JOOP Special Section

Special Section

Exploring positive, negative and context-dependent aspects of proactive behaviours at work

Guest Editors: Frank D. Belschak (University of Amsterdam, The Netherlands); Deanne N. Den Hartog (University of Amsterdam, The Netherlands) and Doris Fay (University of Potsdam, Germany)

The Journal of Occupational and Organizational Psychology (JOOP) announces a special section focusing upon the potential positive and negative consequences of proactive behaviours at work.

The special section will be published in the March 2010 issue of JOOP.

In times of uncertain, fast-changing environments, flat hierarchies and complex work tasks organizations need more proactive employees. The transformed work role of many of today’s employees implies going beyond narrow task requirements. This requires self-starting, proactive behaviour on the part of employees, who need to perform their tasks without constant close supervision. While our knowledge on antecedents and consequences of proactive behaviours has grown in the last few years, there is still a strong need for further research (cf. Grant & Ashford, in press).

With this special section JOOP aims to contribute to this growing literature with a special emphasis on the following issues. So far, we know more about antecedents of proactive behaviours than about their consequences. Furthermore, proactive behaviours have mostly been researched with the implicit assumption that they involve positive consequences for both the organization and the individual. This special section invites a more balanced view: what exactly are the benefits of proactive behaviour, but is there also a dark side to proactivity? Are there any contextual factors that may lead to proactive behaviours coming at a price? Is there an optimal level or amount of proactivity or is more proactivity always better? A systematic investigation of the potential positive and negative effects of proactivity at work has not been presented yet. The current special section aims to help fill that gap.

This special section will consider papers that explore the benefits as well as the potential negative (side) effects of proactivity at work for the individual him/herself, colleagues, the work group, clients or other stakeholders and/ or the organization as a whole. Examples of topics include:

• Research investigating the effect of proactive behaviours on stress / burnout as well as well-being / work engagement: does proactive behaviour also relate to negative well-being outcomes?
• Studies on emotions and proactivity, for example, how proactive behaviours might trigger negative emotions (e.g. rule-breaking might come with feelings of guilt);
• Research on supervising proactive behaviours: are highly proactive subordinates more rebellious or more difficult to lead? Do they need to be led differently?
• Studies into the interaction of proactive behaviours and employee skills and knowledge: do proactive employees with low skills/ knowledge fail more often than highly skilled proactive employees? Does proactive behaviour by employees with lower skills yield negative results for themselves or the organization?
• Research on proactivity in teams or larger units: how does proactivity affect peers or larger units? When is a team more proactive? Should everyone in a team be as proactive as possible or is there an optimal level or distribution of proactivity?