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Korean Academic Society of Business Administration
[ Article ]
korean management review - Vol. 52, No. 4, pp.805-834
ISSN: 1226-1874 (Print)
Print publication date 31 Aug 2023
Received 30 Jan 2023 Revised 16 May 2023 Accepted 24 May 2023
DOI: https://doi.org/10.17287/kmr.2023.52.4.805

Flexible Role Orientation, Employee Proactivity and Moderating effect of Transformational Leadership from a Motivated Information Processing Model Perspective

Hyoung Eun Kim
(First Author) Korea University hekim@korea.ac.kr
조직원의 주도성과 선제행동의 관계에 관한 연구: Motivated Information Processing Model 관점에서 본 변혁적 리더십의 조절효과


Copyright 2011 THE KOREAN ACADEMIC SOCIETY OF BUSINESS ADMINISTRATION
This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License 4.0, which permits unrestricted, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.

Abstract

Despite increasing importance of proactive employees, who take initiatives to create change that benefit organizations, the understanding of the underlying motivational mechanisms behind how distal proactivity predisposition unfolds and results in the enactment of proactive work behaviors is less well-understood. Examining the interaction of individual characteristic and situation provides better understanding of the motivational mechanisms behind how employee proactivity unfolds. Specifically, I drew from motivated information processing model to propose prosocial motivation as an important mediating mechanism, which ultimately determines proactive work behaviors. I further identified transformational leadership as an important situational factor that can promote individual proactivity among employees with low FRO. Using three-wave source data from 114 employees, the key findings are (1) FRO is positively related to proactive work performance through mediation of prosocial motivation; (2) consistent with trait activation theory, in the absence of transformational leadership, FRO had stronger indirect effect on proactivity via prosocial motivation. This implies that for employees with low FRO, transformational leaders can have a greater role to play in enhancing prosocial motivation, leading to subsequent proactive work behaviors. Hence, the findings underscore the importance of the interplay of person and situation in shaping individual’s motivation to engage in proactive work behaviors.

Keywords:

individual proactivity, flexible role orientation, transformational leadership, prosocial motivation, proactive work performance

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∙ The author Hyoung Eun Kim is a doctoral student at Korea University Business School. She earned her bachelor’s degree in economics from McGill University, and master’s degree in management from London School of Economics and Political Science (LSE). Her main research areas include leadership, creativity, and individual & organizational identity. Her latest interest is in work motivations of the legal professionals.