Unveiling the Path to Sustainability: Role of Sustainable Leadership, Job Crafting, and Leaders' Gender

Grounded in self-determination theory, the current study explores the intervening role of job crafting in the relationship of sustainable leadership practices with sustainable performance. Additionally, it investigates the controlling impact of employee gender on the relationship between sustainable leadership practices and employees' job crafting, drawing on the principles of expectancy theory. Data were collected from 269 SME employees in China, achieving a response rate of 53.80%. The results provide quantitative evidence supporting the indirect effect of sustainable leadership practices on firms' sustainable performance via employees' job crafting. Furthermore, the conclusions reveal that the effect of sustainable leadership on employees' job crafting is stronger among female employees compared to their male counterparts. As far as we know, this work is among the first to integrate sustainable leadership practices, job crafting, gender, and sustainable performance within a unified theoretical framework.