Facilitating or hindering? The impact of employee perceptions of digital technology on digital creativity ——from the perspective of job crafting

Background Due to digital technology puts heavy pressure on the career development of employees, some evidence suggests that they may have different perceptions towards the digital technology. However, research on consequences of employee digital technology perceptions has mostly neglected to distinguish them. This study, based on transactional theory of stress and Kurt Lewin’s field theory, developed a novel model to explore the effects of different employee digital technology perceptions on the digital creativity of employees by focusing on the mediating role of promotion-oriented job crafting and prevention-oriented job crafting and the moderating role of digital technology self-efficacy. Methods A multi-wave, multi-source survey involving 451 leader-employee dyads utilized the Digital Technology Opportunity Perception Scale, Digital Technology Threat Perception Scale, Promotion-oriented Job Crafting Scale, Prevention-oriented Job Crafting Scale, Digital Technology Self-efficacy Scale, and Digital Creativity Scale. In terms of data analysis, descriptive analysis, hierarchical regression and bootstrapping were conducted sequentially. Results This study unveiled that employee digital technology opportunity perception positively affects digital creativity, and employee digital technology threat perception negatively affects digital creativity; promotion-oriented job crafting plays a partially mediating role in the relationship between employee digital technology opportunity perception and digital creativity, and prevention-oriented job crafting plays a partially mediating role in the relationship between employee digital technology threat perception and digital creativity; digital technology self-efficacy plays a moderating role in this process mechanism. Conclusion The results demonstrated that the extent to which promotion-oriented job crafting mediates the relationship between employee digital technology opportunity perception and employees' digital creativity, and the extent to which prevention-oriented job crafting mediates the relationship between employees digital technology threat perception and employees' digital creativity depends on digital technology self-efficacy. This deepens employees’ understanding of digital technology, and provides insights to improve their digital creativity.