Enhancing Health and Productivity at Work: towards an Evaluation Model for Job Crafting Information Systems

Today’s work environments are characterized by steadily increasing demands, such as high workloads and job-related pressure, resulting in negative health and productivity outcomes for employees, organizations and society. In this regard, the concept of job crafting suggests that individuals can take actions to reduce imbalances of job demands and available job resources by proactively shaping the characteristics of their jobs. However, job crafting interventions require trained work and health specialists, resulting in restricted dissemination in practice. Information systems supporting employees’ job crafting activities, denoted as job crafting information systems (JCISs), have the potential to be both cost-efficient and effective in preventing negative health and productivity outcomes, such as stress and burnout. Building on foundations derived from IS research, psychology and research on organizational and public health, the current research-in-progress develops an integrated evaluation model of JCISs and describes an approach to experimentally test the assumptions of the model. Both individual antecedents (e.g. self-efficacy) as well as organizational factors (e.g. team climate) are identified as main predictors of successful JCIS-based interventions. Furthermore, the role of intrinsic motivation and continued system use are discussed in this context.