Challenge or Threat? Examining When and How Employees React Positively and Negatively to Coworkers’ Job Crafting

Previous studies have reported inconsistent or conflicting findings concerning employees’ reactions to coworkers’ job crafting. To reconcile these mixed findings, this study investigates whether, how, and under what conditions employees react positively versus negatively to coworkers’ job crafting. Drawing on the cognitive appraisal theory of stress, we develop an integrative model wherein coworkers’ job crafting triggers two cognitive appraisal processes in employees (i.e., challenge appraisal and threat appraisal), which affect their subsequent work behaviors (i.e., proactive work behavior and workplace ostracism). Moreover, we consider the contingent effects of cooperative goals and competitive goals between employees and their coworkers on this relationship. Using multi-wave field survey data collected from 329 employees, we find that coworkers’ job crafting promotes employees’ proactive work behavior via employees’ challenge appraisal, an effect which is strengthened by cooperative goals. Moreover, coworkers’ job crafting promotes employees’ workplace ostracism via employees’ threat appraisal, an effect which is strengthened by competitive goals.