Work Process and Quality of Care in Early Childhood Education: The Role of Job Crafting

In this study we conducted performance assessments in 62 childcare centers and surveyed 232 teachers and aides, to examine the extent to which workers crafted their jobs and how such crafting affected classroom quality. Results show that individual and collaborative job crafting are distinct constructs; work discretion is related to both; and collaborative crafting is positively related to performance, particularly for less experienced teachers. Further, collaborative crafting is associated with stronger satisfaction and commitment and, for better teachers, stronger job attachment. We demonstrate that organizational research can contribute to the public interest via policy designs for high-quality early education.