How does meaningful work foster healthcare professionals' work engagement: Insights from multi-group analysis

Healthcare professionals provide medical services to patients; it is essential for them to remain highly engaged in their work. The existing literature suggests that meaningful work enhances work engagement. Although healthcare professionals' work is considered meaningful, low engagement is a persistent challenge among them. Integrating job demand-resource theory and conservation of resources theory, this study proposes job crafting as a mediator and avoidance crafting as a moderator in the relationship between meaningful work and work engagement. The study utilises a cross-sectional survey method, and data were collected from 308 healthcare professionals, including doctors and nurses working in Indian hospitals. We employed PLS-SEM for data analysis and performed multigroup analysis to compare the results among the two groups of healthcare professionals. The results suggest that approach crafting functions as a potential mediator, and avoidance crafting serves as a moderator in the relationship between meaningful work and work engagement. Lastly, the designation-based multigroup analysis revealed no significant difference between doctors and nurses in the relationship between the constructs.