Abstract
Organisational scholars have long been concerned about the way in which employees experience their work and the related psychological experiences. The workplace presents various job demands and resources that may alter the way in which employees perform their work. Some employees proactively customise the boundaries of their job, known as job crafting. In this study, Wrzesniewski and Dutton’s (2001) conceptualisation of job crafting was applied against the backdrop of higher education in the South African context. Organisations have become interested in how employees alter their jobs, and the effects thereof on work outcomes such as meaningfulness, work engagement, and work-role performance. Over the last two decades, higher education has witnessed immense changes that led to progress on transformation imperatives, equality, greater access to education, transformation of the curriculum, and an increased student population. These changes may place certain demands on employees, both academic and support staff, within higher education institutions (HEIs). Accordingly, the overarching objective of this study was to establish the effects of weekly task crafting and cognitive crafting on weekly meaningful work and weekly work engagement, and subsequently establish the effects of job demands and job resources on weeklytask crafting and congnitive crafting and weekly work-role performance. The aim of the present research was achieved through three independent studies. Study 1 (reported in Article 1) focused on the development and validation of the Higher Education Hindrance Demands Scale. A quantitative approach was employed, and a cross sectional design was adopted. Data wasere collected from 184 academics and analysed using exploratory factor analysis. The reliability of the scale was calculated using Cronbach’s alpha coefficient. The result was, as anticipated, a six-factor model consisting of i) Workload, ii) Higher education unrest, iii) Change management, iv) Decolonisation, v) Online teaching and learning, and vi) Psychological safety. The results indicated excellent reliability (ranging between .74 and .90). The study focussed specifically on the hindrance demands that academic staff face...
Ph.D. (Human Resource Management)