The influence of free time and perceived trust in supervisor on personal initiative

There’s a lot of external pressure on today’s economy. Organizations have to be more flexible and innovative and employees have to show behavior that complies with this. One of behaviors is showing more Personal Initiative at work. This research will contribute to the theory of Personal Initiative by investigating the influence of the (amount of) reward Free Time and the employee’s perceived level of trust in the direct supervisor on Personal Initiative, because neither of them was investigated in previous research. Quantitative research has been conducted, within 9 organizations with 271 respondents, mostly in the healthcare sector. The results show a positive relation between reward Free Time and Personal Initiative and also between perceived level of trust in the direct supervisor and Personal Initiative. The relation between Reward Free Time shows an inverted U effect on Personal Initiative. The turning point lies at about 80 hours per month, thus until 80 hours a month, Personal Initiative continues to increase. Besides reward Free Time, other independent variables as Job Autonomy and Status Striving had also a considerable effect, more than Trust. The effect of Trust on Personal Initiative and as moderator between Free Time and Personal Initiative was very small, but positive. The influence of Trust becomes of more importance when Free Time becomes less or is not given at all. The results of this research can be used by supervisors to implement these antecedents to stimulate Personal Initiative.