Uta K. Bindl

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.

Fuel of the self-starter: how mood relates to proactive goal regulation.

The authors consider how multiple dimensions of affect relate to individual proactivity. They conceptualized proactivity within a goal-regulatory framework that encompasses 4 elements: envisioning, planning, enacting, and reflecting. In a study of call center agents (N = 225), evidence supported the distinctiveness of the 4 elements of proactive goal regulation. Findings further indicated that high-activated positive mood was positively associated with all elements of proactive goal regulation, and low-activated negative mood was positively associated with envisioning proactivity. These findings were further supported in a longitudinal investigation of career-related proactivity amongst medical students (N = 250). The role of affective experience in proactivity is more nuanced than previously assumed.

Four-quadrant investigation of job-related affects and behaviours

Emphasizing differences in activation as well as valence, six studies across a range of situations examined relations between types of job-related core affect and 13 self-reported work behaviours. A theory-based measure of affect was developed, and its four-quadrant structure was found to be supported across studies. Also consistent with hypotheses, high-activation pleasant affect was more strongly correlated with positive behaviours than were low-activation pleasant feelings, and those associations tended to be greatest for discretionary behaviours in contrast to routine task proficiency. Additionally as predicted, unpleasant job-related affects that had low rather than high activation were more strongly linked to the negative work behaviours examined. Theory and practice would benefit from greater differentiation between affects and between behaviours.

Proactivity routines: the role of social processes in how employees self-initiate change

Proactive work behaviors are self-initiated, future-focused actions aimed at bringing about changes to work processes in organizations. Such behaviors occur within the social context of work. The extant literature that has focused on the role of social context for proactivity has focused on social context as an overall input or output of proactivity. However, in this article we argue that the process of engaging in proactive work behavior (proactive goal-striving) may also be a function of the social context in which it occurs. Based on qualitative data from 39 call center employees in an energy-supply company, we find that in a context characterized by standardized work procedures, proactive goal-striving can occur through a proactivity routine – a socially constructed and accepted pattern of action by which employees initiate and achieve changes to work processes, with the support of managers and colleagues. Our findings point to the need to view proactive work behaviors at a higher level of analysis than the individual in order to identify shared routines for engaging in proactivity, as well as how multiple actors coordinate their efforts in the process of achieving individually-generated proactive goals.

Proactivity at Work: A Big Picture Perspective on a Construct that Matters

Proactive behaviour involves aiming and striving to bring about change in the environment and/or oneself to achieve a different future: it is anticipatory, self-initiated, and changeoriented behaviour. Academic literature on the topic of proactivity has blossomed in recent times, so it is an appropriate time to take stock of the field. We trace the evolution of the topic from diffuse concepts in separate literatures, to a trait-oriented approach, to more recent integrative behavioural and goal process approaches. We then outline the organisation of the book, from different forms (Part 1), individual dynamics (Part 2) and work/organizational antecedents/ outcomes (Part 3).

Who is Proactive and Why? Unpacking Individual Differences in Employee Proactivity

Scholars have argued that different forms of proactive behaviors (e.g., career initiative, feedback seeking, and taking charge) all involve employees’ self-initiated and future-focused efforts to bring about change in a situation (Parker et al., 2006). There are at least three important elements that define proactivity: future-focus, change-orientation, and self-initiation (Frese & Fay, 2001; Parker et al., 2006). First, proactive behavior is future-focused, which means that this action is targeted at anticipated problems or at opportunities with a long-term focus. Second, proactive behavior is change-oriented, involving not just reacting to a situation but being prepared to change that situation in order to bring about a different future. Third, and underpinning the prior two elements, proactive behavior is self-initiated, which means that employees initiate a proactive goal without being told to, or without requiring explicit instructions from supervisors. Accordingly, proactivity has also been conceived of as a process in which employees generate and implement, under their own direction, a proactive goal to bring about a different future (Bindl, Parker, Totterdell, & Hagger-Johnson, 2012; Frese & Fay, 2001; Grant & Ashford, 2008).

Chapter 8 Affect and Employee Proactivity: A Goal-Regulatory Perspective

Proactivity is a type of goal-directed work behavior in which individuals actively take charge of situations to bring about future change in themselves or their organization. In this chapter, we draw on goal-regulation research to review conceptual and empirical evidence that elucidates some of the complex links of affective experience and employee proactivity. We identify the different ways in which affective experience influences different stages of proactivity, including employees’ efforts in setting a proactive goal (envisioning), preparing to implement their proactive goal (planning), implementing their proactive goal (enacting), and engaging in learning from their proactive goal process (reflecting). Overall, our review suggests an important, positive role of high-activated positive trait affectivity and moods in motivating proactivity across multiple goal stages, as compared to low-activated positive affectivity and moods. The role of negative affect is mixed, and likely depends on both its valence and the stage of proactivity that is being considered. We identify a lack of research on the role of discrete emotions for employee proactivity. We discuss future avenues for research, particularly the roles of intra- and inter-personal emotion regulation for proactivity and of affective embeddedness of proactive processes in the social environment of organizations.

Work-related proactivity through the lens of narrative: investigating emotional journeys in the process of making things happen

Organizations benefit from proactive employees who initiate improvements at work. Although evidence suggests happy employees are more likely to become proactive, the emotional journeys employees take during the process of making things happen, and their implications for future proactivity at work, remain unclear. To develop an understanding of patterns of emotions in the process of proactivity, I conducted a qualitative study based on 92 proactivity episodes by employees and their managers in the service centre of a multinational organization. Findings, through the lens of narrative, indicate that emotional journeys in proactivity took different forms. First, a proactivity-as-frustration narrative captured individuals’ emotional patterns of proactivity as a consistently unpleasant action when initiated and seen through. Second, a proactivity-as-threat narrative captured instances of proactivity that derailed at the onset, owing to feelings of fear. Third, a proactivity-as-growth narrative, although initially characterized by negative emotions, gave way to feelings such as excitement, joy and pride in the process, as well as to sustained motivation to engage in proactivity. Overall, findings of this research show that as employees embark in showing initiative in their organization, they are set on different emotional paths that, in turn, likely impact their future willingness to become proactive at work.