A multilevel study on servant leadership, job boredom and job crafting

an article by Lotta K. Harju (Finnish Institute of Occupational Health, Helsinki, Finland), Wilmar B. Schaufeli (Utrecht University, The Netherlands; University of Leuven, Belgium) and Jari J. Hakanen (Finnish Institute of Occupational Health, Helsinki, Finland; Helsinki University, Finland) published in Journal of Managerial Psychology Volume 33 Issue 1 (2018)

Abstract

Purpose
The purpose of this paper is to examine cross-level effects of team-level servant leadership on job boredom and the mediating role of job crafting. Cross-level moderating effects of team-level servant leadership were also investigated.

Design/methodology/approach
This longitudinal study employed a multilevel design in a sample of 237 employees, clustered into 47 teams. Servant leadership was aggregated to the team-level to examine the effects of shared perceptions of leadership at T1 on individual-level outcome, namely job boredom, at T2. In addition, mediation analysis was used to test whether team-level servant leadership at T1 can protect followers from job boredom at T2 by fostering job crafting at T2. Cross-level moderating effects of team-level servant leadership at T1 on the relation between job crafting at T2 and job boredom at T2 were also modeled.

Findings
Job crafting at T2 mediated the cross-level effect of team-level servant leadership at T1 on job boredom at T2.

Research limitations/implications
The findings suggest that team-level servant leadership predicts less job boredom by boosting job crafting.

Originality/value
This study is the first to assess the effects of servant leadership on job boredom and the mediating role of job crafting. This paper examines job boredom in a multilevel design, thus extending knowledge on its contextual components.

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