reducing feelings of alienation and fostering greater commitment (Dash & Vohra, 2019).

Individual factors encompass the factors – work engagement, perceived opportunity to craft (POC), Big- 5 factors (openness to experience, conscientiousness, extraversion, agreeableness, neuroticism), Proactive Personality and Psychological empowerment. Work engagement is one area which has gained considerable attention of the researchers in this field. One study by Sharma and Nambudiri (2020) has studied the role of work engagement as a predictor of job crafting while, interestingly, we can find many studies discussing work engagement as an outcome which is elaborated under the “outcomes” section. Proactive personality is another area in the job crafting research that has merited attention of the scholars in India. Done against the background of higher education, the study by Zahoor (2018) states that teachers’ proactivity positively predicts the two important outcomes concerning students (student satisfaction and loyalty) with the underlying mechanism of job crafting and work engagement. Proactivity of employees also leads to higher probability of perceived opportunity to craft resulting in job crafting which further fosters work engagement and nurture recovery performance (Zahoor, 2021). Proactive employees engage in job crafting and organizations need to support their customization efforts and offer them idiosyncratic deals for improved employee and organizational outcomes (Garg & Sinha, 2023). The manner in which employees engage in regulatory-focused job crafting, specifically promotion-focused and prevention-focused job crafting, is influenced by big five traits of openness to experience, conscientiousness, extraversion and neuroticism while agreeableness was not found to have any significant association with these (Sameer & Priyadarshi, 2020a, b). Psychologically empowered employees tend to engage in job crafting behaviour resulting in decreased work alienation and increased commitment (Dash & Vohra, 2019).

4.2 Outcomes of job crafting in the Indian context

Outcome variables studies with respect to job crafting studies in the India context has been categorized in four categories- Attitudinal outcomes, Performance related, Health and Well-being and Service quality related. Attitudinal outcomes of job crafting include-job satisfaction, Work Engagement, General life satisfaction, Affective Organizational Commitment, perception of change, intent to leave, Workplace happiness, Authentic happiness, Person-Job fit, Physical engagement, Mental toughness, Job-based psychological ownership (PO) and Work family enrichment. One variable that has gained considerable attention with respect to research related to job crafting is work engagement. Many studies have demonstrated work engagement as an outcome of job crafting (Moulik & Giri, 2023; Kumar & Valarmathi 2022; Garg et al., 2022; Moulik & Giri, 2022a; Zahoor, 2021; Garg et al., 2021; Gupta & Singh, 2020; Rastogi & Chaudhary, 2018; Siddiq, 2015). Job crafting by enhancing structural job resources was found to be a predictor of job satisfaction and work engagement while engaging in crafting behaviours aimed at seeking social resources and taking on challenging demands demonstrated a positive association with commitment and engagement, contributing to overall workplace happiness in a study conducted among millennial employees working in the service sector companies of India (Moulik & Giri, 2023). Person-job fit is another arena that has got attention with reference to job crafting research in India. A study done among Indian knowledge workers revealed that a form of job crafting namely-pursuit of social resources positively predicts both work engagement and affective organizational commitment through the mechanism of person-job fit (Moulik & Giri, 2022a, b). Job crafting results in various outcomes like physical engagement and job satisfaction (Nagarajan et al., 2023) perception of change, lower intention to quit and increasing general life satisfaction (Gupta & Singh, 2020). Another study on millennials observe that challenging job demands have been identified as a significant predictor of authentic happiness via mental toughness (Ruparel et al., 2022). Seeking challenging job demands has also been found to be associated with job-based psychological ownership (Moulik & Giri, 2022a, b).

