Illegitimate Tasks and Demand Crafting: How Configurations of Illegitimacy Shape Proactive Coping at Work

Abstract In this paper, we introduce a configurational model of illegitimate tasks to explain how demand crafting strategies unfold as coping responses to such demands. Drawing on cognitive appraisal theory, we investigate how distinct combinations of unreasonable and unnecessary tasks elicit different forms of regulatory demand crafting: seeking challenges, optimizing demands, and reducing demands. Specifically, we examine how congruence (both types of illegitimate tasks at similarly high or low levels) and incongruence (one type of task exceeding the other) relate to these strategies. Using two-wave data from 299 employees, we show that high levels of both unnecessary and unreasonable tasks suppress proactive crafting in the form of seeking challenges. Incongruent configurations appear associated with differentiated responses: higher levels of unreasonable tasks are associated with more frequent optimizing demands, whereas higher levels of unnecessary tasks stimulate seeking challenges. These patterns remain partially robust when controlling for baseline levels of demand crafting, suggesting that task configurations may help explain variation in employee coping strategies. By adopting an exploratory, configurational perspective, this study highlights the nuanced ways in which illegitimate tasks can influence proactive work behavior and encourages further research on the complex dynamics between task characteristics and employee agency.