Journal of Management & Organization (2024), 30, 1499–1519

doi:10.1017/jmo.2022.79

RESEARCH ARTICLE

Rethinking work: How approach and avoidance features

of cognitive crafting are linked with job crafting
behaviors and work engagement
Arianna Costantini
Department of Psychology and Cognitive Science, University of Trento, Rovereto, TN, Italy
Author for correspondence: Arianna Costantini, E-mail: [Link]@[Link]

(Received 23 November 2021; revised 6 August 2022; accepted 5 October 2022)

Abstract
Responding to the call for more research on cognitive crafting, this study focuses on employees’ reframing of
their job characteristics to assign higher importance to job resources and downplay the relevance of costly job
demands. Furthermore, it examines how these proactive cognitive strategies are embedded in an overall job
crafting process, including both cognitive and behavioral aspects, and linked with work engagement.
Preliminary results (n = 247) support the conceptualization of cognitive crafting encompassing approach
and avoidance aspects targeting resources and demands, respectively. Moreover, three-wave data (n = 84)
show that employees’ cognitive efforts to highlight the centrality of job resources influence work engagement
over time. Importantly, proactively organizing work leads to higher work engagement by prompting cognitive
reframing of the relevance of job resources as central to one’s work. Differently, cognitive efforts to downplay
the relevance of hindering job demands are unrelated to following proactive behaviors and work engagement.

Key words: Approach avoidance motivation; behavioral crafting; cognitive crafting; COVID-19; job crafting; work
engagement

Introduction
Research in work and organizational psychology has recognized the importance of employees
creating – crafting – their own job to find more meaning in it and improve their psychological
experiences (Berg, Wrzesniewski, Grant, Kurkoski, & Welle, 2022; Wrzesniewski & Dutton,
2001). Studies have shown that employees who proactively redesign their jobs experience a higher
sense of purpose and well-being in what they do, acting like sculptors of their own happiness
(Berg et al., 2022; Costantini & Weintraub, 2022; Demerouti, 2014; Lichtenthaler & Fischbach,
2019; Zhang & Parker, 2019). Job crafting explicitly captures these proactive changes in employ-
ees’ jobs, which happen via small alterations and aim to foster better work experiences
(Wrzesniewski & Dutton, 2001). Most of the studies conducted to investigate what employees
do when they craft their jobs focused on the proactive behaviors through which they do so,
with research agreeing that employees either strive to approach more positive stimuli or to
avoid negative anticipated states (Bruning & Campion, 2018; Lichtenthaler & Fischbach, 2019).
Still, an important component of job crafting is how people think and actively try to reframe1
their thoughts regarding their jobs, for example to amplify the importance of aspects that they like
1
While research proposes different reframing techniques referred to with different terms, in this paper the words ‘reframe,
revalue, and rethink’ are used interchangeably with the same meaning to indicate individuals’ changes to the value and rele-
vance assigned to job resources and job demands that constitute their work.
© The Author(s), 2022. Published by Cambridge University Press in association with the Australian and New Zealand Academy of
Management. This is an Open Access article, distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution licence ([Link]
[Link]/licenses/by/4.0/), which permits unrestricted re-use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is
properly cited.
1500 Arianna Costantini

and reduce the importance of job characteristics that make them feel bad or negatively influence
their job experiences and identities. Indeed, job crafting literature recognizes that job crafting also
happens cognitively, that is, in the mind of employees (Wrzesniewski & Dutton, 2001). However,
research on cognitive crafting is relatively scarce and has mainly focused on a very general level,
investigating how employees think about the purpose and value of their work in general, while
leaving largely neglected how people proactively reframe some specific aspects of their job to
make more of its positive features and lessen the importance of the perceived threatening
ones. Yet, employees’ purpose is forged also based on simple work activities and characteristics
that jointly shape an overall idea of how fulfilling one’s work is (Dhingra, Samo, Schaninger,
& Schrimper, 2021a), but little is known about these small cognitive changes that may influence
individual and organizational outcomes (Dhingra, Schaninger, & Brady, 2021b). Hence, under-
standing how people convince themselves regarding the significance of some work tasks and
elements and how this process is linked with enacted behaviors and ensuing outcomes can pro-
vide insights to sustain employees’ well-being. Against this background, this research aims to
examine how employees take the initiative to reframe the demands and resources that constitute
their jobs and investigates this proactive cognitive process in the broader framework of different
job crafting strategies and work engagement outcomes.
This research contributes to the literature in the following important ways. First, this study
contributes to a better understanding of job crafting by addressing its cognitive features that
refer to specific work characteristics, i.e., approaching job resources and avoiding hindering job
demands. Previous studies investigated the role of cognitive crafting for psychological need
satisfaction (Slemp & Vella-Brodrick, 2013), work quality (Romeo, Yepes-Baldó, Westerberg, &
Nordin, 2020), as well as positive meaning and identity in work (Wrzesniewski, LoBuglio,
Dutton, & Berg, 2013). However, the conceptualizations adopted to study such cognitive crafting
processes referred mainly to connecting one’s work to larger or higher-order outputs
(cf. Wrzesniewski & Dutton, 2001), while research suggests that people look for opportunities
in their work activities and tasks to be actually contributing to what they believe their purpose
is (Dhingra et al., 2021a). Beyond considering cognitive crafting as an overarching psychological
strategy dealing with how employees change their perceptions of work in general as related to
their purpose in life (Geldenhuys, Bakker, & Demerouti, 2021), this research focuses on different
and more specific cognitive crafting strategies that deal with the re-appraisal of specific features of
work, namely, job demands and job resources. In doing so, this research enriches the job crafting
literature (Zhang & Parker, 2019) by acknowledging the differential roles of the components of
cognitive crafting for proactivity at work.
Second, by examining the reciprocal relationship between cognitive and behavioral job crafting
over time, this research sheds light on the thought-action mechanism through which employees
redesign their jobs. Specifically, responding to the recent call for investigating how cognitive craft-
ing may drive subsequent behaviors (Zhang & Parker, 2019), I investigate how cognitive and
behavioral aspects of job crafting are linked to one another across different time points and
adopt a quantitative perspective. By examining how different aspects of cognitive crafting are
linked with different job crafting behaviors, this research unpacks how job crafting unfolds in
the light of its various components (i.e., cognitive and behavioral, approach and avoidance-
oriented), contributing knowledge on the process of job crafting formation with important
implications for intervention and policy design. To do so, this paper adopts a sensemaking
perspective and investigates how the narratives that employees use for themselves regarding
the centrality of their work elements are linked to enacted proactive behaviors and contribute
to the intentional redesign of work experiences.
Third, this research contributes knowledge on how different employees’ proactive strategies
help employees stay engaged while facing profound changes in the societal and organizational
boundaries of their work, namely during the COVID-19 pandemic. With its effects on how
and where work was performed, the pandemic threatened traditional identity-making and
 Journal of Management & Organization 1501

identity-sustaining activities, prompting sensemaking processes (Maitlis & Christianson, 2014).