Performance-related outcomes talk about service recovery performance, task performance, Work performance, Performance, Organizational citizenship behaviour, Work withdrawal behaviour, Work alienation and Amount of Work done under WFH. Studies have proved that job crafting results in task performance and job satisfaction (Nagarajan et al., 2023), increased work performance and decreased work withdrawal behaviour (Garg et al., 2021) and organizational citizenship behaviour (Srivastava & Pathak, 2020). Job crafting also plays a huge role in reducing work alienation (Dash & Vohra, 2019). In a study of frontline employees from Indian banks, job crafting has been proved to enhance service recovery performance (Zahoor, 2021). Another study be Singh and Singh (2018) also opines that job crafting enhances performance. A recent study by Kumar et al. (2023) observes that job crafting boosts the possibility of accomplishing higher amount of work done at home for the employees under work from home (WFH).

Health and Well-being related outcome include work-family enrichment, physical ill-health, mental ill-health, burnout, role stress, psychological availability and perceived psychological wellbeing under WFH. Rastogi and Chaudhary (2018), in a study of 496 employees employed in various organizations in India, observed that job crafting results in work-family enrichment. Garg et al. (2022) in their study of 369 software developers, have found a negative association between job crafting and physical ill-health and mental ill-health thereby, suggesting that job crafting practices can boost employees’ health and well-being. Job crafting can be instrumental in reducing burnout and increasing psychological availability has also been demonstrated by Singh and Singh (2018) in their study of 268 Information Technology professionals. Another study (Kumar et al., 2022) which surveyed 301 employees working under WFH in the duration of COVID-19 lockdown, observes crafting structural resources and social resource of supervisory support played a significant role in the well-being of employees working under WFH.

Service Quality related: In this category of outcomes, factors included are-student satisfaction, student loyalty, customer satisfaction, Customer loyalty. There are two studies which have dwelled not only over the direct positive outcomes of job crafting but also the indirect effect on the customers (Siddiqi, 2015) and students (Zahoor, 2018). Siddiqi (2015) in his study of 340 service employees and 540 customers of different Indian banks states that as employees become more engaged as a result of job crafting, it enhances positive customer outcomes like customer satisfaction and customer loyalty. Another study (Zahoor, 2018) set in the context of Indian universities concluded that job crafting by teachers leads to enhanced student satisfaction and loyalty.

5. Future research agenda

This section attempts to address RQ6- What is the future scope and directions of research in the arena of job crafting in India? A rich future agenda is presented which can be beneficial for further researchers for advancing the knowledge in this arena in both Indian and international context. Besides empirically testing the conceptual framework, future researchers can unravel new dimensions in the job crafting research by following the suggested agenda. In the context of fast changing business environment along with the dual effect of pandemic experience and “Great resignation”, job crafting can prove to be an effective tool to cater to the constantly evolving employee aspirations and attitudes. Future researchers can delve deeper for proposing a mechanism of how leaders can support employees’ job crafting efforts and enhance the perception of organizational support. Since most of the variables have been tested once, more research is needed to support the findings. For example, the impact of personality characteristics like Big-5 factors, proactivity, psychological empowerment on the employees’ job crafting initiatives. Also, there is a dearth of studies testing the boundary conditions of cultural dimensions (for, e.g. power distance). It could be another important direction for future researchers as job crafting has been conceptualized and studied majorly in the context of western countries where culture is very different form Asian countries. Few of the antecedents of job crafting like POC warrant more research as it could impact the actual job crafting efforts. Future researchers can further the research about POC for, e.g. – validation of the scale in the Indian context, its relationship with other variables. During the review, authors observed that studies have been done in the context of sectors like IT and ITES, banking, telecom, insurance, education, hospitality, with IT industry being the most studied one. In future, researchers can study the phenomenon of job crafting in other sectors as well, to extend the understanding about job crafting and provide better input for the policy makers and practitioners. Regarding population studied, authors found almost non-existent research considering older workers and persons with disability and it may be a relevant direction for researchers in future. With employee burnout becoming a widespread cause of concern for organizations and the society, future researchers can delve further to explore and understand the instrumentality of job crafting in reducing work related burnout. It has been observed that job crafting leads to likelihood of greater amount of work done at home (Kumar et al., 2023) and greater perceived psychological well-being (Kumar et al., 2022) for the employees under WFH. But, since these studies were done during covid lockdown, more studies are needed to support these findings. Considering how WFH has become a norm in today’s scenario, further studies in this direction can provide better insight for business leaders and employees alike. This study has used only one database, i.e. Scopus. Future researchers willing to conduct the review can choose a combination of databases for a more comprehensive review.

