Proactive Personality and Job Performance: Exploring Job Autonomy as a Moderator

As organizations attempt to cope with more dynamic competitive environments, there has been a growing interest in workers who are not only cooperative, but who are self-starting and proactive in helping their organizations function more effectively (Chan, 2000; Crant, 2000). Indeed, the competitive advantage and success of organizations is thought to be increasingly dependent upon personal initiative and proactive behavior (Crant, 2000; Fuller et al., 2007; Seiling, 2001). As a result, more and more organizations are beginning to hold employees accountable for behavior that contributes to constructive improvement in the workplace (Seiling, 2001). Griffin et al. (2007) note that work performance is no longer considered as simply completing required tasks proficiently and broader meanings of work performance are being examined. Consequently, a growing stream of research has focused upon gaining a greater understanding of people with "proactive" personalities. According to Rank, Pace, and Frese (2004), the trait components of personal initiative are captured by the "proactive personality" construct (Bateman and Crant, 1993). A person who has a proactive personality is "one who is relatively unconstrained by situational forces and who effects environmental change" (Bateman and Crant, 1993: 105). People with proactive personalities seek out opportunities to improve things, take action, and tend to "persevere until they bring about meaningful change" (Seibert et al., 1999: 417). People who are less proactive do not show personal initiative and do not identify or act upon opportunities to produce constructive change. Accordingly, people with proactive personalities tend to engage in constructive, change-oriented behavior and create situations that facilitate high job performance (Crant, 1995). Empirical investigations of the criterion validity of the proactive personality scale indicate that proactive personality is positively related to proactive behavior (e.g., Kammeyer-Mueller and Wanberg, 2003; Seibert et al., 2001 ; Thompson, 2005) and job performance (e.g., Crant, 1995; Pitt et al., 2002; Thompson, 2005). From a practical and theoretical perspective, the proactive personality construct is appealing and unique, in part, because it is what Locke and Latham (2004) call a "strong personality" trait. According to Locke and Latham, strong personalities are traits that "should be less constrained by situations than weak ones" (2004: 395). However; no research has examined the extent to which "situational forces," such as job autonomy, might enhance or attenuate the positive relationship between proactive personality and job performance. This is unfortunate because in Bateman and Crant's (1993) original article, there was a call for research to assess the extent to which "situational strength" influences manifestations of a proactive personality. Consequently, there has yet to be a complete critical evaluation of the proactive personality construct, and prior findings indicating a positive relationship with proactive behavior and performance "should be considered incomplete" (Thompson, 2005: 1016). Because part of the appeal of a trait-based measure of personal initiative is that it captures a tendency to persevere in enacting environmental change even when laced with substantial obstacles, an examination of the extent to which situational constraints suppress or reduce the performance of people with proactive personalities appears to be long overdue. Although Chan (2006) finds that the relationship between proactive personality and job performance was influenced by the individual's situational judgment effectiveness, this study differs from Chan's research in that it assesses a characteristic of the work environment as a moderator rather than a characteristic of the individual as a moderator. In short, the purpose of this study is to provide the first critical test of the "strong personality" aspect of the proactive personality construct by assessing the extent to which one situational constraint,job autonomy, influences the relationship between proactive personality and job performance. …