Promoting Job Crafting in Digital Transformation: Insights From Psychological Contract Fulfilment

Abstract

For digital transformation (DT) to succeed, employees must adapt and engage in proactive behaviours, such as job crafting. However, readiness for job crafting varies among employees. Drawing on an integrated perspective of psychological contract theory and the Job Demands‐Resources (JD‐R) theory, this study explores how psychological contract fulfilment motivates employees to engage in job crafting during DT. We also examine whether perceived competence mobilisation mediates the relationship between psychological contract fulfilment and employees' job crafting and if coalition influence tactics moderate this relationship. Using a paired sample of managers and employees from 226 firms, we applied polynomial regression and response surface analysis (RSA) to examine our research hypotheses. Our results indicate that fulfilling psychological contracts promotes job crafting, with the most favourable outcomes occurring when psychological contracts are fulfilled at a high level of DT obligations (high promise‐high delivery). Furthermore, the results show that perceived competence mobilisation mediates the relationship between fulfilment of DT obligations and job crafting. We also found that coalition influence tactics moderate the negative effects of psychological contract breach. Collectively, this study advances DT research by integrating psychological contract theory and JD‐R theory to show how fulfilment of DT obligations promotes employees' job crafting.