This research contributes to the job redesign literature by looking at the mechanisms of
how employees proactively managed and constructed their work experiences preserving their
own motivation – work engagement – during times of high uncertainty and change, with an ori-
ginal contribution to unpacking the role of different components of cognitive crafting in such a
process.

Theory and hypotheses

Job crafting theory posits that people who engage in crafting activities increase the meaningful-
ness and purpose of their work, eventually enhancing their basic need satisfaction (Geldenhuys,
Bakker, & Demerouti, 2021; Wrzesniewski & Dutton, 2001). Job crafting refers to the physical
and cognitive changes individuals make in the task or relational boundaries of their work
(Wrzesniewski & Dutton, 2001). While task and relational crafting refer to initiated changes
that imply proactive behavior, such as information seeking or the initiation of new work tasks
(Tims, Bakker, & Derks, 2012), the cognitive component of crafting involves reframing or
redefining one’s perceptions of work, even without a change in behaviors (Berg, Dutton, &
Wrzesniewski, 2013; Wrzesniewski & Dutton, 2001). Specifically, job crafting behaviors refer to
employees’ actions to increase the job aspects that stimulate personal growth, reduce job
demands, or are functional to achieve goals (Bruning & Campion, 2018; Zhang & Parker,
2019). Examples are actions through which, on their own initiative, employees add elements in
their work tasks to improve work processes, reorganize the tangible elements of work to make
it more efficient or effective, or withdraw from tasks to make work less intense. Differently, cog-
nitive crafting refers to employees’ active and intentional changes in how they see their tasks and
work roles (Zhang & Parker, 2019).

Cognitive crafting
Traditionally, research has investigated cognitive crafting as a strategy aiming to increase per-
ceived overall significance and meaning in one’s work, for example by focusing on connecting
one’s activities with personal values, on the potential good that might result from one’s work,
or by linking one’s work efforts to the larger output produced by the organization
(Wrzesniewski & Dutton, 2001; Wrzesniewski et al., 2013). While intangible compared to crafting
behaviors, preliminary studies show that cognitive crafting is not less important in influencing
work meaning, identity, or emotions (Berg, Dutton, & Wrzesniewski, 2013). Still, compared to
job crafting behaviors, surprisingly little research focused on cognitive crafting and its antece-
dents/outcomes, especially if considering quantitative research (Zhang & Parker, 2019).
Notably, the role of how employees reframe – or change – the values of different tasks, with spe-
cific work elements being revalued and assigned either less importance or greater positivity
(Ashforth & Kreiner, 1999; Unsworth, Mason, & Jones, 2004), has been proposed as potentially
relevant in driving subsequent behaviors but largely neglected as for quantitative empirical
research (Zhang & Parker, 2019).
Available research suggests that cognitive crafting may benefit attitudes by changing
one’s perceptions, but to impact performance such cognition might need to translate
into actual behavior (Weseler & Niessen, 2016). However, the currently available con-
ceptualizations of cognitive crafting map only partially the reframing processes that deal
with specific work characteristics, making it hard to evaluate whether and how cognitive craft-
ing can be a powerful driver of subsequent crafting behaviors. Specifically, existing scales
measuring cognitive crafting capture ‘employees’ efforts to recognize the effect of one’s
work on the success of the organization or community’ (Slemp & Vella-Brodrick, 2013:
127) or efforts to set a positive mental state at work (Bruning & Campion, 2018; Zhang &
1502 Arianna Costantini

Parker, 20192), but largely neglect how employees proactively change the value of specific job
characteristics. Given that many studies in the job crafting literature focus on job crafting
behaviors dealing with the proactive management of job characteristics (Lichtenthaler &
Fischbach, 2019; Zhang & Parker, 2019) and not with work in general, the lack of a focus
on how employees change their perceptions of such work elements strongly limit our knowl-
edge on job crafting overall.
Building on research suggesting that employees can selectively reframe how they perceive spe-
cific aspects of their jobs (Ashforth & Kreiner, 1999; Unsworth, Mason, & Jones, 2004), this study
draws on the theoretical prepositions of Zhang and Parker (2019) to investigate the role of two
different conceptualizations of cognitive crafting, namely approach resources cognitive crafting
and avoidance demands cognitive crafting, in the job crafting process. Approach resources cogni-
tive crafting (here also referred to as approach cognitive crafting) refers to employees’ efforts to
reframe their jobs to gain higher experience of job resources (Zhang & Parker, 2019), defined
as the job aspects that stimulate personal growth and development or are functional in achieving
work goals (Bakker & Demerouti, 2007). Differently, avoidance demands cognitive crafting (here
also referred to as avoidance cognitive crafting) describes employees’ proactive efforts to cogni-
tively reframe their jobs to avoid or diminish the experience or relevance of hindering job
demands (Zhang & Parker, 2019), that is, the job aspects that require sustained physical,
emotional, or mental efforts (Bakker & Demerouti, 2007).
Theoretically, these cognitive crafting strategies map two job crafting (cognitive) dimensions,
i.e., resource-focused approach crafting and demand-focused avoidance crafting (Bruning &
Campion, 2018; Lichtenthaler & Fischbach, 2019; Zhang & Parker, 2019), which are ground in
approach-avoidance motivation theory (Elliot, 2006). Specifically, while the former aims for
more positive aspects of the work, the latter involves downplaying the importance of demanding
job aspects (Zhang & Parker, 2019). Hence, approach job crafting is about employees’ cognitive
and behavioral efforts to realize possible gains in motivation, health, and performance.
Differently, avoidance job crafting reflects cognitive and behavioral efforts to avoid negative end-
states or escape from negative situations (Bruning & Campion, 2018; Costantini, Demerouti,
Ceschi, & Sartori, 2021; Elliot, 2006; Lichtenthaler & Fischbach, 2019). Based on the above,
the first part of this research aims at answering the following:

Research question: Can cognitive crafting be conceptualized and assessed in a valid and reli-
able way as a construct encompassing two dimensions, i.e., approach and avoidance cogni-
tive crafting, targeting job resources and job demands, respectively?

