Interaction Between Work-Nonwork Balance Crafting and Segmentation Preferences When Predicting Work-Nonwork Balance

In today's world of work, employees are increasingly perceived as proactive individuals who can achieve work-nonwork balance through crafting. However, the effectiveness of different proactive efforts is not fully known. Integrating the concept of work-nonwork balance crafting into a theoretical framework based on the self-regulatory focus theory, we aimed to evaluate and compare the predictive effects of distinct prevention- and promotion-focused work-nonwork balance crafting strategies on the work-nonwork balance among employees with varying preferences for segmenting work and nonwork domains. A diverse sample of 1,303 employees participated in our study by responding to items measuring their work-nonwork balance crafting strategies, work-nonwork balance, and segmentation preferences. Correlational and moderation analyses were used to test our study hypotheses. Results revealed that prevention-focused nonwork boundary crafting was most strongly related to work-nonwork balance, followed by prevention-focused work boundary crafting, and the effect of promotion-focused work boundary crafting had only a minor effect. In most cases, crafting strategies were more beneficial for employees with low segmentation preferences than those with high segmentation preferences. Thus, proactive efforts to protect work and nonwork domains from each other seem to be an effective balancing strategy, especially among domain integrators. The obtained results expand the theoretical framework of job crafting and complement the field of crafting research by shedding light on the effectiveness of different crafting strategies and the role of individual differences in boundary management.