Crafting sustainable work: development of personal resources

Purpose – The aim of this paper is to conceptualize employees' sustainable work abilities, or their long‐term adaptive and proactive abilities to work, farewell at work, and contribute through working. Sustainable work is defined as to promote the development in personal resources leading to sustainable work ability.Design/methodology/approach – The conceptual paper distinguishes vital personal resources underlying an employee's sustainable work ability and categorizes these resources with the help of integral theory. Collaborative work crafting was outlined as a tool to promote the development of personal resources and sustainable work ability.Findings – Sustainable work ability depends on personal resources relating to our human nature as both individual and communal beings with both interior and exterior worlds. Work crafting may create sustainable work in which existing personal resources are benefited from, developed further through learning, or translated into novel resources.Practical implications ...

[1]  M. Starik,et al.  Weaving An Integrated Web: Multilevel and Multisystem Perspectives of Ecologically Sustainable Organizations , 1995 .

[2]  K. Illeris.  Towards a contemporary and comprehensive theory of learning , 2003 .

[3]  E. Deci,et al.  The "What" and "Why" of Goal Pursuits: Human Needs and the Self-Determination of Behavior , 2000 .

[4]  Ekkehart Frieling,et al.  Bureaucratic boundaries for collective learning in industrial work , 2007 .

[5]  Jörgen Sandberg.  Understanding Human Competence at Work: An Interpretative Approach , 2000 .

[6]  D. Butts.  Joblessness, pain, power, pathology and promise , 1997 .

[7]  C. S. Holling.  Understanding the Complexity of Economic, Ecological, and Social Systems , 2001, Ecosystems.

[8]  Lenore Newman,et al.  Uncertainty, innovation, and dynamic sustainable development , 2005 .

[9]  Juan I. Sanchez.  From documentation to innovation: Reshaping job analysis to meet emerging business needs , 1994 .

[10]  J. Dutton,et al.  Crafting a Job: Revisioning Employees as Active Crafters of Their Work , 2001 .

[11]  P. Senge.  THE FIFTH DISCIPLINE , 1997 .

[12]  B. Singer,et al.  The Contours of Positive Human Health , 1998 .

[13]  T. Gladwin,et al.  Shifting Paradigms for Sustainable Development: Implications for Management Theory and Research , 1995 .

[14]  S. Hobfoll.  Conservation of resources. A new attempt at conceptualizing stress. , 1989, The American psychologist.

[15]  Mari Kira,et al.  Routine-Generating and Regenerative Workplace Learning , 2010 .

[16]  C. Clegg,et al.  A circular and dynamic model of the process of job design , 2007 .

[17]  J. Ilmarinen,et al.  Diversity of work ability , 2008 .

[18]  M. J. Martinko,et al.  Learned Helplessness: An Alternative Explanation for Performance Deficits , 1982 .

[19]  Eileen Appelbaum,et al.  Work Process and Quality of Care in Early Childhood Education: The Role of Job Crafting , 2009 .

[20]  C. Maslach,et al.  The Truth about Burnout: How Organizations Cause Personal Stress and What to Do about It , 1997 .

[21]  Mark G. Edwards,et al.  The integral holon : A holonomic approach to organisational change and transformation , 2005 .

[22]  D. Ashton.  The Impact Of Organisational Structure and Practices On Learning in The Workplace , 2004 .

[23]  Justin M. Berg,et al.  Perceiving and responding to challenges in job crafting at different ranks: When proactivity requires adaptivity , 2010 .

[24]  A. Antonovsky.  Health, stress, and coping , 1979 .

[25]  Elizabeth George,et al.  2 Old Assumptions, New Work: The Opportunities and Challenges of Research on Nonstandard Employment , 2007 .

[26]  William A. Kahn.  Meaningful Connections: Positive Relationships and Attachments at Work. , 2007 .

[27]  Emily D. Heaphy,et al.  Positive Social Interactions and the Human Body at Work: Linking Organizations and Physiology , 2006 .

[28]  J. Hackman,et al.  A New Strategy for Job Enrichment , 1975 .

[29]  Adam M. Grant,et al.  7 Redesigning Work Design Theories: The Rise of Relational and Proactive Perspectives , 2009 .

[30]  Stevan E. Hobfoll,et al.  The ecology of stress , 1988 .

[31]  S. Billett.  Learning through work: workplace affordances and individual engagement , 2001 .

[32]  Seeking the Holy Grail of organisational development. A synthesis of integral theory, spiral dynamics, corporate transformation and action inquiry , 2005 .

[33]  S. Hobfoll.  Social and Psychological Resources and Adaptation , 2002 .

[34]  A. Donnellon,et al.  The Post-bureaucratic organization : new perspectives on organizational change , 1994 .

[35]  Adam M. Grant.  Relational Job Design and the Motivation to Make a Prosocial Difference , 2007 .

[36]  Parbudyal Singh,et al.  Job analysis for a changing workplace , 2008 .

[37]  P. Linville,et al.  Self-complexity as a cognitive buffer against stress-related illness and depression. , 1987, Journal of personality and social psychology.

[38]  J. Dutton,et al.  Exploring positive relationships at work : building a theoretical and research foundation , 2007 .

[39]  E. Deci,et al.  Living well: a self-determination theory perspective on eudaimonia , 2008 .

[40]  Mark G. Edwards,et al.  Adjusting blurred visions: A typology of integral approaches to organisations , 2005 .

[41]  Jan Forslin,et al.  Seeking regenerative work in the post‐bureaucratic transition , 2008 .

[42]  P. Ackerman,et al.  Aging, Adult Development, and Work Motivation , 2004 .

[43]  Robert Karasek,et al.  Healthy Work : Stress, Productivity, and the Reconstruction of Working Life , 1990 .

[44]  M. Kira,et al.  Socially sustainable work organizations : a chaordic systems approach , 2008 .

[45]  A. Laszlo,et al.  Redefining success: designing systemic sustainable strategies , 2009 .

[46]  K. Wilber,et al.  A Brief History of Everything , 1996 .

[47]  C. Ryff.  Happiness is everything, or is it? Explorations on the meaning of psychological well-being. , 1989 .

[48]  Judith R. Gordon,et al.  Developing “Complicated” Understanding in Administrators , 1983 .