The relationship between cognitive and behavioral job crafting

According to job crafting theory, the job and the work experience are not ‘objective’ but
re-created all the time in an effort to boost motivation by altering one’s view of work in mean-
ingful ways (Slemp & Vella-Brodrick, 2013; Wrzesniewski & Dutton, 2001). Such a purposeful
rebuilding process entails both cognitive and behavioral aspects (Wrzesniewski & Dutton,
2001), which together shape psychological experiences. Indeed, resting on the idea that percep-
tions and actions validate one another (Weick, 1995), sensemaking research proposes that mean-
ingful experiences are built through an ongoing cycle of interactions between behaviors and
cognition. Behaviors constitute the raw material of cognition, representing what is being made
sense of, since people make sense of what they are doing while striving for coherence with
their past behaviors (Melo, Dourado, & Andrade, 2021; Weick et al., 2005). At the same time,

2
A full review and discussion of the scales developed to measure job crafting is beyond the scope of this article. The inter-
ested reader is referred to Zhang & Parker (2019).
 Journal of Management & Organization 1503

people’s cognitive processes are used as a reference to guide future actions, with people making
sense of a situation which, in turn, drives following actions (Maitlis & Christianson, 2014).
Hence, action and cognition are recursively linked, with behaviors creating new sensemaking
while simultaneously providing feedback about the sense that has already been created (Maitlis
& Christianson, 2014: 84).
Building on a sensemaking framework to understand job crafting, it can be argued that
employees start sensemaking processes in the form of job crafting to understand and make
sense of their personal situations at work (Maitlis & Christianson, 2014; Wrzesniewski,
Dutton, & Debebe, 2003). That is, employees construct their realities at work in the flow of
their activities and situations, creating meaning through cycles of interpretations and actions
(Maitlis & Christianson, 2014; Weick, 1995). This implies a recursive link between employees’
cognitive reframing of their work characteristics and the job crafting behaviors they enact to
shape their work experiences. Hence, employees engage in a selective reframing of how they per-
ceive their job characteristics (Zhang & Parker, 2019), which prompts job crafting behaviors to
shape the work environment they envisioned for themselves. At the same time, job crafting
behaviors shape the work environment that employees subsequently seek to understand and cog-
nitively ponder (Melo, Dourado, & Andrade, 2021).
Moreover, in line with current job crafting conceptualizations that recognize a distinction
between approach and avoidance job crafting (Bruning & Campion, 2018; Zhang & Parker,
2019), it is likely that cognitive and behavioral approach- and avoidance-oriented efforts prompt
ensuing actions and thoughts that are consistent with the originating approach or avoidance pat-
terns. This is aligned with cognitive dissonance theory, suggesting that employees strive for con-
sistency in their thought-action patterns (Festinger, 1957). Hence, when employees reframe their
work characteristics to seek/highlight their positive aspects, they will enact such thoughts through
approach behaviors that make the work environment more resourceful, stimulating, or efficient.
Also, by making the environment more resourceful, they will experience positive states prompting
them to reframe work by focusing on its positive features (Fredrickson, 2001). On the other hand,
when employees reframe their work by focusing on diminishing its demanding aspects, such
thoughts will be followed by consistent efforts to withdraw from situations characterized by
high (perceived) hindering demands. In a similar vein, withdrawal behaviors through which
employees step away from unfavorable demands will result in avoidance-oriented reframing
efforts, serving employees to diminish the relevance of those same aspects they aimed to reduce
and meet their own need for self-consistency (Erez & Earley, 1993).
Overall, while empirical evidence on the link between cognitive and behavioral job crafting is
scarce (Melo, Dourado, & Andrade, 2021; Zhang & Parker, 2019), preliminary research shows
that cognitive crafting in the form of perceived overall significance in one’s work positively relates
to following relational and task crafting (Romeo et al., 2020). Integrating this evidence with the
theoretical considerations presented, I propose the following hypotheses:

Hypothesis 1a: Approach cognitive and behavioral job crafting have a positive cross-lagged
relationship with one another.
Hypothesis 1b: Avoidance cognitive and behavioral job crafting have a positive cross-lagged
relationship with one another.

Job crafting and work engagement

Research on job crafting shows that approach job crafting benefits work engagement
(Lichtenthaler & Fischbach, 2019; Rudolph, Katz, Lavigne, & Zacher, 2017; Tims et al., 2021),
which defines a positive state of mind characterized by high energy, dedication, and absorption
during work (Schaufeli, Shimazu, Hakanen, Salanova, & De Witte, 2019). This happens because
approach job crafting allows employees to anticipate accomplishment, personal development at
1504 Arianna Costantini

work, and the gain of higher resources and motivating job characteristics (Lichtenthaler &
Fischbach, 2019). Moreover, by approaching positive end-states, employees are likely to produce
changes not only in their work characteristics but also in their work perceptions and positive
emotions, furthering the development of personal resources that help them stay engaged at
work (Xanthopoulou, Bakker, & Fischbach, 2013). On the contrary, avoidance job crafting has
been found to negatively relate to work engagement (Lichtenthaler & Fischbach, 2019;
Rudolph et al., 2017). This effect is explained because employees withdrawing from their work
requirements do not produce effective changes in the amount of hindering job demands. As a
result of such refraining efforts, work becomes even more exhausting as the workload becomes
unmanageable and regulatory efforts result in ineffective or even impairing performance
(Demerouti, Bakker, & Halbesleben, 2015; Lichtenthaler & Fischbach, 2019; Rudolph et al.,
2017). Against this background and based on available research showing that cognitive crafting
overlaps with behavioral job crafting in predicting work engagement (Hu, Taris, Dollard, &
Schaufeli, 2020), I propose:

Hypothesis 2a: Approach cognitive and behavioral job crafting are positively related to work
engagement.
Hypothesis 2b: Avoidance cognitive and behavioral job crafting are negatively related to
work engagement.

Moreover, since actions and thoughts are reciprocally related in building meaningful experiences
at work (Maitlis & Christianson, 2014), I suggest and investigate a job crafting process where the
recursive link between cognition and behaviors helps employees create and re-create interpreta-
tions and motivation that help them stay engaged at work. Employees reframing work to high-
light the value of its perceived resources will follow up with behaviors that promote new positive
work situations, enhancing their work engagement. Similarly, when people start actions – beha-
viors – to obtain gains in resources or motivation, the positive aspects of one’s job will become
more central to defining the work experience, eventually sustaining work engagement. On the
contrary, when employees reframe their work to lessen the relevance of its stressful work condi-
tions, they will actively withdraw from such aspects, proactively considered marginal, eventually
impairing work engagement. Moreover, employees who withdraw from the demanding condi-
tions of their work will tend to evaluate such conditions as of little importance to what they
do, resulting in lower work engagement. Accordingly:

Hypothesis 3a: Approach cognitive (behavioral) job crafting mediates the relationship
between approach cognitive (behavioral) job crafting and work engagement.
Hypothesis 3b: Avoidance cognitive (behavioral) job crafting mediates the relationship
between avoidance cognitive (behavioral) job crafting and work engagement.

The present study

Overall, this research aims to examine how employees take the initiative to reframe the demands
and resources that constitute their jobs and how these proactive cognitive strategies are embedded
in an overall job crafting process that is linked with work engagement. Specifically, in focusing on
cognitive crafting, this research explores employees’ thoughts that deal with (i) intentionally dis-
tancing from aspects that one does not find pleasant and (ii) intentionally placing higher import-
ance on enriching job features.
This research is composed of two steps: The first step aims at shedding light on the first
research question and investigates the factorial structure and reliability of a new instrument to
assess the above-mentioned cognitive crafting strategies. The second step tests the hypotheses
and sheds light on how different cognitive crafting strategies relate to existing job crafting
 Journal of Management & Organization 1505

dimensions, and how the process of redesigning one’s job via thoughts and behaviors is linked
with work engagement.

