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623
The
British
Psychological
Journal of Occupational and Organizational Psychology (2007), 80, 623–629
q 2007 The British Psychological Society
Society
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* Correspondence should be addressed to Dr Sandra Ohly, Institute of Psychology, Goethe University of Frankfurt, Mertonstr.
17, Frankfurt, Germany (e-mail: ohly@psych.uni-frankfurt.de).
DOI:10.1348/096317907X180360
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Job self-efficacy has been found to be related to proactive behaviour (Morrison & Phelps,
1999; Speier & Frese, 1997). Since proactive behaviour may involve overcoming barriers
and difficult actions, and high self-efficacy increases effort and persistence on difficult
tasks (Bandura, 1997), we expect that:
Method
Sample and procedure
Participants in this study were employees from multiple German software development
companies. Data were collected between summer 2003 and summer 2006. Software
development companies were contacted and informed about the study, which was
labelled as ‘Behaviours at work’. Organizations received feedback about study results.
Surveys were sent to a contact person in the participating organizations and distributed
to employees. Each participant was instructed to give a ‘co-worker survey’ to a
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co-worker with whom they worked together closely. Out of the 342 questionnaires
distributed, 135 were returned (response rate 39.5%), of which 98 had matching co-
worker data. Out of the 98 respondents, 86 were male (87.8%) and 52 had the
equivalent to a master’s degree (53.1%). Mean age was 36.2 years (SD ¼ 9:7) and mean
job experience in the current job was 12.46 years (SD ¼ 9:3). First comparisons indicate
that respondents in the final sample reported lower levels of intrinsic motivation and
RBSE than individuals without matching co-worker ratings.1
Measures
Cronbach’s alpha for all scales are given in Table 1.
Intrinsic work motivation was measured with 10 items from the enjoyment
subscale of the Work Preference Inventory (WPI; Amabile et al., 1994) on a four-point
scale. In addition, we measured intrinsic work motivation with six items from the Job
Diagnostic Survey (JDS, Hackman & Oldham, 1975) on a seven-point scale to test if
results were consistent across measures of intrinsic work motivation.
Role breadth self-efficacy was measured with 10 items from Parker (1998). Ratings
were given on a seven-point scale.
Job self-efficacy was measured using 12 items following recommendations by Lee
and Bobko (1994). Items referred to the employee’s confidence in being able to do core
job tasks. To ensure that job self-efficacy was specific for the core job tasks, participants
were asked to first list three common work tasks (A, B and C), and then to rate their
confidence to be able to fulfil each of these tasks. Tasks listed by participants included,
for example, ‘programming’, ‘network administration’ or ‘support’. Item wording was
‘How confident are you to be able to accomplish at least 50% [70%, 90%, 100%] of the
tasks in work area A [B, C]?’ Ratings were given on a 10-point scale.
Role orientation was measured with three items developed for this study. They
target the extent to which employees see developing and implementing new ideas at
work as their responsibility (cf. Unsworth et al., 2005). Items were ‘It is my job to
develop new ideas and to test them.’ ‘It is my task to be innovative’. and ‘My job requires
the development and implementation of new ideas.’2 Ratings were made on a five-point
scale ranging from 1 ¼ ‘not true at all’ to 5 ¼ ‘totally true’.
Proactive behaviour was rated by a co-worker using the seven-item personal
initiative scale (Frese, Fay, Hilburger, Leng, & Tag, 1997). Items were answered on a
seven-point scale.
Demographic variables (age, gender and education) were measured with one item
each. Education was operationalized as the highest degree reached (1 ¼ none,
2 ¼ apprenticeship completed, 3 ¼ master craftsman, 4 ¼ vocational school or
5 ¼ master’s degree).
Results
Means, standard deviations and intercorrelations of the measures can be seen in Table 1.
The data indicate that role breadth self-efficacy and role orientation are positively related
to co-worker rated proactive behaviour, while job self-efficacy and intrinsic work
1
Details can be obtained from the first author.
2
Evidence of validity of this measure can be obtained from the first author.
Table 1. Means, standard deviations, intercorrelations and internal consistencies of study variables
M SD 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9
Note. N ¼ 98.
Gender is coded as 1 ¼ ‘female’, 2 ¼ ‘male’. WPI, Work Preference Inventory; JDS, Job Diagnostic Survey.
r . :22, p , :05; r . :27, p , :01; r . :37, p , :001.
