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Open Journal of Social Sciences, 2020, 8, 211-230

https://www.scirp.org/journal/jss

ISSN Online: 2327-5960

ISSN Print: 2327-5952

DOI:

10.4236/jss.2020.82017 Feb. 28, 2020 211

Open Journal of Social Sciences

A Review and Prospects of

Literature on Proactivity

Huishan Zhang

Jinan University, Guangzhou, China

Abstract

Proactivity refers to the tendency of individuals to proactively promote the

meaning of others and/or the environment, such as employees proactively

proposing solutions, actively seeking job feedback, and actively innovating.

Proactivity is very important for the development of employees and organiz

tions. Since the domestic scholars Liu Mi and others and Hu Qing and others

have reviewed the relevant research on employee’

s proactive personality and

proactive behavior in 2007 and 2011 resp

ectively, other domestic scholars

have published relevant employees in well-

known journals at home and

abroad. Dozens of proactive research are based on different theoretical per

pectives. This paper firstly reviews the development of proactivity’s constru

tion, measurement and research methods, then analyzes the formation and

mechanism of proactivity based on two perspectives of personal characteri

tics and behavior process, and further proposes the direction and prospect of

future research.

Keywords

Proactivity, Proactive Personality, Proactive Behavior, Approach-

Avoidance

Framework

1. Introduction

Proactivity refers to the tendency of an individual to take an active role in pro-

moting others and/or the environment (Bateman & Crant, 1993; Grant & Ash-

ford, 2008). For example, employees spontaneously solve problems, proactively

propose ideas to improve the status quo of the organization, proactively seek in-

formation about work and the organization, proactively solicit feedback on work

and performance, proactively engage in social activities, proactively propose in-

novative ideas, etc. (Grant & Ashford, 2008; Parker, Williams, & Turner, 2006;

How to cite this paper:

Zhang, H. S.

(20

20). A Review and Prospects of Litera-

ture on Proactivity

Open Journal of Social

Sciences

, 8,

211-230.

https://doi.org/10.4236/jss.2020.82017

Received:

January 14, 2020

Accepted:

February 25, 2020

Published:

February 28, 2020

2020 by author(s) and

Scientific

Research Publishing Inc.

This work is licensed under the Creative

Commons Attribution International

License (CC BY

4.0).

http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/

Open Access

H. S. Zhang

DOI:

10.4236/jss.2020.82017 212

Open Journal of Social Sciences

Morrison, 1993a, 1993b; Ashford, 1986; Ashford & Black, 1996; Van Dyne & Le-

Pine, 1998). Proactivity is not only conducive to the personal development of

employees, such as improving employee performance, promoting career success,

obtaining clear role positioning, better job satisfaction, and enhancing employee

creativity (Parker & Collins, 2010; Saks, Gruman, & Cooper-Thomas, 2011; Kim,

Hon, & Crant, 2009; Kim, Hon, & Lee, 2010) and also key factors that determine

the success of an organization and its competitive advantage (Crant, 2000; Grif-

fin, Neal, & Parker, 2007, Frese, Kring, Soose, & Zempel, 1996; Parker, 2000).

Therefore, it has been paid more and more attention by researchers and managers.

Since Crant published a literature review on active behavior in 2000 (Crant,

2000), the proactivity of employees has become a hot topic in the field of orga-

nizational behavior. From the domestic point of view, Liu Mi and Hu Qing and

other domestic scholars combed the two key concepts of employee proactivity in

2007 and 2011 respectively, i.e. proactive personality and proactive behavior.

These reviews are helpful for scholars to further understand the research status

of employee initiative, find the shortcomings in the research, and continue to

promote the theoretical development in this field (Liu, Long, & Zu, 2007; Hu,

Wang, Zhang, Cheng, & Sun, 2011; Mao & Sun, 2013). Since then, domestic

scholars have published dozens of papers based on different theoretical perspec-

tives on employee proactivity research in well-known journals at home and

abroad. However, the development of these researches based on different pers-

pectives and the lack of connection between them are not conducive to the

comparison and integration of research results in this field. Therefore, it is ne-

cessary for us to further sort out, especially to discuss the theoretical perspectives

of existing researches and the shortcomings of the current theoretical basis,

which will help scholars to systematically understand the theoretical research in

this field so as to adjust the research direction and focus in the future.

So, what are the new developments of these researches in the related construc-

tion and measurement in recent years? What are the main theoretical perspec-

tives to solve the new problems? What other important issues have not been ful-

ly explored? What are the new trends of future research? In order to answer

these key questions, so as to help researchers promote the further development

of employee initiative research, we try to systematically comb the current re-

search results of employee initiative from three aspects: construction, measure-

ment and research methods, research perspective and related theories, and point

out the future development direction for researchers on this basis.

2. The Development of Construct, Measurement

and Research Methods

2.1. The Development of Research Constructs

The characteristics and behaviors of proactivity reflect the complementary ten-

dencies and actions taken by individuals to shape themselves and their environ-

ment (for example, Bateman & Crant, 1993; Grant & Ashford, 2008). Research-

H. S. Zhang

DOI:

10.4236/jss.2020.82017 213 Open

Journal of Social Sciences

ers mainly focus on proactive personality and proactive behavior. Proactivity

personality refers to a stable behavioral tendency that individuals actively influ-

ence the surrounding environment (Bateman & Crant, 1993). Individuals with

proactive personality spontaneously create favorable environmental conditions

to improve work performance rather than passively respond to the environment

(Seibert, Crant, & Kraimer, 1999). For a long time, scholars believe that proac-

tive personality is a stable personality, which is not easily changed by the envi-

ronment (Fugate, Prussia, & Kinicki, 2012; Luthans, Avolio, Walumbwa, & Li,

2005). However, some scholars have realized that personality has plasticity

(Baltes, 1997; Caspi, Roberts, & Shiner, 2005; Scollon & Diener, 2006).