Out of the 20 studies included in SLR, 18 studies have used job crafting scale (JCS) by Tims et al. (2012) to measure job crafting. JCS does not include the aspect of cognitive crafting. It leaves a lot to be desired in the space of cognitive crafting. Future researchers can unearth this dimension which can further provide insights into how job crafting unfolds and manifests for employees. Further, one dimension that is still unexplored, is how different generations differ in their job crafting efforts and the value they attach to job crafting. It becomes more important as today’s managers are dealing with multi-generational workforce, each having different aspirations and priorities. Last but not the least, future researchers can replicate the study in the context of other countries as well. It will provide a nuanced clarity about how different cultures and nationalities influence job crafting and pave the way for better customization of policies.

6. Limitations of the study

As with any study, this study is also not without limitations. First limitation is that we chose only SCOPUS database. Although Scopus has an excellent coverage but few journals are not listed in it that makes it possible that we may have missed out on some other studies that could have been relevant for our research. Second limitation pertains to the particular search conditions that were employed. We utilized search terms such as “Job crafting” and its alternatives in the titles, abstracts, or keywords of papers and “review articles” and “letters” were excluded. Due to the specific focus of the search criteria, any papers that did not explicitly feature the terms “job crafting” and other alternative search terms in their titles, abstracts, or keywords remained undiscovered.

7. Implications of the study

Academic implications- This study expands our knowledge of the job crafting research conducted within the Indian context and offers insights that can guide future researchers towards new directions. By doing so, it contributes to a better understanding of the topic and establishes a foundation for further investigations. The study also outlines potential future research agendas that can be beneficial for researchers, providing valuable guidance for their work and facilitating exploration in untapped area.

Industry Implications- For today’s industries where employees’ burnout, need for flexibility and rising employee turnover are becoming the much-debated issues, job crafting provides a way out by providing better flexibility through person-job fit and reducing burnout, stress and turnover intention via enhanced engagement and happiness. By providing a comprehensive review all the research that has been done with reference to the Indian industries/employees, this review aids practitioners to become aware of the of the mechanisms by which they can influence and promote job crafting and use it to craft innovative HR policies. The findings from this SLR can inform organizational leaders and policymakers in India about effective job crafting practices. This can help in designing interventions and policies that enhance employee engagement, satisfaction, and productivity. Policy makers can create new policies and modify existing ones to create a supportive ecosystem for businesses to facilitate job crafting.

Societal Implications- As already discussed job crafting has been found to contribute towards positive outcomes like authentic happiness, work-family enrichment, mental health, reduced burnout etc. Happy and engaged employees can also contribute towards societal development in a positive manner. As mentioned earlier in the article that recent studies have indicated that Indian business organizations are facing high burnout and rising turnover intention among employees, fostering job crafting can help in mitigating burnout, enhancing job satisfaction, and improving overall mental health. This, in turn, can lead towards a healthier and more productive society. Promoting job crafting can also result in reducing dysfunctional employee turnover will put organizations on the path of sustainable growth thereby contributing towards society’s prosperity in general.

8. Conclusion

Job crafting, which refers to self-initiated efforts by employees to tailor their jobs to find a better fit, significantly influences an individual’s mental well-being besides resulting in positive organizational outcomes like enhanced productivity and workplace happiness via work engagement, job satisfaction and affective organizational commitment. The comprehensive model (Figure 12) put forward in this study, aims to provide an understanding of how individual and work-environment factors predict and influence job crafting outcomes. Future research should expand the research on the lines of agenda suggested. This is crucial considering the numerous self-reported health and behavioural advantages associated with of job crafting. In the meantime, it is advisable for managers to prioritize employees’ job crafting by supporting and nurturing the factors which predict job crafting and, providing them a safe space to talk about their job crafting efforts. This study not only provides a comprehensive review of job crafting research under the lens of an emerging economy-India, but also develops an enriched agenda for the future researchers. By benchmarking job crafting research in Indian context research, this study paves the way for cross-cultural comparisons, developing a more nuanced understanding of how job crafting differs in different contexts.