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Proactive behaviour
b t
Result revealed that only RBSE is significantly related to proactive behaviour when
examining all motivational variables simultaneously. Thus, H1, H3 and H4 are not
supported, while H2 receives full support. Based on results from previous research
(Parker et al., 2006), we tested for interactive effects of role orientation and RBSE.
However, the interaction was not significant.
Discussion
We examined four types of work motivation that may enhance proactive behaviour: job
self-efficacy, role breadth self-efficacy, intrinsic work motivation and role orientation.
Results provide evidence for the importance of role breadth self-efficacy, and to a lesser
extent of role orientation, but not for the more traditional forms of work motivation.
For example, we found no evidence for the hypothesized relationship between job
self-efficacy and proactive behaviour. Although this result is in contrast to previous
findings (Morrison & Phelps, 1999; Speier & Frese, 1997), the different operationaliza-
tions of job self-efficacy may explain the difference in results. Whereas previous studies
used measures of general job self-efficacy, we assessed the confidence in doing specific
core job tasks. The results for RBSE, the confidence to execute a broader range of tasks,
suggest that it is valuable to distinguish between these two forms of self-efficacy.
Although JSE and RBSE were moderately correlated (cf. Table 1), only RBSE was related
to proactive behaviour.
Based on our study and previous results, it seems that both general job self-efficacy
and RBSE are related to proactive behaviour (Morrison & Phelps, 1999; Speier & Frese,
1997). Since RBSE specifically targets behaviour that goes beyond what is formally
3
Including age, gender and education into the regression equation did not change the pattern of results.
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required in a given job (Parker, 2000), we recommend its use in future research. Intrinsic
work motivation (measured with the JDS or WPI) was not related to proactive
behaviour. Having work that is interesting, engaging or satisfying is apparently not
enough for an employee to engage in proactive behaviour. This result suggests that
proactive behaviour, operationalized here as personal initiative, is not the same as
intrinsic work motivation, despite claims to the contrary (cf. Gagne & Deci, 2005).
Research indicates that a suboptimal work environment characterized by high time
pressure or situational constraints calls for proactive behaviours at work (e.g.
Sonnentag, 2003). Thus, the work environment that elicits intrinsic motivation probably
differs from the one that enhances proactive behaviour. This argument is in line with
research showing that under some circumstances, negative mood or attitudes, rather
than intrinsic motivation, fosters creativity (e.g. George & Zhou, 2002). Future research
should test this argument, examining job dissatisfaction or negative mood. However,
before dismissing intrinsic motivation as predictor of proactive behaviour, the different
levels of autonomous motivation as discussed by Gagne and Deci may be examined.
Our results also revealed that our measure of role orientation was related to
proactive behaviour, but only when RBSE was not taken into account. Different result
might be obtained when using other measures of role orientation (e.g. Parker et al.,
1997). The divergent findings with regard to zero-order correlations and the regression
analysis suggest that role orientation is partly overlapping with role breadth self-efficacy.
Indeed, both were moderately correlated (Table 1), indicating that feeling responsible
for a broader range of tasks might foster the confidence to do them. Alternatively, one
might feel more confident for tasks that one has done before because one sees them as
part of one’s work-role. Owing to the cross-sectional nature of our study, we do not
know which one of these explanations is true. The nature of our study also prohibits any
causal inferences regarding the relationship between RBSE and proactive behaviour.
However, since we used co-worker ratings of proactive behaviour, some alternative
explanation for our results can be ruled out (common-source bias, consistency, self-
enhancement). Given that some forms of motivation were not significantly related to
co-worker ratings, it seems unlikely that co-worker ratings were inflated by the rater
liking a person who is highly motivated. Taken together, the present study suggests that
proactive motivation (RBSE and, to a lesser extent, role orientation) is predictive of
proactive behaviour. Since previous research has shown that RBSE can be enhanced
through training, involvement in extra-role tasks (improvement groups), and by granting
job control (Axtell & Parker, 2003; Parker et al., 2006), we suggest that through the same
means, proactive behaviour can be promoted.
Acknowledgements
This paper was presented at the 21st SIOP conference in Dallas, USA. We are grateful to Sabine
Sonnentag for the impetus to write this article, and to numerous research interns for their help
with the data collection.
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