Step 1: scale development, factorial structure, and reliability

The first step of the research consisted in developing and investigating the factorial structure, val-
idity, and reliability of a new scale to assess approach resources cognitive crafting and avoidance
demands cognitive crafting.

Method
Participants and procedure
Data were collected from a convenience sample of Italian employees (n = 247) invited to partici-
pate in the study via e-mail and social networks. Data collection took place online in February
2020, right before the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic in Italy. Participation was voluntary
and employees filled in an anonymous questionnaire including demographic information and the
approach and avoidance cognitive crafting scale. Participants (58.8% female) reported a mean age
of 36.16 years (SD = 11.93). On average, they worked for about 8.23 years (SD = 8.83) in their cur-
rent job. The majority of the participants had a full-time permanent contract (49.6%), 9.3%
reported a part-time permanent contract, another 9.3% had a fixed-term, full-time contract,
10.6% had a fixed-term, part-time contract, and the remaining reported other forms of working
arrangements. Most participants hold a high school diploma (64.9%) or a bachelor’s degree
(26.2%). Most employees worked in administration (38.8%), wholesale and services (26.5%),
manufacturing (13.9%), education (10.4%), engineering (4.6%), and human resources (2.3%).

Measure
Approach and avoidance cognitive crafting were assessed with an initial set of eight items devel-
oped to investigate cognitive crafting as for two components – approach resources and avoidance
demands cognitive crafting – based on the theoretical conceptualization Zhang and Parker (2019)
proposed. Wording and conceptualization were discussed with work and organizational psych-
ology experts, including scholars and practitioners, to develop a scale that is theoretically
sound, comprehensible, and usable also outside academia. The scholars formulated the first set
of items based on the theoretical framework adopted – i.e., approach and avoidance crafting tar-
geting job resources and job demands, respectively – which were subsequently discussed with
practitioners (all having at least a master’s degree in psychology) to assess the comprehensibility
and simplicity of the items. All items were rated on a 5-point scale from (1) never to (5) always.
Survey instructions advised the participants to answer the items thinking about their experiences
and perceptions in the last month.

Results
Exploratory factor analysis
The factorial structure of the cognitive crafting scale was investigated using principal factor ana-
lysis with maximum likelihood and oblique rotation in SPSS. Factors with an Eigenvalue >1 and
items that loaded .35 or higher on the expected factor (Costello & Osborne, 2005) were retained,
leading to two items deleted based on these criteria. The results, displayed in Table 1, showed that
it was possible to distinguish two dimensions of cognitive job crafting, i.e., approach resources
cognitive crafting and avoidance demands cognitive crafting. The items, item means, standard
deviations, reliabilities, and factor loadings are presented in Table 1.
1506 Arianna Costantini

Table 1. Step 1: items, descriptive statistics, reliabilities, and factor loadings of the approach and avoidance cognitive
crafting scale

Factor

Item wording M SD ω 1 2

Approach resources cognitive crafting .80

I appraise my favorite aspects of my job as the most important ones 4.20 1.40 .97
I see the interesting parts of my work as central to my work activity 4.45 1.35 .76
I focus on the stimulating aspects of my job rather than the boring ones 4.54 1.53 .57
Avoidance demands cognitive crafting .83
I view the aspects that take my energy away as not fundamental to my job 3.08 1.63 .84
I actively appraise the most straining aspects of my job as of little relevance to 2.77 1.42 .80
my job
I view the work tasks that cause me the most problems as not fundamental to 2.67 1.46 .73
my profession
Notes. ω = McDonald’s omega. Factor loadings >.35 are displayed. Items were translated into English, the original items in Italian are available
upon request.

Together, the two factors explained 62.69% of the variance. The first factor (Eigenvalue =
2.97), which explained 37.33% of the variance, is formed by the items for approach resources cog-
nitive crafting (3 items). The second factor (Eigenvalue = 1.46), which explained 25.35% of the
variance, is formed by the items measuring avoidance demands cognitive crafting (3 items).
The two dimensions had good reliability, specifically, for approach resources cognitive crafting,
McDonald’s ω (Hayes & Coutts, 2020; McDonald, 1999) was = .81; for avoidance demands cog-
nitive crafting McDonald’s ω = .83.
Overall, these results provide conceptual support for a two-factor structure of the approach
and avoidance cognitive crafting scale. Specifically, they indicate that cognitive crafting can be
assessed in a reliable way when it is conceptualized as encompassing approach resources cognitive
crafting and avoidance demands cognitive crafting.

Step 2: nomological network of approach and avoidance cognitive crafting

Building on the results from Step 1, Step 2 of this research aimed to further investigate the nomo-
logical network of cognitive crafting composed of approach and avoidance-oriented features,
investigating how these dimensions relate with other existing cognitive dimensions of job crafting
(i.e., general cognitive crafting: Slemp & Vella-Brodrick, 2013; metacognition: Bruning &
Campion, 2018), with job crafting behaviors, and with work engagement.

Method
Participants and procedure
Employees were recruited via snowball sampling with invitations sent via e-mail and social media
(Leighton, Kardong-Edgren, Schneidereith, & Foisy-Doll, 2021). Data were collected using
internet-based surveys. Participants who agreed to take part in the study (n = 113) were invited
to fill in a monthly questionnaire for three consecutive months, i.e., at the end of the first week of
October 2020 (Time 1), at the end of the first week of November 2020 (Time 2), and at the end of
the first week of December 2020 (Time 3). The first two questionnaires assessed approach
resources cognitive crafting and avoidance demands cognitive crafting, and three behavioral
 Journal of Management & Organization 1507

job crafting dimensions (i.e., withdrawal, work role expansion, and work organization). Moreover,
the first questionnaire also included scales to measure general cognitive crafting, metacognition,
and demographic variables. The last questionnaire measured work engagement.
A total of 84 participants (response rate 74%) completed all three surveys. Participants were
assured of the confidentiality of their responses, and anonymous surveys were matched by asking
participants to take note of a unique code generated by the survey platform at the first time of
survey completion, to be inserted each following time they completed the survey. The final sam-
ple (54.8% female participants) reported a mean age of 32.08 years (SD = 11.80), ranging from 19
to 57 years. Most participants reported working in the manufacturing sector (39.29%), followed
by the tourism and service sector (25%), administrative sector (21.43%), education (5.95%), and
others (8.33%). Most participants held a high school diploma (64.3%), and 15.5% held a master’s
degree or higher. Average work tenure was 8.57 years (SD = 9.90) in the current position, with
54.8% reporting having a permanent, full-time contract, 19% a fixed-term, part-time contract,
10.7% a fixed-term, full-time contract, and the remaining other types of working arrangements.

