The Work of Being an Executive: Exploring the Interplay of Role Crafting and Agency

This constructivist grounded theory study investigates how senior HR executives make sense of and cope with widening mandates, regulatory shifts, macroeconomic uncertainty and technological disruption, and how their coping practices shape and are shaped by organizational context. It critically examines job crafting theory, drawing on structuration, sensemaking, identity work, temporal agency, dramaturgical and coping perspectives. Data will come from semi-structured interviews with 20–30 CHROs, Chief People Officers and HR Directors, aiming to extend job crafting research to executive populations where agency is recursive rather than unidirectional.