12370: Am I Really Making a Difference? The Contingent Effects of DEI Job Crafting on Employee Outcomes (session 25919)

Employees often expand their work roles, dedicating significant time and energy to creating and supporting organizational DEI initiatives. Yet, we lack an understanding of how, why, and the costs and benefits that employees experience as they incorporate DEI behaviors into their work roles. To better understand this process, which we refer to as DEI job crafting, we began by conducting a qualitative study (Study 1) with 40 racial minority employees that revealed that DEI job crafting is often motivated by a prosocial desire to help others, yet this process is also riddled with uncertainty as DEI job crafters are often unsure about the impact of their DEI efforts. Our findings also revealed that these perceptions of DEI impact influenced the outcomes of DEI job crafting. Next, we integrated these insights with existing research on prosocial motivation and uncertainty regulation theory to develop our hypotheses, which we then examined in a time-lagged study (Study 2) conducted with 272 full-time racial minority employees. Our results demonstrate that prosocial motives were associated with increased DEI job crafting, and DEI job crafting was associated with enhanced employee well-being and reduced work withdrawal when perceptions of DEI impact were higher. Yet, when perceptions of DEI impact were lower, DEI job crafting was associated with reduced employee well-being and heightened withdrawal. Our results contribute to theory on DEI, job crafting, and prosocial motivation, and also yield practical insights that can assist organizations with supporting racial minority employees that engage in sustained efforts to advance DEI.

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