Measures
All measures were administered in Italian. Scales not available in Italian were translated using the
forward-backward translation method (Behling & Law, 2000). This procedure involved a profes-
sional translator unfamiliar with the items who translated the original scales into Italian. Second,
a bilingual speaker back-translated the same items into English. Given that this process did not
give rise to significant changes to any of the items, the two concluded that the Italian versions of
the scales were consistent with the original ones in meaning. Survey instructions advised the par-
ticipants to answer the items thinking about their experiences and perceptions in the last month.
All measures were rated on a 5-point scale from (1) never to (5) always unless indicated
otherwise.

Approach and avoidance cognitive crafting

Approach and avoidance cognitive crafting were assessed at Time 1 and 2 using the new scale
presented in Step 1. For approach cognitive crafting, McDonald’s ω at Time 1 = .71, and at
Time 2 = .84. For avoidance cognitive crafting, McDonald’s ω at Time 1 = .77, and at Time 2 = .70.

General cognitive crafting

General cognitive crafting was measured at Time 1 using five items from the scale developed by
Slemp and Vella-Brodrick (2013). A sample item is ‘I think about how my job gives my life pur-
pose.’ Participants responded on a 6-point scale, ranging from (1) never (6) very often.
McDonald’s ω = .87.

Metacognition
Metacognition was measured at Time 1 using five items from the scale developed by Bruning and
Campion (2018). A sample item is ‘I use my thoughts to get me out of a bad mood at work.’
McDonald’s ω = .83.

Behavioral job crafting

Job crafting behaviors were measured at Time 1 and 2 with 12 items from the scale developed by
Bruning and Campion (2018), measuring three types of job crafting behaviors, namely, with-
drawal (avoidance-oriented, 3 items, e.g., ‘Work in a way that allows me to avoid bothersome
tasks involved in my work’; McDonald’s ω at Time 1 = .70 and at Time 2 = .75), work role expan-
sion (approach-oriented, 5 items, e.g., ‘I expand my work by adding activities to my job that ensure
the quality of my deliverables’; McDonald’s ω at Time 1 and 2 = .88), and work organization
1508 Arianna Costantini

(approach-oriented, 4 items, e.g., ‘I create a structure in my work processes’; McDonald’s ω at

Time 1 = .79, and at Time 2 = .86).

Work engagement
Work engagement was assessed at Time 3 using three items from the ultra-short measure for
work engagement developed by Schaufeli et al. (2019), e.g., ‘At work I feel bursting with energy’
(vigor); ‘I am enthusiastic about my job’ (dedication); and ‘I am immersed in my work’ (absorp-
tion). Participants responded on a 7-point scale, ranging from (0) not at all to (6) a very large
degree. McDonald’s ω = .73.

Results
Preliminary analyses
Before proceeding with hypotheses testing, a series of CFA using Mplus version 8.4 (Muthén &
Muthén, 1998–2019) was conducted. First, it was investigated whether the dimensions of
approach and avoidance cognitive crafting differed from the general cognitive crafting and meta-
cognition existing in the literature. To do so, a model with four factors (approach and avoidance
cognitive crafting, general cognitive crafting, and metacognition) was compared with a model in
which all items loaded on one single cognitive crafting factor. The four-factor model (χ2 (98) =
151.46, RMSEA = .08; SRMR = .07) fit significantly better than the one-factor model (Δχ2 (6) =
417.55, p < .001), providing support for the conceptual difference between the different dimen-
sions of cognitive crafting. Second, CFA were also performed to examine whether approach
and avoidance cognitive crafting and job crafting behaviors could be discriminated at each
time point. The same models were estimated at Time 1 and 2; results are presented in Table 2.
The first model tested consisted of five latent factors: approach resources cognitive crafting (three
items), avoidance demands cognitive crafting (three items), work role expansion (five items), with-
drawal (three items), and work organization (four items). This five-factor model showed a good fit
to the data at both time points, and all indicators had significant factor loadings ( p < .001). The
factor loadings of the items of approach resources cognitive crafting ranged from .46 to .62 at
Time 1, and from .47 to .82 at Time 2. The factor loadings of the items of avoidance demands cog-
nitive crafting were between .65 and .95 at Time 1, and between .61 and .71 at Time 2.
The second model tested was a four-factor model, where all items measuring different cognitive
crafting dimensions loaded on one single factor, and three other latent factors were estimated for the
job crafting behaviors. Results showed that the five-factor model fit better than the four-factor model
at both time points, Time 1: Δχ2 (4) = 78.82, p < .001; Time 2: Δχ2 (4) = 43.36, p < .001, meaning that
the two cognitive crafting dimensions can be discriminated. Finally, a one-factor model was tested,
where all items loaded on a single job crafting construct. The five-factor model was significantly bet-
ter than this one-factor model where all items loaded on one factor, at Time 1: Δχ2 (10) = 247.77, p
< .001; Time 2: Δχ2 (10) = 342.32, p < .001. This means that the different factors of cognitive and
behavioral job crafting were different and could be discriminated at each time point.

Descriptive statistics
Table 3 presents the means, standard deviations, and correlations among all the study variables. As
it can be seen, among the cognitive crafting dimensions considered, avoidance demand was the one
less frequently occurring, and it was unrelated to all the other cognitive crafting dimensions.

Hypotheses testing
Hypotheses 1–3 were tested in a single path model including autoregressive paths to control for
baseline levels for each endogenous variable (Gollob & Reichardt, 1991; Hakanen, Schaufeli, &
 Journal of Management & Organization 1509

Table 2. Step 2: results from the confirmatory factor analyses

Model χ2 df χ2/df CFI RMSEA SRMR

T1: 5-factor model 170.37 142 1.20 .95 .05 .08

T2: 5-factor model 187.67 142 1.32 .93 .06 .08
T1: 4-factor model 249.17 146 1.71 .84 .09 .11
T2: 4-factor model 231.03 146 1.58 .83 .08 .12
T1: 1-factor model 418.14 152 2.75 .48 .14 .15
T2: 1-factor model 529.99 152 3.49 .42 .17 .16
Notes. T = time. In the 4-factor model the two cognitive crafting dimensions collapsed into one single factor.

