Doctor of Philosophy (Ph.D.), Bowling Green State University, 2022, Psychology/Industrial-Organizational

Past research has focused on positive antecedents and outcomes of job crafting at the expense of considering any potential costs or downsides that may arise from this behavior. Although job crafting is defined as a volitional, employee-driven process (Wrzesniewski & Dutton, 2001), certain work environments and situations may create external forces, such as constraints or pressures, that motivate employees to engage in job crafting. Although some researchers have begun to explore detrimental forms of job crafting, such as avoidance job crafting (Bruning & Campion, 2019), there has been no focus on whether the motivation behind job crafting matters for the outcomes experienced. To address this, two studies were developed to examine the relation between job crafting motivation and counterproductive work behavior through the lens of cognitive sensemaking and attributions. Study 1 used a cross-sectional design with a sample of 636 working adults from Amazon's Mechanical Turk to provide initial evidence of an association between externally-motivated job crafting and CWB. Study 2 employed an experimental design using a subsample of participants from Study 1 (n = 338) to provide an alternative test of the hypothesized externally-motivated job crafting-CWB relation. For Study 2, vignettes were used to experimentally manipulate whether job crafting was internally- versus externally-motivated and participants were then asked to reflect on how much CWB they anticipated a typical worker to engage in if they experienced the conditions outlined in the vignette. Results from both studies supported the assertion that externally-motivated job crafting, but not internally-motivated job crafting, is associated with increased CWB. These findings provide evidence that the motivation behind why an employee job crafts plays an important role in determining why and when they might also engage in CWB, challenging the perception that job crafting is associated only with positive outco (open full item for complete abstract)

Committee: Scott Highhouse Ph.D. (Committee Chair); Samuel McAbee Ph.D. (Committee Member); Eric Dubow Ph.D. (Committee Member); Beth Sanders Ph.D. (Committee Member) Subjects: Psychology

Master of Arts (MA), Bowling Green State University, 2020, Psychology/Industrial-Organizational

As organizations increasingly modernize and globalize, they depend on employees who can perform in these dynamic environments. Self-driven and agentic employees are, thus, integral to organizations. Employees high in proactive personality, defined as a willingness and desire to assume additional responsibilities and pursue meaningful changes, are well-equipped for these uncertain environments. One way for highly proactive employees to effect change is through job crafting. Job crafting is defined as an ongoing process where employees continuously alter and shape their job tasks and environment. Although job crafting and proactive personality are often discussed in tandem due to the proactive nature of job crafting, proactive personality's status as a predictor of job crafting is relatively unexplored. Further, it is likely that lack of job autonomy limits engagement in job crafting, and proactive personality and level of autonomy might differentially influence engagement in the three forms of job crafting (task, relational, and cognitive crafting). The current study examined proactive personality as a predictor of task, relational, and cognitive job crafting and tested autonomy as a moderator of these relations. Proactive personality was positively correlated with task, relational, cognitive, and overall job crafting. Proactive personality led to increased job crafting, and the strength of this relation was moderated by level of autonomy. Employees high in proactive personality engaged in all forms of job crafting to a greater extent under high rather than low levels of autonomy. These findings align with the proposition that restriction of autonomy within an organization does not fully prevent engagement in job crafting, but rather that it constrains job crafting.

Committee: Scott Highhouse (Advisor); Eric Dubow (Committee Member); Samuel McAbee (Committee Member) Subjects: Occupational Psychology; Organizational Behavior; Personality; Psychology

Master of Science (MS), Wright State University, 2022, Human Factors and Industrial/Organizational Psychology MS

Counterproductive work behavior (CWB) costs U.S. organizations billions annually (e.g., Bennett & Robinson, 2000). Any behavior that goes against the goals of an organization and is intended to harm either the organization or its members can fit the definition of CWB. To properly address these problems an accurate understanding of CWB and its' determinants is necessary. Employee perceptions of fairness (organizational justice) is linked to CWB because employees reciprocate unfair treatment with CWB (e.g., Shaw et al., 2003), and the personality traits honesty-humility and self-control are also strong determinants of CWB because high levels of these traits will suppress the urge to act counterproductively (Lee et al., 2019; Marcus & Schuler, 2004). Moreover, CWB is caused by characteristics of the situation interacting with those of the individual (e.g., Eschleman et al., 2014), but little is known about how personality is related to justice in organizations. There are only a handful of other studies (e.g., Colquitt et al., 2006; Scott & Colquitt, 2007) that have tested for a person x organizational justice effect on CWB. Furthermore, this study uses an experimental design to optimally detect causation attributable to the hypotheses. The results of this study support the idea that high honesty-humility-humility leads to attentiveness to fairness and to the social exchange closely related to organizational justice, but that neither honesty-humility nor self-control suppress (moderate) the urge to retaliate against perceptions of injustice in terms of CWB.

Committee: Nathan A. Bowling Ph.D. (Advisor); Ion Juvina Ph.D. (Committee Member); Corey E. Miller Ph.D. (Committee Member) Subjects: Psychology