Can employee engagement be attained through psychological detachment and job crafting: the mediating role of spirituality and intrinsic motivation

Abstract

Purpose

The present study is to develop an additional perspective on when and why psychological detachment and job crafting behaviors in predicting employee engagement through spirituality and intrinsic motivation. It was hypothesized that spiritual employees are better able to detach themselves from work and craft their job according to their preference and abilities, which would inculcate experience and make them intrinsically motivated and thereby leading to employee engagement.

Design/methodology/approach

The sample comprised 408 employees, who are employed in different organizations across India. To test the hypotheses, the author conducted structural equation modeling on SPSS AMOS 22.

Findings

The results highlight the partial mediating role of spirituality in the association of psychological detachment with intrinsic motivation as well as between job crafting and intrinsic motivation. The results highlight the fully mediating role of intrinsic motivation in the association of psychological detachment with employee engagement as well as between job crafting and employee engagement.

Practical implications

This study has depicted that spiritual employee who are psychologically detached and have proactive job crafting behavior can achieve higher intrinsic motivation and more engaged.

Originality/value

On the basis of the broaden and build theory, self-determination theory (SDT) and the recovery process (i.e. the effort-recovery model), this paper demonstrates that spirituality plays the role of predictor that drives psychological detachment and encourages job crafting, which has the ability to intrinsically motivate the employee and are able to more engaged in work.

Citation

Nehra, N.S. (2023), "Can employee engagement be attained through psychological detachment and job crafting: the mediating role of spirituality and intrinsic motivation", Journal of Organizational Effectiveness: People and Performance, Vol. 10 No. 3, pp. 368-393. https://doi.org/10.1108/JOEPP-05-2022-0129