Proactive Behavior in Organizations
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Journal of Management 2000, Vol. 26, No. 3, 435–462 Proactive Behavior in Organizations J. Michael Crant University of Notre Dame Many practitioner-oriented publications argue that managers should be more proactive on the job, and that proactive behavior is an increasingly important component of job performance. Organizational research on the antecedents and consequences of proactive behavior has appeared in several different literatures and has taken different approaches toward defining, measuring, and understanding proactivity. In this article, I review a diverse set of literatures that directly address proactive behavior in organizational contexts. I describe four constructs related to proactive behavior: proactive personality, personal initiative, role breadth self-efficacy, and taking charge. Next, I review six research domains that have explicitly addressed proactive behaviors: socializa- tion, feedback seeking, issue selling, innovation, career management, and certain kinds of stress management. After considering findings from these research streams, I offer an analysis of the different approaches to the study of proactive behavior and provide a set of suggestions for future research. © 2000 Elsevier Science Inc. All rights reserved. As work becomes more dynamic and decentralized, proactive behavior and initiative become even more critical determinants of organizational success. For example, as new forms of management are introduced that minimize the surveil- lance function, companies will increasingly rely on employees’ personal initiative to identify and solve problems (Frese, Fay, Hilburger, Leng, & Tag, 1997). Proactive behavior can be a high-leverage concept rather than just another management fad, and can result in increased organizational effectiveness (Bate- man & Crant, 1999). Companies must focus on identifying and correcting policies and systems that minimize and mitigate individual initiative (Frohman, 1997). Proactive behavior at work has received considerable scholarly research attention over the past fifteen years. It has not, however, emerged as an integrated research stream in the organizational behavior literature. There is no single definition, theory, or measure driving this body of work; rather, researchers have adopted a number of different approaches toward identifying the antecedents and consequences of proactive behavior, and they have examined them in a number of seemingly disconnected literatures. Potential and actual job performance (e.g., Direct all correspondence to: J. Michael Crant, University of Notre Dame, Department of Management, P.O. Box 399, Notre Dame, IN 46556-0399; Phone: (219) 631-6765; Fax: (219) 631-5255; e-mail: [email protected]. Copyright © 2000 by Elsevier Science Inc. 0149-2063 435 436 J.M. CRANT Ashford & Northcraft, 1992; Crant, 1995), leadership (e.g., Crant & Bateman, 2000; Deluga, 1998), careers (e.g., Claes & Ruiz-Quintanilla, 1998; Bell & Staw, 1989), entrepreneurship (e.g., Becherer & Maurer, 1999; Crant, 1996), work teams (Kirkman & Rosen, 1999), socialization (e.g., Morrison, 1993a, 1993b), feedback (e.g., Ashford & Cummings, 1985; VandeWalle & Cummings, 1997), and even the reputation of American presidents (Deluga, 1998) have all been examined through the lens of proactivity and initiative. However, there are not yet any published reviews of the proactive behavior literature. The purpose of the present article is to synthesize findings from these diverse areas of inquiry and draw some conclusions about proactive behavior in the work environment. To- ward that end, I will highlight the theoretical underpinnings of research on proactivity and initiative, describe various approaches to its conceptualization and measurement, review empirical findings, and offer some summary observations and suggestions for future research. Because proactive behavior has been conceptualized and measured in a variety of ways, a definition of proactive behavior that captures the essence of the various approaches must be coarse grained. I define proactive behavior as taking initiative in improving current circumstances or creating new ones; it involves challenging the status quo rather than passively adapting to present conditions. Employees can engage in proactive activities as part of their in-role behavior in which they fulfill basic job requirements. For example, sales agents might pro- actively seek feedback on their techniques for closing a sale with an ultimate goal of improving job performance. Extra-role behaviors can also be proactive, such as efforts to redefine one’s role in the organization. For example, employees might engage in career management activities by identifying and acting on opportunities to change the scope of their jobs or move to more desirable divisions of the business. This article is not intended to be a comprehensive review of all published literature that could be interpreted as containing elements of proactive behavior. For example, I do not review impression management research (see Gardner & Martinko, 1988, for a review of this literature), even though it could be argued that aggressive tactics like self-promotion and ingratiation are examples of proactive behaviors. To establish a content domain for the present review, I conducted an electronic search of the PsychINFO database on the keywords “proactive” and “initiative” for the period from January 1967 to June 1999. Based on this search, I decided to focus on 1) various conceptualizations and measures of proactive behavior, and 2) six research streams that explicitly incorporate the idea of proactive behavior and have received considerable research attention. While I have attempted to review a representative set of articles in the six areas, this should not be considered an exhaustive review of the specific behaviors. Theoretical Underpinnings A common thread binding the various approaches to the study of proactivity and initiative is an action orientation toward organizational behaviors. Under this perspective, employees take an active role in their approach toward work; they JOURNAL OF MANAGEMENT, VOL. 26, NO. 3, 2000 PROACTIVE BEHAVIOR IN ORGANIZATIONS 437 initiate situations and create favorable conditions. This is in contrast to a more passive, reactive pattern of behavior. Proactive people actively seek information and opportunities for improving things; they don’t passively wait for information and opportunities to come to them. For example, Frese et al. (1997) described the concept of personal initiative as involving an active and self-starting approach to work. Bateman and Crant (1993) argued that proactive individuals actively create environmental change, while less proactive people take a more reactive approach toward their jobs. One theme of Ashford and her colleagues’ research on proactive feedback seeking (e.g., Ashford & Cummings, 1983, 1985) is that many people are not simply passive recipients of information at work; rather, they actively seek it. Similarly, the concept of issue selling (e.g., Dutton & Ashford, 1993; Ashford, Rothbard, Piderit, & Dutton, 1998) involves middle managers actively shaping the strategic planning process by calling attention to particular areas of interest. Despite this shared emphasis on active rather than passive behaviors at work, there is not uniform agreement on how to best conceptualize and measure proactivity at work. Some researchers have emphasized personal dispositions toward proactivity (e.g., Bateman & Crant, 1993; Frese, Kring, Soose, & Zempel, 1996), while others maintain that proactive behavior is more a function of situational cues (e.g., Morrison & Phelps, 1999). Furthermore, some researchers have examined the general concept of proactivity across a wide array of organi- zational behaviors, such as work on the proactive personality and its effects on outcomes including job performance, perceptions of leadership, career outcomes, and team effectiveness (e.g., Crant & Bateman, 2000; Crant, 1995; Deluga, 1998; Seibert, Crant, & Kraimer, 1999; Kirkman & Rosen, 1999). In contrast, other researchers have focused on specific proactive behaviors that occur in a particular context. For example, research on proactive socialization has focused on new- comers’ initiative in gathering information in the context of their first six months on the job (e.g., Miller & Jablin, 1991; Morrison, 1993a, 1993b). Drawing from both general and context-specific conceptualizations of pro- active behavior, Figure 1 depicts an integrative framework of the antecedents and consequences of proactive behavior. The model is intended to help researchers interested in various proactive behaviors identify the types of variables that have been studied. In addition, the model demonstrates that proactive behaviors have been characterized in different ways and studied in an array of literatures, which might spur organizational scholars whose primary research interests lie in other domains to consider how proactive behaviors may inform their own research. Two broad categories of antecedents are included in the model: individual differences and contextual factors. One set of individual differences is composed of constructs specifically designed to capture one’s disposition toward or potential to perform proactive behaviors, such as proactive personality and role breadth self-efficacy. The other set of individual differences included in the model consists of variables associated with specific proactive behaviors, such as desire for feedback and job involvement. Contextual factors, such as uncertainty