Ahola, 2008). In the model, I further controlled for age as it was significantly correlated with
some job crafting dimensions (Table 3) and modeled cross-lagged relationships and paths
from Time 2 variables to Time 3 work engagement. In line with current recommendations on
job crafting research, separated observed variables for each job crafting strategy investigated
were modeled, allowing to spot differential effects for the distinct strategies adopted (cf. Zhang
& Parker, 2019). The hypothesized model fit well to the data: χ2 (42) = 60.26; CFI = .93;
RMSEA = .07; SRMR = .08. Figure 1 shows the model results and displays standardized estimates
of the significant relationships found.
Hypotheses 1 proposed that cognitive and behavioral job crafting would have shown a positive
cross-lagged relationship with one another.
As reported in Table 4, work organization at Time 1 related positively to approach cognitive
crafting at Time 2 (β = .32, p < .001), and approach cognitive crafting at Time 1 related positively
to work role expansion at Time 2 (β = .25, p = .04). Avoidance cognitive crafting at Time 1 did not
relate significantly to withdrawal job crafting behaviors at Time 2, while withdrawal behaviors at
Time 1 were significantly related to avoidance cognitive crafting at Time 2 (β = .25, p = .03). These
results provide partial support for Hypotheses 1a and 1b.
Hypothesis 2a proposed that cognitive and behavioral approach-oriented job crafting were
positively related to work engagement, while Hypothesis 2b proposed that avoidance-oriented
job crafting was negatively associated with it.
As it can be seen in Table 5, approach cognitive crafting and work role expansion at Time 2
were both positively related to work engagement at Time 3. On the other hand, withdrawal at
Time 2 related negatively to work engagement at Time 3, while cognitively avoiding demands
at Time 2 was not significantly related to work engagement at Time 3. Hence, these results pro-
vide partial support for Hypotheses 2a and 2b.
Hypotheses 3 proposed the mediating role of different dimensions of job crafting in linking
behavioral and cognitive job crafting to work engagement.
As reported in Table 6, results from a mediation analysis using bootstrapping (5,000 bootstrap
resamples; Preacher & Hayes, 2008) with bias-corrected confidence estimates (MacKinnon,
Lockwood, & Williams, 2004) confirmed the mediating role of approach cognitive crafting at
Time 2 in the relation between work organization at Time 1 and work engagement at Time
3. Differently, work expansion at Time 2 did not significantly mediate the relation between
approach cognitive crafting at Time 1 and work engagement at Time 3. In investigating the indir-
ect effects of approach cognitive crafting at Time 1 on work engagement at Time 3, the results
showed that approach cognitive crafting at Time 2 significantly mediated the effect of the
same variable at Time 1 on work engagement at Time 3. Accordingly, Hypothesis 3a was
accepted, and Hypothesis 3b was rejected.
 1510
Arianna Costantini
Table 3. Step 2: means, standard deviations, and correlations of the study variables

M SD 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14

1. Gender 1.45 .50

2. Age 32.08 11.80 .04
3. General cognitive crafting T1 3.98 1.26 .06 .20
4. Metacognition T1 4.04 .76 .18 .10 .38**
5. Approach resources T1 4.10 .64 .20 .21 .42** .45**
6. Avoidance demands T1 2.46 .94 .05 .26* .01 .06 −.06
7. Work expansion T1 3.40 .96 .01 .10 .47** .27* .31** −.17
8. Work organization T1 4.00 .78 .14 .13 .24* .53** .36** −.04 .26*
9. Withdrawal T1 2.22 .87 −.14 .08 −.03 .08 −.08 .46** −.06 .05
10. Approach resources T2 3.91 .76 .16 .26* .46** .50** .58** .05 .29** .50** .11
11. Avoidance demands T2 2.62 .80 .01 .03 −.01 .11 −.10 .48** −.12 −.04 .43** −.02
12. Work expansion T2 3.32 .88 −.15 .11 .56** .33** .35** −.06 .60** .27* .16 .40** −.14
13. Work organization T2 4.01 .80 .11 .06 .18 .17 .25* −.08 .20 .50** .07 .49** −.19 .29**
14. Withdrawal T2 2.32 .90 −.01 −.17 −.08 .14 −.08 .16 −.09 .03 .47** −.10 .39** −.10 −.17
15. Work engagement T3 3.93 .89 −.07 .09 .46** .33** .34** −.05 .42** .42** −.04 .53** −.11 .52** .29* −.29*
Notes. N = 84. Gender: 1 = female; 2 = male. T = time.
**p < .01; * p < .05.
 Journal of Management & Organization 1511

Figure 1. Step 2: standardized model results.

Notes. Bold arrows represent significant paths. Standardized significant estimates are displayed. Control variables, related paths, and
significant autoregressive coefficients are not displayed for the sake of clarity. The significant indirect effects displayed only refer to
those combining different job crafting strategies.
***p ≤ .001, *p ≤ .05, †p ≤ .10.

Discussion
The overarching aim of this research was to provide insights into how employees’ efforts to cog-
nitively reframe the value of the elements constituting their work are related and underpin sub-
sequent proactive redesign behaviors and work engagement. Based on three-wave data from a
field study, results revealed that employees who reframed their work to highlight the relevance
of its perceived resources later reported enriching their jobs and expanding their work roles
more often, with benefits for their levels of work engagement over time. Moreover, it was
found that employees who enriched their work via concrete behaviors, such as organizing the
tangible elements of their tasks, later reported a higher tendency to place greater importance
on the enriching features of their jobs, which in turn fostered their work engagement. On the
other side, findings showed that cognitively underplaying the relevance of hindering demands
resulted from previously enacted withdrawal behaviors at work, and that such a cognitive strategy
had no effects on either following proactive behaviors or work engagement.

Theoretical contributions
This research offers some relevant theoretical implications. First, this study advances our under-
standing of cognitive job crafting by shedding light on how employees reframe the value of spe-
cific job characteristics, namely job demands and job resources, via approach- and
avoidance-oriented efforts. Rather than considering cognitive crafting as a general idea of how
fulfilling one’s work in general is, this study extends the conceptualization of cognitive crafting
by empirically examining employees’ specific efforts referred to the intentional reframing of
job demands and resources, a theoretical proposal (cf. Zhang & Parker, 2019) that has not
been empirically tested before. On the one hand, approach cognitive crafting refers to employees’
cognitive efforts to reframe their jobs to gain higher experience of job resources. On the other
hand, avoidance cognitive crafting denotes employees’ efforts to diminish the relevance and
role of hindering job demands. This study shows that these cognitive crafting strategies specific-
ally focused on job demands and resources capture aspects of employees’ experiences that are dif-
ferent from general cognitive crafting, which have been partially neglected so far. Hence, this
study provides insights into the job crafting literature by uncovering different aspects of cognitive
crafting that meaningfully capture the unique contribution of intentional reframing thoughts in
 1512
Arianna Costantini
Table 4. Step 2: standardized coefficients from path modeling predicting time 2 cognitive and behavioral job crafting

Time 2 approach Time 2 avoidance Time 2 work role

cognitive crafting cognitive crafting expansion Time 2 work organization Time 2 withdrawal

Variable β SE t p β SE t p β SE t p β SE t p β SE t p

Time 1
Approach cognitive crafting .44 .11 3.99 <.001 – – – – .18 .09 1.97 .04 .07 .11 .66 .51 – – – –
Avoidance cognitive crafting – – – – .35 .12 2.85 .004 – – – – – – – – −.08 .10 −.72 .47
Work role expansion .07 .10 .68 .49 – – – – .55 .09 6.39 <.001 – – – – – – – –
Work organization .33 .09 3.55 <.001 – – – – – – – – .48 .08 5.79 <.001 – – – –
Withdrawal – – – – .27 .12 2.17 .03 – – – – – – – – .51 .09 5.49 <.001
Note. Estimates are standardized, resulting from one overall analysis including the prediction of the different job crafting strategies on work engagement via job crafting.
 Journal of Management & Organization 1513

