When invisible eyes undermine proactive efforts: the effect of electronic performance monitoring on job crafting

Purpose In recent years, organizations have progressively adopted electronic performance monitoring (EPM) to obtain accurate employee performance data and improve management efficiency in response to the growing complexity of the work environment. However, existing research has primarily focused on examining the effect of EPM on employee behaviors within established job designs, neglecting the consequential role of EPM in shaping employees’ bottom-up job redesign (i.e. job crafting). This study aims to explore whether and how EPM affects employee job crafting. Design/methodology/approach To test proposed hypotheses, we conducted two time-lagged surveys across different cultural contexts and a scenario experiment on an online platform in China. Findings The results revealed the negative indirect relationship between EPM and employee job crafting via role breadth self-efficacy. This indirect relationship was moderated by constructive supervisor feedback and job complexity, with the above relationships being weak (versus strong) when constructive supervisor feedback was high (versus low) or job complexity was low (versus high). Practical implications The results have crucial implications for organizational practices, suggesting that managers should provide constructive feedback to break the trade-off between EPM and job crafting. Additionally, managers may need to give employees with high job complexity more autonomy rather than intense monitoring. Originality/value This study is the first to clarify the effect of EPM on employee job crafting. As job crafting captures the important value of employees in organizational job design, our effort helps to enrich the understanding of EPM effectiveness.