An Analysis of the Multidimensional Structure of Job Crafting for Older Workers With a Managerial Role

Abstract Job crafting has often been conceptualized as a higher-order construct composed of 3 dimensions: seeking resources, seeking challenges, and reducing demands. However, recent advances in job crafting studies have questioned the composition of its multidimensional structure. Furthermore, job crafting has been widely studied in age-diverse samples of workers, but not properly studied among older workers. In this article, we investigate the multidimensional structure of job crafting in 2 samples of older workers with a managerial role. In Study 1, in a cross-sectional sample (1,020 school superintendents, Mage = 57.27, SDage = 5.15) using a series of competing factorial analytic models (CFA, ESEM, bifactor-CFA, bifactor-ESEM), we demonstrated that reducing demands did not show significant relationships with the other 2 dimensions (at both the item and latent levels). In Study 2, a longitudinal study (350 school superintendents, Mage = 56.54, SDage = 5.11, Wave = 2, lag = 10 months), we further supported the structural results obtained in Study 1; furthermore, using a factorial cross-lagged panel model with 2 widely-accepted correlated constructs of job crafting (i.e., work engagement and emotional exhaustion), we again supported the independent nature of the reducing demands dimension, and we also showed the importance of seeking challenges. Indeed, the latter was a significant longitudinal predictor of work engagement, while all the other cross-lagged relationships were nonsignificant. Overall, our studies pose new questions about the structure of job crafting in older-worker populations.