Table 5. Step 2: standardized coefficients from path modeling predicting time 3 work engagement

Time 3 work engagement

Variable β SE t p

Time 2
Approach cognitive crafting .37 .12 3.01 .003
Avoidance cognitive crafting .03 .13 .24 .81
Work role expansion .42 .13 3.29 .001
Work organization .01 .11 .02 .98
Withdrawal −.24 .11 −2.25 .03
Note. Estimates are standardized, resulting from one overall analysis including the prediction of the different job crafting strategies on work
engagement via job crafting.

the job crafting process while differentiating them from general cognitive and behavioral job
crafting (Hu et al., 2020).
The importance of differentiating cognitive crafting strategies targeting different job character-
istics is further amplified by the results showing that the two forms of cognitive crafting
(approach- and avoidance-oriented) are substantially different from one another: in this research,
approach cognitive crafting, which focuses on the positive characteristics of the job, is among the
most widely used strategies to craft one’s job and prompts following positive behaviors. On the
opposite, avoidance cognitive crafting represents the least used strategy and seems to be related to
inaction or unrelated to behaviors. Overall, these findings are aligned with previous literature on
job crafting behaviors (Bakker, Rodríguez-Muñoz, & Sanz Vergel, 2016; Demerouti & Peeters,
2018; Petrou, Demerouti, Peeters, Schaufeli, & Hetland, 2012; Tims, Bakker, & Derks, 2012),
yet they also offer an original contribution by showing that cognitive efforts to highlight the cen-
trality of positive work features are a key, energizing component of job crafting. By directing their
attention toward the positive features of work, individuals improve their awareness of the poten-
tial for development and growth at work (Elliot, 2006), thereby enhancing their job experience.
Differently, the low occurrence of avoidance cognitive crafting, centered on reducing the rele-
vance of job characteristics perceived as hindering, suggests that employees use this strategy
less often, probably in the face of perceived threats. This is consistent with approach-avoidance
literature (Elliot, 2006) and with evidence showing that employees who more often reduce
their demands are those reporting higher levels of burnout (Lichtenthaler & Fischbach, 2019).
Second, this research responds to the call for investigating how cognitive and behavioral job
crafting are related (Zhang & Parker, 2019) by adopting a sensemaking perspective that accounts
for a bidirectional relationship between cognition and behaviors. Results show that cognitive and
behavioral job crafting can feed each other depending on the underlying approach or avoidance
motive and the specific behaviors considered. This research shows that employees reframed their
work and focused on its positive features when they previously organized, through concrete beha-
viors, their tangible tasks and work processes. Hence, it seems that the proactive initiation of job
redesign through actions improving work organization energizes cognitive efforts to make the
positive features of work central to the work experience. This is consistent with previous research
suggesting that, by allowing better resource allocation through work organization, employees can
benefit from higher resource availability that can be used to make the work environment even
more resourceful (Costantini et al., 2021; ten Brummelhuis & Bakker, 2012). On the other side,
it was also found that when employees engaged in withdrawal behaviors to actively try to distance
themselves from work situations or avoid hindering demands, they later reported more frequent
cognitive efforts to diminish the relevance of those job aspects they attempted to avoid through
 1514
Arianna Costantini
Table 6. Step 2: standardized indirect effects of job crafting on work engagement

Indirect effect x (t1) → m (t2) → y (t3) β SE t p 95% LLCI 95% ULCI

Approach cognitive crafting → approach cognitive crafting → work engagement .16 .06 2.53 .01 .04 .29
Approach cognitive crafting → work role expansion → work engagement .08 .05 1.64 .10 .00 .18
Approach cognitive crafting → work organization → work engagement .01 .02 .01 .99 −.03 .03
Avoidance cognitive crafting → avoidance cognitive crafting → work engagement .01 .05 .22 .82 −.11 .10
Avoidance cognitive crafting → withdrawal → work engagement .02 .03 .63 .53 −.03 .08
Work role expansion → approach cognitive crafting → work engagement .02 .03 .66 .51 −.05 .10
Work role expansion → work role expansion → work engagement .23 .08 2.78 .01 .09 .41
Work organization → approach cognitive crafting → work engagement .12 .06 2.14 .03 .02 .24
Work organization → work organization → work engagement .01 .06 .02 .98 −.11 .12
Withdrawal → avoidance cognitive crafting → work engagement .01 .04 .23 .82 −.07 .09
Withdrawal → withdrawal → work engagement −.12 .06 −2.03 .04 −.24 −.01
Note. Estimates are standardized, resulting from one overall analysis including the prediction of the different job crafting strategies on work engagement via job crafting. T = time.
95% confidence intervals are based on 5,000 bootstrap resamples. Confidence intervals that do not include zero are in bold.
 Journal of Management & Organization 1515

concrete behaviors. These results are aligned with literature highlighting the need for consistency in
people’s action-thoughts patterns (Festinger, 1957) and enrich approach-avoidance and job crafting
literature by providing evidence on the energizing role of behaviors to perpetuate further approach-
and avoidance patterns in the form of cognitive reframing.
Focusing on the link from cognition to behaviors, results show that approach cognitive crafting
prompts following behaviors to acquire resources that can help employees carry out their tasks –
work role expansion. This means that when employees focus on the importance of the positive
features of their jobs, such a focus on the positive situational characteristics energizes them to
actively promote the realization of new positive situations (Elliot, 2006). However, in contrast
to our expectations, avoidance cognitive crafting did not significantly relate to following with-
drawal behaviors. Perhaps, employees’ cognitive efforts to diminish the relevance of their hinder-
ing job demands represent the result of a loss cycle in which employees holding negative affective
states withdraw from their work demands (Lichtenthaler & Fischbach, 2019) and then reframe
such demands as nonrelevant in their jobs. Such a cognitive effort seems to induce inaction rather
than withdrawal behaviors, probably because of the lack of an underlying motivation and energy
to approach positive end-states rather than avoid negative outcomes.
Finally, this research extends the literature on job crafting and work engagement by shedding
light on the mechanism through which cognitive and behavioral components of job crafting are
linked to work engagement during times of high uncertainty and change. Results show that
approach cognitive crafting mediates the effect of work organization on work engagement. This
means that the proactive redesign of work processes springs into action a positive orientation
that drives employees to highlight the relevance of the positive elements in their work, which
prompts higher work engagement. This finding enriches job crafting literature by showing that
work organization leads to higher work engagement via approach cognitive crafting, meaning
that approach cognitive crafting is an essential component of the job crafting process to translate
the value of work organization into higher work engagement. Also, proactively reframing work
to gain higher experiences of job resources was found to promote such a positive cognitive orien-
tation over time, with beneficial effects for work engagement. Hence, this cognitive strategy seems
beneficial to sustain work engagement also when unrelated to approach behaviors, as it allows to
preserve motivation in its own. On the other hand, it was also found that avoidance cognitive craft-
ing was consistently – directly and indirectly – unrelated to work engagement. Previous research
investigating the link between avoidance crafting behaviors and work engagement is mixed, with
studies showing that avoidance behaviors are either negatively related (see meta-analytic findings:
Lichtenthaler & Fischbach, 2019) or unrelated to it (e.g., Demerouti & Peeters, 2018). In line with
such findings, this research shows that cognitive efforts to downplay the relevance of hindering job
characteristics are unrelated to work engagement, providing further evidence that focusing on elim-
inating negative stimuli prevents any effect on the realization of positive outcomes (Elliot, 2006).

