Avoidance Job Crafting and Employee Innovative Behavior: A Moderated Mediation Analysis

Abstract

Employees’ innovative job behavior is any organization's most valuable and precious asset, especially in challenging situations. Recent global developments, such as the COVID-19 pandemic, have renewed interest in exploring employees' self-initiated actions to manage their own innovation behavior. Taking the job demand and resource perspective, this study examined how avoidance of job crafting links to employee innovative behavior through psychological capital having the boundary condition of employee empowerment. Based on the cross-sectional data collected from university staff and faculty, SmartPLS 4 was used to test the proposed hypotheses. Results show that avoidance of job crafting and psychological capital are positively related to employee innovative behavior. Employee empowerment moderated the relationship between avoidance of job crafting and psychological capital. This study suggests that reducing hindering work demands effectively manages employees’ innovative behavior through psychological capital. Organizations must strive to engage and encourage employees to let them decide the aspects of work that enable them to perform in challenging situations. Organizations benefit significantly when employees proactively experiment with their roles and tasks to adjust their work demands. The result may be a boost in overall performance and the manifestation of well-being and long-term commitment, offering a hopeful outlook for the future.