Coaches’ experiences of job crafting through organizational change in high-performance sport

The purpose of this study was to explore coaches’ experiences of job crafting through a climate of organizational change in high-performance sport environments. Semi-structured interviews (Mduration = 83.86 min, SD = 26.28 min) were conducted with seven coaches (MExperience = 22 years, SD = 7.55) who had experience of coaching sport performers at international, Olympic, and professional levels. Guided by interpretative phenomenological analysis (IPA), the findings revealed that “the climate of organizational change” for these coaches encapsulated “job turnover” at various stages of organizational change and “working in a vacuum and losing sight of the process.” Four subordinate themes were generated to highlight coaches’ experience of “crafting the job in a climate of change.” These themes included “motives for job crafting,” “appraising and reappraising aspects of the job,” “mobilizing social and structural resources,” and “withdrawal from aspects of the job.” The findings advance job crafting theory by demonstrating how organizational change can both constrain and stimulate coaches’ job crafting efforts in particular ways. Identifying opportunities for autonomy and support resources to craft their jobs helped coaches to maintain enthusiasm and job satisfaction and continue in their jobs. To our knowledge, this is the first study in sport psychology literature to explore coaches’ experiences of job crafting within a climate of organizational change in sport. We conclude by outlining some recommendations on how job crafting may be optimized to improve well-being and performance in the elite sport working context.