Limitations and future research

As follows, I present some limitations of this study and propose some directions for future
research that may be useful to enrich our understanding of job crafting.
First, in both steps of this research, the samples were recruited with convenience sampling
techniques, sample sizes were modest, and all participants were Italian. While the sampling meth-
ods used may enhance the external validity of the findings by increasing the heterogeneity of the
sample (Demerouti & Rispens, 2014), future studies may consider using probability sampling
methods and involve larger sample sizes, also from different countries, to increase the generaliz-
ability of the results and maximize the statistical representativeness of the chosen population.
Second, while the results of this study accounted for the role of age, several other important
demographic variables may influence how employees think and choose to craft their work. For
example, in this study no information was collected regarding participants’ income,
1516 Arianna Costantini

socioeconomic status, care responsibilities, and household composition. These aspects, however,
may play a role in whether and how one feels the need to reframe the importance of some work
aspects, with implications for his/her engagement in the job crafting process and subsequent out-
comes. Hence, future research may consider investigating the role of key demographics that are
missing in the current study and generally neglected in this research field to shed light on how
they affect employees’ choices to craft their jobs.
Third, while the study design in Step 2 allowed for the investigation of medium-term processes
of job crafting, literature shows that job crafting behaviors fluctuate over days, with effects on
ensuing outcomes (cf. Bakker & Oerlemans, 2019; Costantini et al., 2022; Lu et al., 2022;
Petrou et al., 2012; van Hooff & van Hooft, 2022). It is likely that, just like behaviors, also cog-
nitive components of job crafting fluctuate daily. Accordingly, future studies may consider adapt-
ing the scale presented here to investigate daily fluctuations in cognitive crafting and how such
changes may relate to following daily behaviors and outcomes.
Fourth, in this study, the focus was on individuals’ job crafting processes but neglected the role
of boundary conditions that refer to organizational or work characteristics, which in previous
studies proved relevant in determining different outcomes of job crafting (e.g., Cheng et al.,
2022; Demerouti & Peeters, 2018; Wang et al., 2022). For example, it may be interesting to inves-
tigate whether perceived opportunities to craft, the occurrence of specific job characteristics
(Wrzesniewski & Dutton, 2001), and specific human resource management systems (Hu et al.,
2022) have a role in how employees choose to craft their work cognitively in an approach- or
avoidance-oriented manner. Hence, future research may investigate the conditions that facilitate
or hinder cognitive reframing efforts and their effects on motivational outcomes.

Practical implications
The findings from this study offer implications for practitioners and organizations willing to support
employees’ well-being at work by leveraging individual proactivity. Consistent with previous
research, the current study supports the value of promoting approach job crafting to sustain employ-
ees’ work engagement (Bruning & Campion, 2018; Lichtenthaler & Fischbach, 2019). According to
the results from this study, companies willing to increase work engagement should consider invest-
ing in interventions that encourage employees’ cognitive reframing of their work to generate aware-
ness and highlight the importance of existing job resources as aspects qualifying the work they do.
Other effective policies may support employees’ proactive job redesign that centers on expanding
one’s work role by promoting personalization of work tasks and activities. Moreover, organizations
willing to support employees’ proactivity in terms of individual re-organization of work processes
should be aware that such an intervention strategy can have indirect effects on promoting work
engagement when coupled with a phase focused on encouraging employees’ cognitive reframing
of the positive aspects of the job as central to the work activities, as discussed below.
Overall, this study highlights the value of supporting not only behavioral job crafting but also
employees’ cognitive reframing of the elements of their jobs to gain higher experiences of job
resources. This can be done, for example, by implementing interventions focused on increasing
employees’ awareness of the relevance of job resources via journaling or guided reflection ques-
tions. It should be noted, however, that this study shows that the cognitive reframing of the cen-
trality of certain job characteristics can have different effects on work engagement based on
whether it promotes approach or avoidance cognitive reframing. Hence, given that this research
shows that avoidance cognitive crafting referred to hindering job demands leads to inaction,
results from this study warn against the use of reflection exercises that focus on downplaying
the relevance of hindering job demands as this may lead to employees’ inaction and, eventually,
have no effects on either proactivity or work engagement.
From an intervention-design perspective, interventions to support proactivity and work engage-
ment ( job crafting interventions or coaching sessions; e.g., Costantini, Demerouti, Ceschi, & Sartori,
 Journal of Management & Organization 1517

2020; Kuijpers et al., 2020; van den Heuvel, Demerouti, & Peeters, 2015; van Wingerden, Bakker, &
Derks, 2017; Verelst et al., 2021) may benefit from starting by promoting methods and techniques
to improve work organization through concrete behaviors – e.g., by supporting the proactive organ-
ization of work tools and procedures so that these are clearly laid out, the creation of simple pro-
tocols that aid with carrying out tasks in more efficient ways – and, only after, including exercises
that focus on cognition and reflection, e.g., on supporting employees’ appraisal of the positive fea-
tures of their work as relevant and central to their jobs.

Conclusions
The present study zoomed into different aspects of cognitive crafting and analyzed employees’ inten-
tional reframing of their job characteristics to assign higher importance to job resources and down-
play the relevance of costly job demands. Expanding job crafting literature, this study examined how
these proactive cognitive strategies are embedded in an overall job crafting process linked with work
engagement. Results show that employees’ cognitive efforts to highlight the centrality of positive
work features are a key component of job crafting, influencing work engagement over time.
Importantly, the proactive optimization of work activities leads to higher work engagement by
prompting employees to cognitively reframe the relevance of job resources as central to their
work. Differently, employees’ cognitive efforts to downplay the relevance of hindering job demands
are unrelated to ensuing proactive behaviors and work engagement. These findings suggest that how
employees think about the features of their work, which has implications for their work engagement
levels, is influenced by how they previously redesigned their work via specific proactive behaviors.
Hence, it seems that the job crafting process is prompted by action rather than cognition, which
nonetheless is an important component to realizing job crafting gains in terms of work engagement.
Conflict of interest. None.

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Cite this article: Costantini A (2024). Rethinking work: How approach and avoidance features of cognitive crafting are linked
with job crafting behaviors and work engagement. Journal of Management & Organization, 30(5), 1499–1519. https://
[Link]/10.1017/jmo.2022.79
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