Figures

Figure 1

PRISMA flowchart

Figure 2

Summary of the main information about the articles

Figure 3

Annual scientific production

Figure 4

Three field plot of keywords (middle field), sources (left field) and authors (right field)

Figure 5

Most global cited documents

Figure 6

Most relevant authors

Figure 7

Authors’ production over time

Figure 8

Co-authorship countries network visualization

Figure 9

Co-authorship authors network visualization

Figure 10

Network visualization keywords co-occurrence

Figure 11

Overlay visualization keywords co-occurrence

Figure 12

Conceptual framework

Table 1

Summary of articles published on the topic of job crafting in the Indian context

Year	No. of articles	Author/s	Source/s
2015	1	Siddiqi, M. A	VIKALPA
2016	0	NA	NA
2017	0	NA	NA
2018	3	Singh, V and Singh, M; Zahoor, A; Rastogi, M. and Chaudhary, R	IIMB Management Review; VIKALPA; Personnel Review
2019	2	Gupta, Dr S., and Shifali, A.; Dash, S. S., and Vohra, N	International Journal of Innovative Technology and Exploring Engineering; Management Research Review
2020	3	Sharma, A., and Nambudiri, R; Srivastava, S., and Pathak, D.; Gupta, A., and Singh, P	Personnel Review; Vision; Global Knowledge, Memory and Communication
2021	6	Verma, P., Mohapatra, S., and Saxena, M.; Zahoor, A.; Sameer, S. K., and Priyadarshi, P.; Yadav, A., and Dhar, R. L.; Garg, N., Murphy, W., and Singh, P.; Sameer, S. K., and Priyadarshi, P	The International Journal of Social Sustainability in Economic, Social, and Cultural Context; South Asian Journal of Human Resources Management; South Asian Journal of Business Studies; Journal of Hospitality and Tourism Management; Career Development International; International Review of Public Administration
2022	9	Kumar, G. V; ., and B., V.; Ruparel, N., Choubisa, R., and Seth, H.; Dabak, S., and Mulla, Z. R.; Garg, N., Murphy, W.M. and Singh, P.; Moulik, M., and Giri, V. N.; Moulik, M., and Giri, V. N.; Yadav, A., and Dhar, R. L.; Nagarajan, R. et al.; Kumar, N. et al.;	Prabandhan: Indian Journal of Management; Management Research Review; IIMB Management Review; Journal of Organizational Effectiveness: People and Performance; Management and Labour Studies; Vision: The Journal of Business Perspective; International Journal of Hospitality andamp; Tourism Administration; Human Resource Development International; Vision: The Journal of Business Perspective
2023	9	Sameer, S.K. and Priyadarshi, P.; Zahoor, A., and Siddiqi, M. A.; Kumar, N. et al.; Moulik, M., and Giri, V. N.; Sethi, D. et al.; Nehra, N. S. et al.; Nagarajan, R. et al.; Nehra, N. S.; Garg, S., and Sinha, S	Evidence-based HRM; Vision; International Journal of Manpower; Business Perspectives and Research; The International Journal of Human Resource Management; Evidence-based HRM; IIM Kozhikode Society and Management Review; Journal of Organizational Effectiveness; Organizational Dynamics

Source(s): Authors’ own creation

Table 2

Summary of key characteristics of all articles included in systematic literature review

