The Relationship between Perceived Organizational Support and Job Crafting among Hospital Nurses: The Moderating Role of Job Embeddedness

Background. This study aimed to investigate the relationship between perceived organizational support and job crafting considering the moderating role of job embeddedness of nurses in this relationship. The three main dimensions considered for job crafting concept were: task crafting, relational crafting, and cognitive crafting.

Methods. This study was an applied one regarding the purpose, and a descriptive survey regarding the data collection method. The statistical population of this study included the nurses of hospitals affiliated to Qom University of Medical Sciences. A random sampling method was adopted to select the sample which consisted of 269 nurses. The standard questionnaires of Slemp & Vella-Brodrick (2013), Eisenberger et al (1986), and Felps et al (2009) were used for collecting the data about three main variables of the study, namely job crafting, perceived organizational support, and job embeddedness. The data were analyzed by structural equation modeling using Smart PLS3.2.6 software.

Results. The findings showed that the perceived organizational support had a significant positive effect on the relational (0/651 path coefficient) and cognitive (0/681 path coefficient) dimensions of job crafting. However, this relationship was not confirmed for task crafting (0.836 T Value). In addition, job embeddedness had a significant moderating role in the relationship between perceived organizational support and all aspects of job crafting (0/461, 0.472 and 0.642 path coefficients). In other words, employees with job embeddedness were more likely to perform job crafting in all three tasks, relational and cognitive dimensions after perceiving organizational support.

Conclusion. Since the perceived organizational support was found to affect job crafting in relational and cognitive dimensions, it was suggested that the managers of Qom University of Medical Sciences should pay due attention to the perceived organizational support in the face of the complexity of today's jobs and should consider the role of employees in designing their jobs.