Crafting your Career: How Career Competencies Relate to Career Success via Job Crafting

TLDR: In this article, the authors investigated whether career competencies could enhance an employee's subjective career success in terms of perceived employability and work-home balance via job crafting behaviors, and they found that career skills are indirectly and positively related to workhome interference through job crafting.

Abstract: This study aimed to investigate whether career competencies could enhance an employee's subjective career success in terms of perceived employability and work–home balance via job crafting behaviors. Based on Job Demands-Resources (JD-R) Theory, we examined a potential motivational process in which career competencies, as a personal resource, would enhance career success through expansive job crafting. The results showed that job crafting mediated the positive relationship between career competencies and both internal and external perceived employability. In addition, job crafting mediated the positive relationship between career competencies and work–home enrichment. We expected a negative association between job crafting and work–home interference, yet our results indicated that career competencies are indirectly and positively related to work–home interference via job crafting. With our findings, we add to JD-R Theory by (1) showing that career competencies may be considered a personal resource, (2) empirically examining the role of job crafting in motivational processes, and (3) showing that enhanced subjective career success can be an outcome of motivational processes. Organisations may use these findings to implement developmental HR practices aimed at increasing career competencies and job crafting.