Study	Independent variable/s	Dependent variable/s	Mediator/s	Moderator/s	Context	Job crafting scale used
Kumar, Alok, and Banerjee (2023)	Psychological Needs Job crafting (increasing structural and social resources, and job resources)	Amount of work done under work-from-home	NA	NA	301 Indian employees placed under Work From Home during COVID lockdown	Tims et al. (2012)
Moulik and Giri (2023)	Job crafting	Workplace happiness	NA	NA	310 millennial employees associated with IT and ITES, telecom, and banking services	Tims et al. (2012)
Sethi, Pereira, Chakraborty, and Arya (2023)	Leader-member exchange	Job crafting	Perceived organizational support	Readiness to change	362 employees working at middle management level in the BFSI (Banking, Financial Services, and Insurance) sector	Slemp & Vella-Brodrick (2013)
Nagarajan et al. (2023)	Job crafting	Task performance Job satisfaction	Physical engagement	Cognitive and emotional engagement	592 faculty members from higher educational institutions	Slemp & Vella-Brodrick (2013)
Ruparel, Choubisa, and Seth (2022)	Job crafting	Authentic happiness (AH)	Mental toughness	NA	496 millennial employees from multiple sectors	Tims et al. (2012)
Garg, Murphy, and Singh (2022)	Job crafting, Reverse mentoring	Physical ill-health, Mental ill-health	Work engagement	NA	369 Indian software developers	Tims et al. (2012)
Moulik and Giri (2022a)	Seeking Social Job Resources	Work Engagement, Affective Organizational Commitment	Person–Job Fit	NA	297 respondents that included junior-, mid- and senior-level employees Indian IT sector	Tims et al. (2012)
Moulik and Giri (2022a, b)	Seeking challenging job demands (SCJD)	Job satisfaction (JS)	Job-based psychological ownership (PO)	NA	184 respondents from IT and ITeS sector in India	Tims et al. (2012)
Kumar, Alok, and Banerjee (2022)	Psychological Needs Job crafting (increasing structural and social resources), Job resources	Perceived psychologic-al wellbeing under WFH	NA	NA	301 Indian employees placed under WFH during COVID lockdown	Tims et al. (2012)
Zahoor (2021)	Perceived opportunity to craft (POC)	Service recovery performance	Job crafting, Work Engagement	Proactive personality	624 dyads of Indian frontline banking employees and their immediate colleagues (peers)	Tims et al. (2012)
Sameer and Priyadarshi (2020a, b)	(Big- 5 factors) openness to experience, conscientiousness, extraversion, agreeableness, neuroticism	Promotion-focused job crafting, Prevention-focused job crafting	NA	NA	444 executives of Indian public sector energy companies	Tims et al. (2012)
Garg, Murphy, and Singh (2021)	Reverse mentoring, Job crafting	Work performance, Work withdrawal behaviour	Work engagement	NA	369 software developers in India	Tims et al. (2012)
Sharma and Nambudiri (2020)	Work engagement	Job crafting, Innovativeness	NA	Perceived supervisory support, Openness to experience	377 working IT professionals	Tims et al. (2012)
Srivastava and Pathak (2020)	Job crafting	Organizational citizenship behaviour	NA	Trust, mindfulness	246 front-line employees of hospitality sector	Tims et al. (2012)
Gupta and Singh (2020)	Job crafting, Workplace civility	Perception of change, Intent to leave, General life satisfaction	Work engagement	NA	363 software developers in India	Tims et al. (2012)
Dash and Vohra (2019)	Empowering leadership (principal)	Affective commitment	psychological empowerment; job crafting; work alienation	NA	624 teachers of primary classes in Indian private schools	Tims et al. (2012)
Singh and Singh (2018)	Job crafting	Performance	Role stress, Burnout Psychological availability	NA	268 Information Technology (IT) management professionals	Tims et al. (2012)
Zahoor (2018)	Proactive Personality	Student satisfaction, Student loyalty	Job crafting, work engagement	NA	Dyads of 159 teachers from 20 universities in India; 608 students from the same universities	Tims et al. (2012)
Rastogi and Chaudhary (2018)	Job crafting	Work-family enrichment	Work engagement	NA	496 employees from diverse organizations in India across different professional domains	Tims et al. (2012)
Siddiqi (2015)	Job crafting	Customer satisfaction, Customer loyalty	Work engagement	NA	service employees (350) and customers (540) of several branches of four prestigious banks	Tims et al. (2012)

Source(s): Authors’ own creation