The Effect of Confucianism on Job Crafting Using Psychological Contract Fulfilment as the Mediating Variable and Distributive Justice as the Moderating Variable

PURPOSE: Job crafting can improve employees’ performance and competitive advantage. This study integrated the self-determination and equity theories to examine the relation between an individual’s Confucianism and job crafting by highlighting the mediating effect of psychological contract fulfilment and the moderating effect of distributive justice on this relation. PARTICIPANTS AND METHODS: Data were collected in two waves from 372 employees in numerous private companies in Guangxi, China. RESULTS: The hypothesized model was supported in part. Specifically, as expected, psychological contract fulfilment mediated the positive relation between Confucianism and task crafting and cognitive crafting. Confucianism had a positive effect on psychological contract fulfilment and relational crafting, while psychological contract fulfilment had no mediating effect and its positive effect on relational crafting was not significant. Distributive justice moderated the relation between psychological contract fulfilment and cognitive crafting and task crafting positively. CONCLUSION: This study reveals the mechanism of Confucianism’s effect on job crafting from a new perspective and confirms its differing effects on different types of job crafting. Business managers should give attention to Confucianism and maximize their organization’s psychological contract fulfilment to improve employees’ job crafting.