Proactive behavior refers to employees’ initiative to improve the current en-

vironment or create a new environment, actively challenge the current situation,

rather than passively adapt to the current environment (Crant, 2000). The spe-

cific proactive behavior in work is that employees actively ask for feedback on

work and performance, take the initiative to help others, and actively innovate

(Ashford, 1986; Spitzmuller & Van Dyne, 2013; Vashdi, Bamberger, & Erez,

2013; Parker et al., 2006). However, in different cultural background, the specific

performance of employees’ proactive behavior is different. For example, em-

ployees in a high power distance culture are more sensitive to authority, and

they are more likely to be influenced by authority (for example, excluded by

leaders and colleagues) than people in an individualistic culture. In this cultural

context, employees’ proactive behaviors are limited, and even do not involve the

challenge status quo in the above definition (Gong, Cheung, Wang, & Huang,

2012). In addition, employees in different career may be more inclined to dif-

ferent proactive behaviors due to individual differences in life cycle (Kanfer &

Ackerman, 2004). For example, the initiative of junior employees is more in-

clined to optimize performance, while senior employees are more concerned

about how to minimize the loss (Freund, 2006). Therefore, some scholars sug-

gest that we should grasp its essential characteristics in the research, instead of

focusing on various specific manifestations (Grant & Ashford, 2008). In addi-

tion, most scholars study the initiative behavior from the individual level. How-

ever, since 1999, some scholars have been exploring the initiative behavior at the

team level (Kirkman & Rosen, 1999; Tesluk & Mathieu, 1999). Some scholars de-

fine team level proactivity as actions initiated by the team and focused on the

future to change the external environment or internal state of the team (Erkutlu

& Chafra, 2012). The team’s initiative behavior includes: the team actively in-

troduces new working methods, actively prevents problems, not only passively

responds to existing problems (Williams, Parker, & Turner, 2010). Some indi-

vidual proactive behaviors (such as employee voice behavior) can also occur at

the team level (Li, Liao, Tangirala, & Firth, 2017). However, because the main

body of team initiative behavior is team or organization, it is difficult to imple-

ment such behavior by virtue of personal strength, so most of team proactive

behavior cannot be completed at the individual level.

H. S. Zhang

DOI:

10.4236/jss.2020.82017 214

Open Journal of Social Sciences

2.2. Development of Measurement and Research Methods

In recent years, most scholars use questionnaire survey to measure the proactiv-

ity of employees, and most of them use self-report to collect data.

In terms of measurement tools, researchers mainly measure the degree of em-

ployees’ proactivity from two aspects of personal characteristics and behavior

process, that is, measuring the degree of employees’ proactive personality and

measuring the frequency of proactive behavior to collect data. In terms of per-

sonal characteristics, Bateman and Crant (1993) developed a one-dimensional

initiative personality scale with 17 items, such as “I’m always looking for better

working methods”. Later scholars mostly used various simple versions of the

scale. For example, Seibert et al. (1999) simplified the original scale with ten

items in 1999. For example, “if I believe something, I will overcome difficulties

and obstacles to achieve it”. Other scholars adopted the simplified version of six

items in 2005 by Claes et al. (2005), the sample items include: “this employee is

always looking for a better way to complete the work”, etc. These scales all reflect

the degree of employees’ initiative by asking the subjects’ preference degree in

the initiative events.

In the aspect of behavior process, scholars mostly use the proactive behavior

scale developed by Griffin et al. (2007). The scale includes 9 items at three levels:

individual, department and organization (Strauss, Parker, & O’Shea, 2017; Yang

et al., 2016). Examples of individual level initiatives such as “using better me-

thods to complete core tasks”; examples of department level initiatives such as

“developing new methods or improving original methods to help your team to

complete tasks efficiently”; examples of department level initiatives such as

“proposing to make internal work of the organization more efficient” The way of

completion, etc. Some scholars selected eight items of specific proactive beha-

viors such as information seeking, such as “how often do you communicate with

colleagues and supervisors on work-related topics in a week” (Major, Turner, &

Fletcher, 2006; Saks et al., 2011); three items of problem prevention, such as

“subordinates’ thoughts” Test the frequency of how to prevent the same problem

from happening again; take charge of the three item scale of behavior, such as

“subordinates try to propose solutions to urgent problems in the organization”.

In general, these scales show the degree of employees’ initiative by measuring the

frequency of the proactivity.

Whether it is measured from the perspective of personal characteristics or

behavior process, it is focused on the proactivity of employees. In recent years,

with the rise of team proactivity research, some scholars began to directly meas-

ure team level proactivity (Wu & Wang, 2015). Using the team level proactivity

scale developed by Baer and Frese (2003), the team leaders evaluate the whole

team and directly obtain data on team proactivity. However, most team level da-

ta are still aggregated from individual proactivity to team level, not really meas-

ured from team level. Team proactive behavior is a kind of collective behavior

tendency, in other words, it is about the behavior of the team as a collective, ra-

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