Job crafting intervention for job burnout and work engagement among young construction project management practitioners in China
Engineering, Construction and Architectural Management
ISSN: 0969-9988
Article publication date: 16 August 2023
Abstract
Purpose
Young construction project management practitioners (CPMPs) have unique, complex, and notable occupational mental health problems. However, there were few studies about the intervention for occupational mental health of CPMPs, and traditional intervention modes often failed to achieve significant effects. Therefore, this study aims to propose a new and effective intervention method.
Design/methodology/approach
Job crafting intervention was used to design an intervention experiment. A total of 72 CPMPs participated in a 10-week randomized controlled trial in China. Descriptive statistics and repeated measures analysis of variance were used to verify the effectiveness of job crafting intervention (JCI) on job crafting behaviors, job burnout, and work engagement with consideration of the impact of time.
Findings
Results showed that the intervention increased social resources, thus effectively reducing job burnout and promoting work engagement. Time also had a significant impact on cynicism, dedication, and social resources.
Practical implications
The authors should promote the habit of job crafting in CPMPs. Furthermore, in order to facilitate their job crafting, the authors should increase structural and social resources for them, and the authors can also encourage them to undertake challenging demands to increase their self-efficacy and the sense of achievement.
Originality/value
The authors bring into light a new psychological intervention approach among CPMPs, which integrates the advantages of the guidance in traditional organized intervention methods and the proactivity in individual spontaneous job crafting. The authors verify the efficacy of the JCI among CPMPs and help propose countermeasures and suggestions to improve the occupational mental health of CPMPs.
Keywords
Acknowledgements
This study received financial support from the National Natural Science Foundation of China (Grant Nos. 72001225, 72071120, 72134002), the Institute for Guo Qiang Tsinghua University, the Youth Talents Training Support Program of the Central University of Finance and Economics (Grant No. QYP2208), and the Program for Innovation Research in the Central University of Finance and Economics.
Citation
Yang, F., Fei, Y., Guo, L., Bai, X. and Li, X. (2023), "Job crafting intervention for job burnout and work engagement among young construction project management practitioners in China", Engineering, Construction and Architectural Management, Vol. ahead-of-print No. ahead-of-print. https://doi.org/10.1108/ECAM-10-2022-0935
Publisher
:Emerald Publishing Limited
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