Karoline Strauss

Making Things Happen: A Model of Proactive Motivation

Being proactive is about making things happen, anticipating and preventing problems, and seizing opportunities. It involves self-initiated efforts to bring about change in the work environment and/or oneself to achieve a different future. The authors develop existing perspectives on this topic by identifying proactivity as a goal-driven process involving both the setting of a proactive goal (proactive goal generation) and striving to achieve that proactive goal (proactive goal striving). The authors identify a range of proactive goals that individuals can pursue in organizations. These vary on two dimensions: the future they aim to bring about (achieving a better personal fit within one’s work environment, improving the organization’s internal functioning, or enhancing the organization’s strategic fit with its environment) and whether the self or situation is being changed. The authors then identify “can do,” “reason to,” and “energized to” motivational states that prompt proactive goal generation and sustain goal striving. Can do motivation arises from perceptions of self-efficacy, control, and (low) cost. Reason to motivation relates to why someone is proactive, including reasons flowing from intrinsic, integrated, and identified motivation. Energized to motivation refers to activated positive affective states that prompt proactive goal processes. The authors suggest more distal antecedents, including individual differences (e.g., personality, values, knowledge and ability) as well as contextual variations in leadership, work design, and interpersonal climate, that influence the proactive motivational states and thereby boost or inhibit proactive goal processes. Finally, the authors summarize priorities for future research.

Intervening to Enhance Proactivity in Organizations Improving the Present or Changing the Future

A growing body of evidence has linked proactivity at work to positive outcomes. Yet little research to date has investigated whether employees’ proactive behavior in organizations can be facilitated through training and development. Nor has research considered which variables shape employees’ responses to such interventions. We investigate the effects on proactivity of two theoretically distinct training and development interventions in a randomized field experiment with police officers and police support staff (N = 112). We hypothesized that a problem-focused intervention, which made discrepancies between the status quo and the ideal present more salient, would lead to increases in individual task proactivity, whereas a vision-focused intervention, which made discrepancies between the status quo and an ideal future more salient, would increase organization member proactivity. Intervention effects were moderated by role overload and future orientation, respectively. Only individuals with high levels of role overload increased their individual task proactivity as a result of the problem-focused intervention, and only individuals high in future orientation increased their organization member proactivity as a result of the vision-focused intervention. Our study integrates different cybernetic perspectives on how proactivity is motivated and provides novel insights into moderators of interventions designed to capture these different mechanisms. From a practical perspective, our study supports organizations seeking to implement training and development interventions and helps them to determine who might benefit most from interventions.

Hope in Adolescent Careers Mediating Effects of Work Motivation on Career Outcomes in Swiss Apprentices

Being hopeful is critical for individuals who are engaged in vocational pursuits. However, the empirical research examining how and why hope is related to work and career outcomes remains sparse. We evaluate a model that proposes that dispositional hope affects job performance and turnover intentions through increased work motivation in terms of autonomous goals (reason to motivation), positive affective experience at work (energized to motivation), and occupational self-efficacy beliefs (can do motivation). The hypotheses were tested among 590 Swiss adolescents in vocational education and training using path analysis and multiple mediation analyses. The results revealed that hope was positively related to all three motivational states and supervisor-rated job performance and negatively related to turnover intentions. Positive affect mediated the effects of hope on turnover intentions and performance. Autonomous goals mediated the effects of hope on turnover intentions. These results support the importance of hope to employee well-being and organizational outcomes.

Work hard, play hard: Examining the enriching effects of serious leisure on daily work performance. [Abstract]

Work hard, play hard: Examining the enriching effects of serious leisure on daily work performance. [Abstract]

Proactivity at work: Novel perspectives on effectiveness and social context

Proactivity refers to self-initiated behavior aimed at bringing about change in order to create a different future. Research to date has shown that a proactive approach to work generally has positi...

The People Make the Place, and They Make Things Happen: Proactive Behavior and Relationships at Work

George Bernard Shaw famously observed that there are three kinds of people: those who make things happen, those who watch what happens, and those who wonder what happened. Proactive behavior is about making things happen. It involves taking initiative to bring about a different future, for oneself, for one’s team, or for the organization as a whole (Parker et al., 2010). From extensive research we know that people do indeed vary in their propensity7 to “‘’make things happen’*’ (Bateman & Grant, 1993; Fuller & Marier, 2009). Those with a proactive personality are particularly likely to fake charge and initiate change (Bateman & Grant, 1993). But while those people may sometimes override the influence of their environment, they are by no means independent of their context. Like most work behaviors, proactive behavior depends on the interplay of individual dispositions and factors in the work environment. Making things happen does not occur in a social vacuum: Those who “watch what happens” will, for example, make it more or less risky to speak up with suggestions. Their reactions will determine whether efforts to initiate change will be successful, and whether these efforts will have positive or negative consequences for the individual, for example in relation to his or her image, performance evaluation or career success.